Wicked (2003 Original Broadway Cast)

Wicked (2003 Original Broadway Cast) Feature

• Record Label: Decca
• Country Of Release: USA
• Year Of Release: 2003
• Notes: Schwartz/Holzman

Wicked (2003 Original Broadway Cast) Overview

WICKED, STARRING KRISTIN CHENOWETH, IDINA MENZEL AND JOEL GREY. Decca Broadway proudly presents the original cast recording of WICKED, Broadway's most talked about new musical. The box office is already over Million! With a score by Stephen Schwartz (Broadway's Pippin, Godspell), libretto by Winnie Holzman (TV's My So-Called Life) and based on the best-selling novel by Gregory Maguire, the musical is a prequel to the legendary classic, THE WIZARD OF OZ. WICKED explores the early life of the witches of Oz: Glinda and Elphaba. One witch, born with emerald green skin, is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. WICKED stars Tony Award® winner Kristin Chenoweth (You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown) as Glinda, Idina Menzel (Rent) as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Tony® and Oscar® Winner Joel Grey (Cabaret) as The Wizard. The Original Cast Recording -- featuring an essay by Wicked novelist Gregory Maguire, original color photos from the show and a complete libretto.

Wicked (2003 Original Broadway Cast) Specifications

One of the most common complaints about musicals is that the books are flimsy pretexts from which to hang numbers. Wicked runs into the opposite problem: it has a great plot, but too often the songs just get in the way. Based on Gregory Maguire's novel of the same name, Wicked tells us what happened between Glinda the Good and Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, before Dorothy showed up in Oz. And the show is lucky to boast a pair of ace leading women in the main roles. As Glinda, Kristin Chenoweth delivers a sensational star turn, displaying a crystal-pure voice and sharp comic timing; Idina Menzel lends her powerful pipes to the tricky role of Elphaba. Unfortunately, you wish they had better material to work with. Stephen Schwartz's pop score is often dragged down by overly synthetic orchestrations and sentimental lyrics (think Chicken Soup for the Witch). Still, at its best Wicked is a seductive slice of popular entertainment that could well give a younger audience a lasting taste for musical theater. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

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Les Miserables (1987 Original Broadway Cast)

Les Miserables (1987 Original Broadway Cast) Overview

Finally available for the first time officially this is their rare and only LP, another slice of teen garage rock from Quebec. A great record in the same vein as Les Lutins filled with great catchy tunes and really great guitar playing, they should have been as popular as Les Lutins or Les Sultans but were sadly kept in the shadows. This is your chance to discover and enjoy. Remastered from the original master tapes. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Limited to 500 copies.

Les Miserables (1987 Original Broadway Cast) Specifications

After Les Misérables became a huge hit in London, it moved to Broadway, bringing along two stars from the London production, Colm Wilkinson as the heroic Valjean and Frances Ruffelle as the despondent Eponine. Filling out this 1987 cast are Randy Graff (Fantine), Terrence Mann (Javert), David Bryant (Marius), Judy Kuhn (Cosette), Michael Maguire (Enjolras), and Leo Burmester and Jennifer Butt (the Thénardiers). Whether you prefer the London cast or this one just might depend on which one you heard first, though minor revisions to the show since its London debut make the Broadway version more familiar to current audiences. In fact, the 10th anniversary concert might have the best overall cast of the lot, while the three-disc symphonic recording is a must for completists.

Regardless of cast, Les Misérables has become a sensation. Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg's score is filled with beautiful ballads ("Bring Him Home," "I Dreamed a Dream") and rousing anthems ("One Day More," "Do You Hear the People Sing?"), and Victor Hugo's classic novel of a student uprising in early-19th-century France provides a compelling story line that continues to thrill audiences all over the world. --David Horiuchi

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Porgy and Bess (New Broadway Cast)

Porgy and Bess (New Broadway Cast) Overview

Two CD set. New production of the Gershwins' Porgy And Bess starring four-time Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald, Drama Desk-nominee Norm Lewis, and two-time Tony Award-nominee David Alan Grier. The Associated Press hailed it as "a gorgeous version of the Gershwin masterpiece," while Newsday proclaimed it "a luscious piece of musical theatre: a gripping, in-your-face, vibrant revival that bursts with fierce immediacy''. Revered for its legendary score by George Gershwin, Dubose & Dorothy Heyward and Ira Gershwin -- featuring such classics as "Summertime," "Bess, You Is My Woman Now" and "I Got Plenty of Nothing" -- The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess has been reimagined and reinvigorated for the modern stage by a team that includes Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, musical adapter Diedre L. Murray and director Diane Paulus.

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Rent (1996 Original Broadway Cast)

Rent (1996 Original Broadway Cast) Overview

Into Broadway's creative vacuum of revivals, movie adaptations, and Hollywood star vehicles comes Rent, the story of squatters, junkies, performance artists, struggling musicians, drag queens, aspiring filmmakers, and HIV-positives (and you thought Miss Saigon's helicopter landing was cool). Undoubtedly among the defining pop cultural events of 1996, Rent has already won four Tony awards and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. More importantly, it threatens to bring substance back to the Great White Way.

Transposing Puccini's 100-year-old opera La Bohème into modern day Bohemia (19th-century Paris's Left Bank becomes late-20th-century New York's East Village where the scourge of tuberculosis becomes the plague of AIDS) Rent celebrates life among the young, sick, and unconventional. While Broadway shows are hardly the place for authentic portrayals of the latest marginalized hipsters, composer Jonathan Larson (who died at age 36, days before his musical opened) managed to sculpt vivid characters and scenes that bring Avenue A as close as it will ever come to 42nd Street. And by telling a socially relevant story of living without the guarantee of a future (renting, that is), Larson does his own little bit to define an X'ed generation. At worst, Rent is the Hair of the '90s.

For the majority of us who won't be seeing Rent anytime soon, the Original Cast Recording is more than just an after-show souvenir. Well-packaged with a complete libretto, the two-CD set is a worthwhile album separate of live performance. Full of songs that are funny and catchy, inspiring and touching, smart and hip and not overly sentimental, Rent mixes showtune pop with elements of rock, R&B, dance, gospel, and tango to make one of the best albums of the year--certainly the best rock opera in decades. La vie bohème, indeed. --Roni Sarig

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Mamma Mia! The Musical Based on the Songs of ABBA: A Decca Broadway Original Cast Recording (1999 London Cast)

Mamma Mia! The Musical Based on the Songs of ABBA: A Decca Broadway Original Cast Recording (1999 London Cast) Overview

Put together by Abba's own Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, Mamma Mia! manages to cram over 20 of the Swedish supergroup's songs into a threadbare plot. It goes a little like this: Young Sophie is getting married and she's trying to identify which of three men is her father. That's about it. Wisely, the musical doesn't mess around with the songs, save for the insertion of some dialogue or for having some of them performed by a man (it works amazingly well). Abba fans will jump on this import of the London production, but traditional fans of musical theater should consider it as well. After all, Andersson and Ulvaeus's songs have always felt as if they were more than isolated pop gems and actually belonged to a longer narrative. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

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Into the Woods (1987 Original Broadway Cast)

Into the Woods (1987 Original Broadway Cast) Overview

A Classic Stephen Sondheim Musical Available Now at a New Low Price!

Featuresbonus tracks, digitally remastered and new liner notes.

Into the Woods (1987 Original Broadway Cast) Specifications

As conceived by Stephen Sondheim and cocreator James Lapine (following their Pulitzer Prize-winning Sunday in the Park with George), Into the Woods tells the intricate tale of multiple fairy-tale characters crossing paths in the woods, not merely resolving the characters' dilemmas but also exploring what happens after happily ever after. Sondheim's chamber-scale music, recipient of the 1987 Tony for Best Score, is one of his most beautiful and accessible, and is at its most poignant in "No More," "No One Is Alone," and "Children Will Listen." The original Broadway cast is outstanding top to bottom, most notably Bernadette Peters as a rapping witch and Joanna Gleason, who won a Tony for Best Actress. The CD booklet includes production photos and--so important for a Sondheim show--full lyrics. Fortunately, this cast was also captured on video and DVD. --David Horiuchi

Customer Reviews

I was a fan of this music when I make a screening of the PBS is in the early 90s. The musical had an irreverent look, which we all more or less grown up fairy tale.
So I thought it was overshadowed by the successes of Les Miserables and Phantom.
The characters are lovable and voice are easy to follow.
My personal favorite recording is "Agony"

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