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Allegro: First Complete Recording
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Sony
Release date: Monday 1st of March 2010
£15.99Allegro - complete recording
Review date: 2010-08-28 Rating: 10 out of 10
This recording is a must for anyone who enjoys musical theatre. It is beautifully performed and beautifully recorded. The earlier reviews set out the history of the show. It is easy to see why the plot was not popular when the show was first produced. There is a parallel there with Sondheim's "Anyone can whistle" (also a flop, initially, with a great score). Yeston's "Nine" did not put off more modern audiences. Hammerstein was not afraid of being controversial (the establishment wanted "Carefully taught" taken out of South Pacific) but his side swipe at rich society in Allegro did not appeal to a 1940s audience. It is such a pity because some vintage R & H songs have remained largely hidden.
Allegro: First Complete Recording Reviews
AT LAST, RECOGNITION!
Review date: 2010-02-13 Rating: 10 out of 10
A Rodgers & Hammerstein "also ran", long overdue for reassessment. This excellent first ever full length recording encourages exactly that, its score most tuneful and immensely appealing. Its theme has become ever more pertinent in these days when materialism crowds out so much of true value.
This is the story of Joseph Taylor Jnr, a Greek style chorus tracing his progress from birth to middle age. A highly talented doctor, like his father, he chooses to leave the small community in the mid-West. Too dull! For him - the fast lane, the bright lights, the city, he to be where the money is. In due course comes awareness this is not how life should be - everything so meretricious, he reduced to pampering rich patients who are not really ill. It is time to return to his roots. Far less money will be coming in, but he in every other aspect will be infinitely richer.
Throughout there is much to applaud, many melodies that linger - "A Fellow Needs a Girl", "So Far", "You Are Never Away", "Money Isn't Everything", "The Gentleman is a Dope", "Allegro", etc. The singers are first rate (Joseph Jnr sung by Patrick Wilson, Raoul in the film of "The Phantom of the Opera").
Richard Rodgers had a soft spot for this musical and longed to give it another try. Other things kept getting in the way ("South Pacific", "The King and I", "The Sound of Music" - to name but a few). He felt the innovative staging may have put people off. In fact that very staging fired the imagination of people like Stephen Sondheim and producer Hal Prince, their offerings forever destined to extend the boundaries. "Oklahoma!" instantly transformed the history of the musical. "Allegro" took longer, but transformed it nonetheless. In so many ways it deserves respect and affection. Give it a try.
A Long Time Coming
Review date: 2009-11-24 Rating: 10 out of 10
We have waited a long time for a complete recording of Allegro and it has been well worth the wait. Whilst the original 1947 stage show only ran for ten months and made a loss, the score is a huge success. The best performers have been secured for this recording including the luminescent Audra McDonald as the mother, the wonderful Judy Kuhn singing my all-time favourite R and H song 'So Far' and the ever reliable Liz Callaway sings 'The Gentleman is a Dope'. Patrick Wilson, Laura Benanti, Norbert Leo Butz and Marni Nixon complete an all-star cast. This recording is simply a must for all who love musical theatre.
A Rodgers & Hammerstein "Flop"?,well,judging by this set there is no such thing!
Review date: 2009-06-27 Rating: 10 out of 10
Allegro was first staged in 1947,and ran for (only?) 315 performances,which by Rodgers and Hammerstein's previous form(Allegro was preceeded by Oklahoma and Carousel,so it had a lot to live up to.) Maybe it was a "Flop"by those standards,but as R&H went on to follow it with South Pacific and The King and I,it had a lot to compete with.
Since then it has been unfairly ignored,even though there WAS a concert performance in 1994 (with a revised and not complete score).It has taken this album(with the complete score) to reveal what aficionados already knew,it has the required strengths to stand by ANY of R&H other musicals,especially given the excellent cast.
How could it be anything else when Stephen Sondheim,who was who was a production assistant for the original Broadway production,sat in on the recording sessions.
It would be great if someone had the courage to mount a staged production.
BTW,Oscar Hammerstein II (who died in 1960) has two speaking lines in this new recording,these come (it seems) fro an old dictation tape of Hammerstein's.Sondheim himself also has some spoken lines on this recording.
If you love R&H musicals,and who doesn't,you cannot afford to miss this.
As I have now listened to this set several times,I thought I would append some thoughts.
I can see why the 1947 Broadway Theatregoers were disappointed by this work.They were expecting a big R&H musical, with showstoppers,and a fantasy plot to lift them from the post WW2 gloom.
What they got was a charming,wistful & moving domestic show.
R&H were obviously harking back to the happy days between the two world wars,and trying (unsucessfully, by the run of the musical) to say that this homely spirit of the US was still there if we looked for it.The work also says,that often what we most desire is really where we started (at home)
The music of this work is probably a complete exception to all of Rodgers other works,and might have been a (failed) experiment at getting back to his works with Lorenz Hart,indeed in the final ballet there are bars of music from "Johnny One Note" from the musical "Babes in Arms".
I think we are far enough removed now from 1947 now to understand what R&H were trying to achieve,and hopefully this recording will re~instate Allegro to it's rightful place along side the other R&H masterworks.
If you buy this work (and I urge you to) give it time to unfold it's gentle and subtle magic upon you.
Once it does it will never leave your CD collection.
A gem
Review date: 2009-03-11 Rating: 10 out of 10
I've only come to Rodgers & Hammerstein recently, via a stage production of Carousel, then the movies. Allegro wasn't a success, and was never turned into a movie. This new album (February 2009) contains all the songs, incidental music, and rythmic dialogue from the play, and makes me hope for a revival or, even better, a movie. It's a story of a man on a voyage of self-discovery, suffering much on the way and is quite unlike anything else written by R&H. Excellent recording. I'm delighted I downloaded it.
Product Details/Specifications
Artist(s):
Rodgers & Hammerstein
Recording label: Sony
Manufacturer: Sony
EAN: 0886974173823
Binding: Audio CD
Release date: 2010-03-01
Universal product code (UPC): 886974173823
Number of discs: 2
