Lost Treasures

Masterworks Broadway, taking full advantage of changing consumer habits and advances in technology, has begun an impressive — and exceedingly welcome for musical theater lovers— initiative of reissuing its catalog of cast recordings and related discs digitally and as discs-on-demand (from ArkivMusic). The result is that long out-of-print titles are making their way into people’s iPods and CD players, revealing not only long-forgotten gems, but also some tried-and-true favorites.

With cast recordings, they are releasing one title a month. which has started with a two-disc (or 30 tracks if you’re just downloading) release of Regina, Marc Blitzstein’s soaring, startling and sumptuously melodious musical treatment of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes. It’s an ambitious piece of writing — one that straddles the worlds of opera and musical theater, much like Sweeney Todd or Candide.

The recording is not a preservation of the original 1949 Broadway production, but rather the New York City Opera’s 1958 production, which stars Brenda Lewis in the title role. Her work throughout is powerful and she creates a frightening, and yet curiously charming, portrait of the character. Equally impressive are George Irving and Emile Renan as her brothers and Carol Brice as the family maid, Addie.

The re-issue — whether downloaded or purchased as a disc — is accompanied by a fine 16-page booklet that includes synopsis along with appreciations from Leonard Bernstein and Frank Loesser. And after listeners have savored this recording, they’ll understand why these two greats found so much to applaud in Blitzstein’s work.

The second cast recording is the Jones Beach Marine Theatre’s 1958 production of Song of Norway, in which Robert Wright and George Forrest use themes from the composer Edvard Grieg to tell his life story. It’s an operetta through-and-through and, thus, might be something of an acquired taste for listeners today. But, there’s no questioning the lushness of the melodies in the show, particularly when played by an orchestra under the direction of the legendary Lehman Engel and delivered in the newly remastered format as it is here.

In addition to monthly cast albums, Masterworks Broadway is releasing on a weekly basis a host of ancillary musical theater recordings. Currently, the company is offering solo albums from opera stars Jerry Hadley (Standing Room Only
from 1992) and Harolyn Blackwell (Blackwell Sings Bernstein: A Simple Song
from 1996). The Hadley disc features a broad selection of works from the stage, including Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Younger Than Springtime,” as well as songs from Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. Hadley delivers them with well-considered power and backed by a full orchestra, under the guidance of Paul Gemignani, he and the songs sound terrific.

Blackwell’s rapturous disc derives its title from one selection of Bernstein’s Mass. Many of the tunes on this one are exceedingly familiar (“Somewhere” and “A Little Bit in Love,” for example) but Blackwell’s vocals recast even the most well-known in a new light. There are also some delicious obscurities, including four selections from Bernstein’s Peter Pan and the complete five song cycle for kids, I Hate Music, which he wrote in 1943. An added treat on the album is the spirited presence of Vanessa Williams, who joins Blackwell for “America” and “A Boy Like That/I Have a Love.”

The balance of the weekly releases from Masterworks Broadway are compilations of tunes from its extensive catalog, including The Leonard Bernstein Songbook, which has selections from the cast recordings of Candide, West Side Story, and Wonderful Town, among others.

The label has begun also re-issuing its ten-volume Celebrate Broadway series. Each of the entries in this series contains a wide array of material that is curated around a theme. The first disc, Sing Happy!, takes its title from Kander and Ebb song from Flora, The Red Menace, and also includes selections from everything from Shenandoah to Grand Hotel. As with the other new issues from the label, all of these compilations sound swell in their new digital incarnations.