The New Moon (2003 Encores! Revival Concert Cast)

Well worth the price

It is so nice to see one of the old musicals being recorded where you get the whole score. This needs to be done with others like The Desert Song or The Merry Widow to name a couple. I bought it for one song and fell in love with the whole show. I could go into the artists and arrangements but I bought it for the music which is wonderful.

September 15, 2008

BRAVO! BRAVO! BRAVISSIMO!

I can imagine the audience leaping to its collective feet and shouting "Bravo" at the end of each City Center Encores! Production of Sigmund Romberg's THE NEW MOON in March, 2003. Glorious music! Magnificent orchestrations! Superb singing from everyone: principals, supporting cast and chorus! THEY JUST DON'T WRITE (or produce) MUSICALS LIKE THIS ANYMORE.

When was the last time you went to a Broadway musical and heard songs the likes of "Stouthearted Men," "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise," "One Kiss," or "Lover, Come Back to Me?" How long has it been since the chorus numbered twenty-eight singers and the orchestra boasted 13 violins, 4 violas, 4 celli, a harp, and no drum machine? Oh, I lament the current state of the Broadway musical, highlighted by heavily-amplified, tiny voices. (Does the current theater-goer even know what an un-amplified, "legitimate" voice sounds like? Does he/she care?) I bewail the trend toward what NEW YORK TIMES critic Ben Brantley calls "bloated spectacles." Give me a City Center Encores! presentation any day: no bloat, no spectacle - just a Broadway score performed the way it was meant to be performed.

Call me a romantic fool, but I yearn to ". . . journey back to a time when audiences came to hear how high the tenor and soprano could sing, how lush the romantic ballads could sound, and how stirring the ensemble numbers could be. . . . a kind of musical in which music holds more sway, when fine singing, romanticism, silly heroic plots and swashbuckling characters take precedence over real drama and honest emotion. They [the audience] knew there would be a happy ending, and they assumed there would be some trouble along the way." (adapted from Ted Chapin's liner notes) A hundred years from now audiences will still be stirred by the melodies of Puccini, Verdi, Romberg, Kern, Porter, Berlin, Richard Rodgers. But Duncan Sheik? Marc Shaiman? Laurence O'Keefe? Mel Brooks?

THE NEW MOON is an essential recording for everyone who cares about the American musical theater and for those who long to hear great singing once again: Christiane Noll, Rodney Gilfry, Brandon Jovnovich, Burke Moses. When's the last time any of these fine singers headlined a Broadway show? When was the last time that ANY new Broadway musical used "legitimate" voices? Whatever has happened to Broadway?

So, get this recording. Support the little record companies (Ghostlight, P.S. Classics, et. al.) who are willing to take risks with non-mega hits. You'll be very glad you did.

Very Highly Recommended.


January 23, 2008

Romberg is still great

Good music never goes bad. Romberg was of another generation, yet modern musicians and entertainers do perform his music with quality and heart. Buy this album while it is still available. July 26, 2006

An American Classic preserved for posterity

I had been "hooked" on The New Moon, ever since seeing the NY City Opera do it in the early '80s; while over the top, it still is musically thrilling, and while corny, you can not help but be "hooked" when the corps of men line up along the stage for "Stouthearted Men".

I don't think there had been a full score recording available (lots of extracts) until now and the music crackles from the opening bar of the Overture.

I withheld the 5th star, not from the recording, but that in including everything, there are a few dead spots in the operetta (often cut out), but I would rather have too much of a good thing than not enough.

All singers are remarkable, the pacing is good, and the sonic qualities are to die for.

Best of all, this virtually entire score, has been preserved now for generations to come. Bravo!! October 3, 2005

Classic Operetta : Lush and romantic

I suppose THE NEW MOON with its lush melodies and simplistic lyrics will baffle younger listeners - the ones who are just now discovering Broadway through shows like WICKED and AVENUE Q.

But THE NEW MOON was as big a hit in 1928 as PHANTOM OF THE OPERA was 60 years later and PHANTOM has equally lush melodies and even more simplistic lyrics and it has run for 17 years, so perhaps there is still a market for old fashioned operetta.

Older listeners are probably already familiar with many of the hits songs in Romberg's score: "Marianne", "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise", "One Kiss", "Lover Come Back to me" and "Stouthearted Men" have been frequently recorded over the years. But until now the complete score of NEW MOON has never gotten a full recording.

It almost didn't this time when plans to record the 2003 Encores Concert staging fell through, but thanks to the perseverance of Joel Moss, Kurt Deutsch, Ted Chapin and Jack Viertel the cast was re-assembled and the tracks laid down in July 2004 and the resulting CD is a pure delight.

As the heroine, Marianne, Christine Noll has a glorious voice that is perfectly suited to Sigmund Romberg's romantic melodies. She is paired with a robust Rodney Gilroy as Robert and their duets are passionate indeed. The rest of the cast is filled out with some of today's top musical theater performers handling the light comedy and offering full choral support to the grand finales. Rob Fisher does his usual masterful job conducting the Encores orchestra, respecting the original tempos as they play the original orchestrations.

Previous highlights recordings have concentrated on the love songs and duets, but here you also get a taste of the 1920s musical comedy style invading the operetta with a comic scene titled "An interrupted Love Song" in which the hero attempts to woo the lady fair only to be constantly interrupted.

The booklet includes a detailed synopsis and offers a link to a website where one can download the lyrics but the cast sing with such crisp precision that it is hardly necessary.

This is a terrific CD and a chance to explore an authentic operetta from a time when this type of music and theatre defined Broadway.

May 30, 2005

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