Lionel Bart's wonderful musical adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic was the first London stage musical to be transplanted to Broadway with the same kind of sensation it received in Britain-- something that is now common in these post-Cats/Les Miserables times. Although no one from this British cast ever became enormously famous (future Monkee Davy Jones was in the second ...
Rodgers & Hammerstein wrote the music for this film starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. The scene in which Andrews crests a hill with her arms spread singing the title track is one of the greatest in American film. Hearing that song forever fills the listener with that image, and remains as fresh and even chilling as it was initially. Unfortunately much of this has been co-opted by ...
What's left to be said about Andrew Lloyd Webber's adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera a decade after its premiere? That it's maddeningly ubiquitous? A stitch-up of various themes shoplifted from the Italian operatic repertoire? A critic-proof crowd pleaser that's probably being staged somewhere in the world as you read this? A mega-hit that will likely outlive Titanic in the ...
The world becomes a better place as Leonard Bernstein conducts his first West Side Story with the abandon, genius, and intimate knowledge of every detail he, as composer, imagined. The crisp orchestra and slower tempos maximize the colours of the orchestral landscape and create magic. This recording falls just one tenor's diction short of perfection. Te Kanawa's scrumptious soprano ...