Original Broadway Cast, 1991 (Sony) (3 / 5) Chameleonic composer Cy Coleman and stalwart Broadway lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green wrote the songs for The Will Rogers Follies, a fanciful musical biography of the populist humorist as might have been concocted by Florenz Ziegfeld, in whose revues Rogers made numerous appearances. Coleman combines country twang and Broadway know-how in his music (evocatively orchestrated by Bill Byers), and the Camden-Green lyrics are bright and clever. If the score isn’t of first-tier quality, it’s better than just utilitarian; but it’s hard to tell that from the cast recording, a rather lackluster audio presentation of a show that burst with life under Tommy Tune’s direction. The cast certainly isn’t to blame: Keith Carradine is ingratiating as Rogers, Dee Hoty’s velvet voice brings Will’s wife Berry to warm-hearted life, and future Tony Awards winners Dick Latessa and Cady Huffman find great charm and humor in their supporting roles. But the score, separated from the energy of Tune’s direction/choreography and Peter Stone’s book, is less than wholly effective on its own. The dynamic production numbers “Will-a-Mania” and “Our Favorite Son” suffer the most, but even the major solo turns — Carradine’s “I Never Met a Man I Didn’t Like” and Hoty’s show-stopping “No Man Left for Me” — are somewhat disappointing here. Still, the music’s attractiveness and the performers’ abundant talents save the day, making a weak representation of the show still well worth a listen or three. — Matthew Murray

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2000 (RCA) (4 / 5) This was the first of the entries in the 2000 competition between two stage musical adaptations of Joseph Moncure March’s epic poem. Although Andrew Lippa is a talented musical dramatist, his lyrics aren’t always perfect here (he employs a lot of metaphors that don’t make any sense), and the pop-rock influence in his music is rarely accurate to the period. Still, the overall effect of the Manhattan Theatre Club production was dazzling. Unfortunately, the cast album doesn’t fully indicate how brilliant the piece was onstage. For one thing, the nearly through-sung score was chopped down to 73 minutes of “highlights,” leaving out a great deal of interesting material. Also, the album was made shortly after the show closed, when its astounding leading lady, the previously unknown Julia Murney, wasn’t in her best voice. Murney still belts the score to high heaven, but not quite as high as she did in the theater. The other excellent leads are Brian d’Arcy James, Idina Menzel, and Taye Diggs, and there are terrific supporting performances by Alix Korey (who delivers the hilarious “Old-Fashioned Love Story”), Raymond Jaramillo McLeod, and Jennifer Cody. Even with the above caveats, this recording is still a fantastic listen; among the highlights are “Raise the Roof,” “A Wild, Wild Party,” “Queenie Was a Blonde,” “Poor Child,” and “Make Me Happy.” — Seth Christenfeld

Original Broadway Cast, 2000 (Decca) (5 / 5) Composer-lyricist Michael John LaChiusa was not unknown when The Wild Party, his adaptation of Joseph Moncure March’s 1928 poem of the same title, hit Broadway in 2000; but he truly laid his claim as a major force in the musical theater with this work, among the most dazzling of the “postmodern” school.  The cast album is dynamic, a thrilling document of one of the most stirring theater scores of the late 20th century. LaChiusa’s songs are heavily steeped in period jazz and vaudeville styles (aided by Todd Ellison’s flawless musical direction and Bruce Coughlin’s searing orchestrations) while still sounding thoroughly modern and fresh. Beginning with a startlingly dissonant horn blast, the delights of the recording don’t stop. Consider the raunchy “Queenie Was a Blonde,” the rip-roaring “Uptown Downtown,” the torchy “Lowdown-Down,” the bathtub-gin-infused “Wild,” the bluesy “Black Is a Moocher,” the lost-in-life lovers’ duet “People Like Us,” and the 11-o’clock showstopper “When It Ends.” That last number is delivered titanically by the legendary Eartha Kitt, but the whole cast is excellent. Leading the way are Toni Collette, sounding like a veteran in her Broadway debut as the bleached-blonde chorine Queenie, and Mandy Patinkin as her manic and violent lover, Burrs. They receive top-notch support from Marc Kudisch, Tonya Pinkins, Norm Lewis, Brooke Sunny Moriber, Yancey Arias, and other distinctive performers. Although this is not a complete document of the score, there’s a lot packed into the recording’s 78 minutes. — Matthew Murray

Original Broadway Cast, 1961 (RCA) (2 / 5) Why did the star of Wildcat choose to make her Broadway debut in a show with requirements so far afield from her abilities? Lucille Ball had looks and charisma and great comic timing, but this was a musical, and its leading lady couldn’t sing; all those I Love Lucy jokes about her tin-eared vocalizing were not exaggerations. The show itself is all right, sort of a female Music Man of the oil fields with a synthetic book by N. Richard Nash and a bouncy score by composer Cy Coleman and lyricist Carolyn Leigh. “Hey, Look Me Over” was the hit of the score, but “What Takes My Fancy” and some of the other tunes are also nice. The whole company sounds energetic on the disc, and the male lead, Keith Andes, handles his music very well. Although the recording can’t convey the inventiveness of Michael Kidd’s choreography, it does hint at the gusto with which Ball threw herself into her song-and-dance numbers. Wildcat would have run longer on Ball’s name alone had she not become exhausted with the grind of eight performances a week, but the show is not compelling enough to have ever entered the arena of perennial showcase musicals. — Richard Barrios

Original Broadway Cast, 2003 (Decca) (4 / 5) Don’t go to this recording for a perfectly accurate representation of what’s heard in the theater; the songs were somewhat edited for the cast album to remove any hint of the twisty plot of Wicked, a musical based on Gregory Maguire’s novel, which purports to tell the true story of the “good” and “bad” witches immortalized in L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz. Still, this is one of Stephen Schwartz’s best scores — an unpopular opinion, admittedly! — and the excellent album boasts more than an hour of knockout songs, terrific high belting courtesy of stars Idina Menzel (Elphaba) and Kristin Chenoweth (Galinda/Glinda), and a fantastic-sounding orchestra conducted by Stephen Oremus. Listen particularly to Menzel’s astounding performances of “The Wizard and I,” “I’m Not That Girl,” “No Good Deed,” “Defying Gravity,” and her two gorgeous duets, “As Long as You’re Mine” (with Norbert Leo Butz as Fiyero) and “For Good” (with Chenoweth). Also pay special attention to William David Brohn’s great orchestrations in a pop-rock idiom that’s unusual for him. Unfortunately, very little of Winnie Holtzman’s adept libretto is included on the disc; the absence of dialogue leaves the estimable supporting performers Carole Shelley, Joel Grey, Christopher Fitzgerald, and Michelle Federer in the lurch. — Seth Christenfeld

Motion Picture Soundtrack, 2024 (Universal Studios and Republic Records) (3.5 / 5) With its extraordinary level of hype and an unprecedented two-part release, the motion picture adaptation of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s Wicked had a lot to live up to. But fans of the stage musical can breathe a sigh of relief: Wicked Part One is two hours and 40 minutes of nonstop entertainment. Much of its charm comes from its plethora of visual effects, so in that sense, this version is better seen than heard. However, credit where credit is due: The casting of Tony Award winner Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba ensured that the character’s songs would really get the chance to fly. As heard in the movie and on the soundtrack album, Erivo’s “Defying Gravity” knocked this reviewer’s socks off, and her rendition of “I’m Not That Girl” is softly thrilling. Part One of Wicked remains faithful to the stage musical by including the entire score heard in the show’s first act, including a few songs that might have been skipped, such as “A Sentimental Man” and “Something Bad.” The latter is, in fact, quite effective in a deeply felt performance by Peter Dinklage as Doctor Dillamond. If Jeff Goldblum as The Wizard and Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible aren’t quite up to their tasks vocally, their performances do not significantly hinder the listening experience. While Erivo’s Elphaba is staggeringly original, casting aside the inevitable ghost of Idina Menzel (who makes a charming cameo appearance here), Ariana Grande as Glinda finds the perfect balance between echoes of Kristin Chenoweth (also given a cameo in the film and on the album) and her own unique charm and humor; one can only hope that this performance is the first of many starring roles in musicals for her. Jonathan Bailey, who began his career as a West End musical theater actor, is smooth as butter in “Dancing Through Life,” even if the song’s extended instrumental sequences only really make sense with the movie’s visuals. This album does suffer from some of the aural artificiality heard in many soundtracks, but the orchestrations are lush, notably in the “Ozdust Duet.” While the recording lacks some of the raw power present on the original Broadway cast album, it’s an excellent representation of the score and a consistently delightful listen. — Charles Kirsch

Original Broadway Cast, 1958 (MGM/Polydor) (2 / 5) With music by Moose Charlap and lyrics by Norman Gimbel, Whoop-Up was a quick failure set in a Montana bar (“where you don’t have to wear a tie to tie one on,” goes one of the forced lyrics). You’ll shake your head in amazement at such songs as “Nobody Throw That Bull,” “‘Caress Me, Possess Me’ Perfume,” “The Best of What This Country’s Got (Was Taken From the Indians),” “I Wash My Hands,” and “Montana,” which will never become that state’s official song. Susan Johnson has the strangest piece of material: “Men,” in which she speak-sings nearly three minutes’ worth of complaints about the male gender as a Dixieland melody plays underneath. The love songs, including the saccharine “Never Before,” are no better. Particularly bizarre is “Love Eyes,” sung by Ralph Young. (Sample lyric: “Your lipstick’s wet and waitin’ for my smear.”) That there were cover versions of some of these songs would be hard to believe if the  CD reissue hadn’t included quite a few of them. Jazz pianist Dick Hyman’s two cuts are bewitching; they prove that composer Charlap did come up with some fetching melodies for this score. — Peter Filichia

Studio Cast, 1998 (Deutsche Grammophon) (1 / 5) The recording of a previously unrecorded musical theater score is usually a cause for celebration, but A White House Cantata is a maddening misfire. The 1976 Broadway flop 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue deserves better than this, not least because its score was written by luminaries Leonard Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner. Many of their compositions for the show, which concerns race relations in 19th-century America, are of epic sweep, but in this cantata drawn from the score of the musical, they’re hurt by the style of presentation. From a purely vocal standpoint, the cast is fine: Thomas Hampson and June Anderson sumptuously sing the music of all of the presidents and first ladies, while Barbara Hendricks and Kenneth Tarver are more than capable as their black servants. But the renditions of most of the songs are overwrought and lacking in character and color; this is especially evident in “Duet for One,” in which two first ladies duke it out in song. The choral numbers are rich and full, the orchestra (conducted by Kent Nagano) is beyond reproach, and a good amount of material that was lost during the show’s tumultuous preview period has been restored. A White House Cantata is not a total loss, but the lack of theatrical verve makes this recording a poor representation of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as a theater piece. — Matthew Murray

Studio Cast, 1998 (Polydor) (2 / 5) Labeled Songs from Whistle Down the Wind, this collection of 12 numbers performed by a lineup of pop stars is easier to take than the subsequent London stage cast recording of this Andrew Lloyd Webber score. Divorced from the show’s ludicrous story line (detailed below) and arranged as the disposable pop artifacts they really are, the songs actually provide some enjoyment. Tom Jones, aided by Sounds of Blackness, offers a soulful “Vaults of Heaven.” The boy band Boyzone does right by the repetitive “No Matter What,” and Donny Osmond proves to be the ideal interpreter of “When Children Rule the World.” Also on hand are Elaine Paige, Meat Loaf, Boy George, Bonnie Tyler, and Michael Ball. It’s a relatively painless way to enjoy the modest pleasures of a misbegotten show. — David Barbour

Original London Cast, 1999 (Really Useful Records) (1 / 5) This egregious Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, based on a novel by Mary Hayley Bell and a subsequent screenplay by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, is about a group of poor children in rural England who mistake an escaped murderer for Jesus Christ. Told with restraint, it could have been a moving tale. Unfortunately, a committee of librettists — Patricia Knopf, director Gale Edwards, and Lloyd Webber himself — made the disastrous decision to reset the action in the American South during the 1950s. The show begins with one of the composer’s finest songs, the gospel tune “Vaults of Heaven,” but the score quickly turns into an unpalatable mixture of sticky sentiment and violent melodrama. Catchy tunes are often laughably unsuited to the onstage action, and matters aren’t helped by Jim Steinman’s clunky lyrics. The songwriters’ try-anything approach includes a pair of faux Brecht-Weill items, “Annie Christmas” and “Charlie Christmas,” plus the unbearably cute “When Children Rule the World” and the ridiculous “A Kiss Is a Terrible Thing to Waste.” The nadir is “Tire Tracks and Broken Hearts,” which recycles the melody of “English Girls” from Lloyd Webber’s Song & Dance. As the simple young waif Swallow and the escaped convict whom she believes is her Savior, Dottie Mayor and Marcus Lovett provide plenty of vocal emoting, but the songs are further sabotaged by the vulgar orchestrations of David Cullen and the composer. — D.B.

Original London Cast, 1958 (Columbia/Angel) (4 / 5) Based on Charley’s Aunt, the reliable old farce by Brandon Thomas, Where’s Charley? was a big hit on Broadway in 1948 with Ray Bolger in the lead. But the show didn’t yield an original cast album, apparently due to a musicians’ strike; nor has there ever been a commercially released soundtrack album drawn from the obscure 1952 film version, in which Bolger recreated his stage role of Charley Wykeham. Fortunately, the 1958 London production yielded a good recording of the delightful score by composer-lyricist Frank Loesser. British stage and film comedian Norman Wisdom may not have had quite the same type of high-wattage comic energy that Bolger possessed, but he was much better suited to the part of Charley in terms of accent and singing ability, and his performance here is ingratiating. The supporting cast is generally fine: Pip Hinton is adorable as Amy Spettigue, while Pamela Gale and Marion Grimaldi sing beautifully as (respectively) Kitty Verdun and Donna Lucia d’Alvadorez. Felix Felton is very funny as Mr. Spettigue, who has no idea that Charley’s aunt — the woman he’s wooing for her money — is actually Charley in drag. The one inadequate performance on the album comes from Terence Cooper, who exhibits an unattractive, throaty singing voice as Jack Chesney. “Once in Love With Amy” is the show’s big hit, but the score is chockablock with skillfully crafted charm songs and comedy numbers (“Better Get Out of Here,” “The Woman in His Room”) and beautiful love ballads (“My Darling, My Darling,” “Lovelier Than Ever,” “At the Red Rose Cotillion”). Disappointingly, only a fragment of the title song is included on this recording; a lengthy ensemble number as written, it’s here reduced to one brief chorus introduced by Wisdom’s quotation of the show’s most famous line of dialogue: “I am Charley’s aunt from Brazil — where the nuts come from!” The album would be essential if only because it’s the sole recording of a fine Loesser score, so it’s good news that the performance is so praiseworthy overall, and that the early stereo sound is excellent. — Michael Portantiere

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1997 (RCA) (2 / 5) The second of two revues that showcased the talents of outré costume designer Howard Crabtree was an evening of bright, largely gay humor. Though several of the songs by composer Dick Gallagher and lyricist-librettist Mark Waldrop are fun, the show’s real strength was visual, matching sketches to outrageously elaborate costume designs. A number called “Light in the Loafers” loses something when you don’t see dancers wearing electrified shoes; so does “Not All Man,” which was delivered onstage by David Pevsner done up as a centaur. A sketch featuring Stanley Bojarski as Carol Ann Knippel, the doyenne of a Midwest community theater, doesn’t slay on the recording the way it did live. Still, there are pleasures to be found here — many of them courtesy of Jay Rogers, who delivers a series of torch songs aimed at the right-wing ideologues Newt Gingrich, Strom Thurmond, and Rush Limbaugh. Rogers also gets the show’s best number: the touching, ruminative “Laughing Matters,” which only gains in poignancy when one knows that Crabtree died of AIDS shortly after this show opened. — David Barbour

Original Broadway Cast, 1964 (Columbia/GL Music) (1 / 5) Longtime theatergoers will recall that, for a brief time decades ago, Steve Lawrence was touted as the next great Broadway leading man. Exhibit A is this now-forgotten hit (540 performances), adapted by Budd Schulberg and his brother Stuart from the former’s scalding novel about Hollywood climbers. Lawrence is Sammy Glick, who rises from the position of copy boy for a New York newspaper to top Hollywood producer in record time, by any means needed. Sally Ann Howes plays a buttoned-up screenwriter with a yen for hustlers; she’s loved from afar by Robert Alda in the role of a fellow screenwriter and student of Glick. All three are fine, but they’re let down by composer-lyricist Ervin Drake’s score, which strains for ring-a-ding sophistication and doesn’t achieve it. Every number sounds like the opener of a Vegas floor show. Lawrence and Howes do well in “A Room Without Windows,” and Lawrence teams effectively with Bernice Massi, as a studio exec’s predatory daughter, in the appropriately titled “You’re No Good.” Don Walker’s generic orchestrations are no help; neither is the CD edition of the recording, released in mono by Lawrence. It was mediocre shows like this, with their derivative melodies and almost-clever lyrics, that helped bring down the curtain on Broadway’s golden age. — David Barbour

Studio Cast, 1990 (JAY) No stars; not recommended. The only reason to musicalize a play is to add something to it, to enrich the original material. But again and again in this show based on Murray Schisgal’s unique, distinctive, and uproarious 1964 comedy Luv, moments from the play are flattened out by what can only be called by-the-numbers musical theater writing. For instance, one famous scene in the play has two men comparing their miserable childhoods, each trying to prove that he had a tougher upbringing; simply putting the scene into song form robs it of most of its surprise, and about half of the original material is missing entirely. In another scene in Luv, the wife of one of the men comes on with a graph illustrating their lack of a sex life, and the no-nonsense tone of her speech is immensely funny; but composer Howard Marren and lyricist Susan Birkenhead have set the sequence as a jazz waltz, which is not only emotionally inappropriate but also makes it very difficult to understand the words. The plot point is covered, but it’s not the least bit funny anymore. Throughout, the thoroughly conventional songs sentimentalize the characters in a complete betrayal of the loopy original material. The cast of this recording includes Judy Kaye (who starred in the original Off-Broadway production) along with her husband David Green and the unrelated Simon Green. — David Wolf

Original Broadway Cast, 1957 (Columbia/Sony/Masterworks Broadway) (5 / 5) Conceived by Jerome Robbins, with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim (and an uncredited Bernstein), and a book by Arthur Laurents, West Side Story is a groundbreaking musical theater work that remains thrillingly vital and is continually revived worldwide, both professionally and by schools and community theaters. The phenomenal score, including such by now universally beloved songs as “Tonight,” “Maria,” and “Somewhere,” deepens the audience’s emotional involvement in an immortal story of star-crossed lovers, inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and reset among warring American and Puerto Rican gangs in Manhattan circa 1957. Happily, the score is well represented by this recording, which has a theatrical snap and an emotional conviction that more than compensate for any flaws in the performance. Although Carol Lawrence’s soprano thins out in the highest reaches of Maria’s music, and Larry Kert’s tenor develops something of a braying quality when he pushes for volume, both singers sound lovely in the more lyrical sections of the score, and they bring a youthful, unaffected style to their roles. Chita Rivera is a ball of fire as Anita, and Mickey Calin (later Michael Callan) sounds equally sexy as Riff. Reri Grist sings a lovely “Somewhere,” and Marilyn Cooper makes a notable contribution to the “America” number. Nearly an hour’s worth of material was laid down in the studio, making this one of the longest Broadway cast albums of its day, the better to document the superb score as performed by the original company; among the few significant sections missing are the “Blues” and “Promenade” sections of the Dance at the Gym. The bravura playing of the orchestra, conducted by Max Goberman, is captured in excellent early stereo sound. — Michael Portantiere

London/British Tour and Studio Casts, 1959-1966 (Various Labels) (3 / 5) A note from Christopher Hamilton: “The Original London Cast Recording of West Side Story was only an EP with four songs — ‘Maria,’ ‘Tonight,’ ‘I Feel Pretty’ and ‘One Hand, One Heart’ — sung by Don McKay and Marlys Watters. It was released in 1959. In 1961, a studio cast recording was released, conducted by Lawrence Leonard, who was the MD [musical director] on the original London production. The album featured George Chakiris (Riff) singing ‘Cool.’ In 1966, another studio cast recording was released featuring David Holliday (Tony), Jill Martin (Maria), Mary Preston (Anita), and Tony Adams (Riff). These performers had all played the roles in the West End or on tour. This recording was conducted by Alyn Ainsworth.” As heard in a historically valuable compilation presented on YouTube by Hamilton, the overall quality level of these rare recordings is quite high. Particularly enjoyable tracks include Holliday’s “Something’s Coming” and Chakiris’s “Cool.” (Chakiris won acclaim and an Academy Award for his performance as Bernardo in the film of West Side Story, so it’s a lot of fun to hear him sing one of Riff’s songs.) Watters and McKay do a beautiful job with the “Tonight” duet and “One Hand, One Heart”; her high soprano notes are fuller than Carol Lawrence’s, and some listeners will find his vocal tone more pleasing than Larry Kert’s. On the minus side, McKay’s “Maria” is marred by a too-slow tempo and his flattening of some of the rhythms.  It’s interesting to note that, as was the case with the OBCR, the tempi for many of these recordings — especially the dance numbers — are very fast, no doubt to help fit more material onto the vinyl LPs of the day. [Note: The image included with this review is of the LP cover of the 1961 recording.] — M.P.

Film Soundtrack, 1961 (Columbia/Sony) (5 / 5) The ubiquitous movie vocal double Marni Nixon here sings Maria’s music in lieu of the film’s star, Natalie Wood, and her performance points up one of the challenges in casting West Side Story: If you find performers who can fulfill the musical requirements of this difficult score, they  probably won’t be entirely convincing as New York City street kids. Nixon’s opera-quality lyric soprano is not exactly that of a teenage Nuyorican girl, but her voice is very beautiful in itself, and the matching of her singing to Wood’s speech is skillfully done in the movie. Jim Bryant, dubbing for Richard Beymer, has a less “legit” sound, but he does an overall admirable job with Tony’s vocals, despite the fact that he often seems to be singing below his ideal range because the original keys of many of the songs were dropped for the film medium. Sharing Anita’s musical moments, Rita Moreno and dubber Betty Wand both do very well, and there is no disconnect between their voices. An intriguing fact of the recording is that, while Russ Tamblyn sings for himself in “Gee, Officer Krupke,” he’s dubbed by fellow cast member Tucker Smith for the “Jet Song.” Since Smith does his own singing in “Cool,” that means he’s actually heard on the soundtrack as two different characters. To make things even more interesting, Nixon sings Anita’s part in the latter part of the “Quintet,” presumably because it was too high for Wand or Moreno. Happily, the movie and this recording feature what are more or less the original theater orchestrations by Bernstein, Sid Ramin, and Irwin Kostal, beefed-up for a much larger orchestra conducted by Johnny Green. The “expanded” edition of the soundtrack album includes dialogue and music taken directly from the film. Though it’s great to have this extra material, including a thrilling orchestral performance of the “Mambo,” the sound quality of the added sections is noticeably different from that of the tracks taken from the original soundtrack album master, and the switching from one to the other is a bit disconcerting. — M.P.

Studio Cast, 1985 (Deutsche Grammophon) 0 stars; not recommended. A near-total disaster, preserved for posterity in the form of this album and also in a gasp-inducing film documentary of the studio sessions. It was a great idea (in theory) to have Leonard Bernstein conduct a full recording of the West Side Story score, but a horrendous idea to cast all of the major roles with opera singers. While José Carreras’s tenor sounds gorgeous here, his thick Latino accent makes him ridiculous in the role from a dramatic standpoint. This wouldn’t be a problem in terms of enjoying the performance on a purely musical level, but Carreras also seems uncomfortable with the more “pop” elements of the score — for example, the syncopations in “Something’s Coming.” Although the late, great operatic mezzo Tatiana Troyanos was duly praised for her performances in works by Bizet, Mozart, et al., she is an overripe Anita, while the talented baritone Kurt OIlman creates a sound more appropriate for Don Giovanni than for Riff. Kiri Te Kanawa as Maria fares best among the principals, but still, she sounds too mature and self-possessed to be credible as a very young, innocent, Puerto Rican girl. Even Bernstein’s conducting is a disappointment; there are wonderful moments, but also some extremely odd tempi. For example, both “One Hand, One Heart” and “I Feel Pretty” are way too slow by any reasonable measure. The one major plus of the project is star mezzo soprano Marilyn Horne’s gorgeous and moving rendition of”Somewhere.” — M.P.

London/Studio Cast, 1993 (JAY, 2CDs) (2 / 5) According to a note in the accompanying booklet, “This recording is inspired by the Leicester Haymarket Theatre production which opened on November 20, 1992.” It’s a complete recording of the score with many nice features but a few flaws so major that they damage the overall experience. The tempi set by conductor John Owen Edwards are much closer to ideal than those often found in a British performance of an American musical; one exception is “I Feel Pretty,” which is far too slow, Edwards here following the bad example set by composer Leonard Bernstein himself on the Deutsche Grammophon recording reviewed above. The brilliant West Side Story score, in its original orchestrations by Bernstein, Sid Ramin, and Irwin Kostal, is for the most part magnificently played by the National Symphony Orchestra under Edwards’ leadership. Also, the sound quality of the recording is superb, its dynamic range allowing for many exciting musical moments. As for the singers, Tinuke Olafimihan is a lovely Maria, and Caroline O’Connor is very good as Anita despite her tendency to growl a little too often. Another plus is Sally Burgess’s beautiful rendition of “Somewhere.” But Paul Manuel’s voice is so thin that it’s hard to understand how he could ever have been cast as Tony. A further problem is Manuel’s inability to disguise his English accent; the same can be said for all of the “Jets” on this recording, and it sure is disorienting to hear New York street toughs sounding as if they were born and bred in Great Britain, as compared to the far more skillful accent work heard on the previous British recordings reviewed above. — M.P.

Studio Cast, 1993 (Pickwick/Warner Classics) 0 stars; not recommended. This recording features West End musical star Michael Ball and the acclaimed American operatic soprano Barbara Bonney as Tony and Maria, with LaVerne Williams as Anita and Christopher Howard as Riff. (In a major oversight, the “Somewhere” soloist is not identified. It sounds like it could be Bonney, but who knows?) The principals are backed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Barry Wordsworth. But if any of that sounds good to you, please think twice. While Ball possesses a strong and attractive vocal instrument, his singing is severely marred by weird inflections, exaggerations, and enunciations. For example, when he sings “Tonight there will be no morning star,” the last word sounds like “staa-huh-EHHHH.” The tastelessness of Ball’s singing is exacerbated by his failed attempt to sound like a New York teenager; instead, he comes across as a Brit affecting the mannerisms of a Las Vegas lounge singer. The performance of Williams, a mezzo with a cavernous register break, is equally problematic, her Anita almost seeming to have been created for a comedy sketch about opera singers ruining great musicals. Howard and the other Jets are less objectionable, though their attempts to hide their British accents are more amusing than successful. Bonney, with her sweet but strong vocal tone, is the best of the leads by far. As for the orchestral cuts on this album, the prologue is lethargic, and each section of the “Dance at the Gym” sequence is either a little too fast or a little too slow.  — M.P.

Studio Cast, 2001 (Naxos) (2 / 5) This is billed as a recording of “the original score” of West Side Story, whatever that means. All sections of the “Dance at the Gym” are included — except for the lovely “cha-cha” setting of “Maria” that accompanies Tony and Maria’s love-at-first-sight scene. The version of “America” heard here is sung by the Sharks and their women, as in the 1961 film, but the lyrics are a mixture of those used in the stage show and the movie. (Apparently, the original concept of the number in the Broadway production was that it would be performed by the Shark men as well as their girlfriends, but during rehearsals, a decision was made to feature the women only.) Mike Eldred acquits himself best among the leads; in fact, his ardent, youthful tenor makes him one of the best Tonys on records, despite some mildly intrusive pop mannerisms. Betsi Morrison as Maria is less consistent, sounding rather insipid at times but coming through in the clutch, as in the “Tonight” quintet. Similarly, Michelle Prentice calls to mind a breathy pop singer in the opening phrases of “Somewhere,” but she handles the song’s climaxes well. Robert Dean offers a paradoxical Riff, his burly vocal tone undercut by sibilant esses. As captured in thrilling digital sound, the Nashville Symphony Orchestra sounds great playing the score, even if some of Kenneth Schernerhorn’s conducting is a little sluggish. — M.P.

Studio Cast,  2007 (Decca Broadway) (2 / 5) The shining star of this recording is the Italian operatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo, who gives a gorgeously sung, heartfelt, idiomatically persuasive performance as Tony.  In all honestly, Grigolo’s Italian accent is nearly as thick as José Carreras’s Spanish one,  but somehow this unsuitability for the character doesn’t rankle nearly as much here — partly because Grigolo sounds captivatingly youthful despite the maturity of his “legit” sound, and he seems much more at home with the score on a stylistic level.  Also, he’s smart and sensitive enough to sing softly and lyrically when called for (as in “One Hand, One Heart”) without ever sounding like he’s crooning or condescending to the music. In contrast, the very thin and “white” sound of Hayley Westenra’s voice in the role of Maria is not offset by her vocal acting, which is also pallid in terms of emotion. Especially in her higher register, she sounds so wispy that one can only wonder why she was tapped for this assignment, regardless of whatever name value she may have possessed at the time. Melanie Marshall doesn’t successfully solve the belt-or-head-voice issues presented by Anita’s music, and Connie Fisher sings the achingly beautiful “Somewhere” with too much of a pop-song approach. But Will Martin is one of the best Riffs on record, a couple of obviously Brit pronunciations aside; and the Jets sound convincingly American, including Loren Geeting as Action, who does a fine job with the comedy of “Gee, Officer Krupke.”  Nick Ingman conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic with snap in some sections of the score, too slowly in others. But Grigolo’s performance makes this is a must-have recording despite its flaws, and earns it a higher star rating than it would have received otherwise.  — M.P.

Broadway Cast, 2009 (Masterworks Broadway) 0 stars; not recommended. Here, for what it’s worth, is an audio memento of a misguided 2009 Broadway revival of  West Side Story.  While the production itself was primarily sunk by the willfully odd direction of the show’s book writer, Arthur Laurents, the cast album is more specifically undone by the musical direction and conducting of the normally reliable Patrick Vaccariello. His reading of the score begins with a loose performance of the orchestral “Prologue,” and things don’t get much better thereafter; “The Rumble” is conducted stolidly, and Vaccariello drags the tempi for many of the vocal numbers. Among the singers, the female leads come across best: Josefina Scaglione’s sweet yet strong soprano is right for Maria, and Tony Award winner Karen Olivo is alternately sexy, funny, and ferocious as Anita. Matt Cavenaugh sings prettily if somewhat nasally as Tony, but he takes many liberties in terms of musical phrasing, and his delivery of the spoken dialogue included on the recording is extremely stiff. Cavenaugh also stumbles in his far-from-credible New York accent — as does Cody Green, whose intentional mispronunciation of the “r” consonant makes his Riff sound like he requires the services of a speech therapist. When this production opened, much was made of the decision to have Lin-Manuel Miranda (composer/lyricist of Broadway’s In the Heights and, later, Hamilton) translate some of Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics to be sung in Spanish by the Puerto Rican characters, in order to emphasize the clash of cultures that bears significantly on the show’s plot. This might have seemed like a good idea in theory, but in practice, it didn’t work — certainly not in those sections of the “Quintet” version of “Tonight” when the Jets and Sharks, respectively, sing in English and Spanish at the same time. (Most of the Spanish lyrics were eliminated from this production as the run continued, but not before they were recorded on the cast album.) All of these flaws, plus the unwise choices to have a boy soprano sing “Somewhere” and to throw a silly vocal competition into “I Feel Pretty” (sung in Spanish as “Me Siento Hermosa”), make this a highly unsatisfying addition to the West Side Story discography, so much so that it’s not recommended for listening despite its few pluses. — M.P.

San Francisco Symphony Concert Cast, 2014 (S.F. Symphony, 2CDs) (4 / 5) This is an honorable, limited-edition recording of the West Side Story score. Alexandra Silber is generally very fine as Maria, even if she occasionally phrases too freely and distorts some of the written note values. As Tony, Cheyenne Jackson displays an innately beautiful baritenor and excellent musical theater instincts, yet he has a distracting habit of obviously manipulating or “placing” his voice differently for various passages of the score; sometimes he sounds a little throaty, sometimes a bit nasal, sometimes just right. Kevin Vortmann, who has shone in other roles, comes across as rather too “legit” in sound for Riff, and when the Jets and Sharks are singing as a group, they sound more like a large-size concert chorus of trained voices (which they are) than a small band of street toughs. But Jessica Vosk is definitely among the top-tier Anitas, and Julia Bullock sings “Somewhere” gorgeously. The score is presented note-complete and is well conducted overall by Michael Tilson Thomas, even if he sometimes indulges in the penchant of some classical music conductors to set too-slow tempi in WSS. (“I Have a Love” and the opening section of “America” are two examples.) Quite a bit of dialogue is included here, some lines delivered more persuasively than others. The state-of-the-art sound of the recording is spectacular. — M.P.

Film Soundtrack, 2021 (Hollywood Records) (4 / 5) Steven Spielberg’s and Tony Kushner’s reimagining of West Side Story for a motion picture remake is near miraculous in its overall excellence, and the soundtrack album is one of the best recordings of the classic Bernstein/Sondheim score. Gustavo Dudamel expertly and passionately leads the New York Philharmonic (and, for a few passages, the Los Angeles Philharmonic) in a new adaptation of the score that largely preserves the incomparable original arrangements and orchestrations. In the role of Maria, Rachel Zegler displays a lovely voice and is far more natural-sounding that some previously recorded exponents of the role, complete with what strikes this listener’s ears as an accurate Puerto Rican accent. Opposite her as Tony, Ansel Elgort also sings beautifully and persuasively, and both he and Zegler are 100 percent vocally credible as teenagers. Ariana DeBose is strong, sexy, and deeply moving by turns as Anita; David Alvarez impresses in his brief musical moments as Bernardo; and the actors who solo in “Gee, Officer Krupke” (Kevin Csolak, John Michael Fiumara, Jess LeProtto, Ben Cook, Kyle Allen, Myles Erlick, Patrick Higgins) offer vivid vocal characterizations. As Riff, Mike Faist brings to the “Jet Song” a sound as lean and mean as his striking appearance in the film. (Faist is also heard briefly in the “Tonight” ensemble and in “Cool,” but the bulk of the latter song has been given to Elgort as Tony; nor is Faist heard at all in “Gee, Officer Krupke,” as his character has been removed from that number, for some reason.) In the new role of Valentina, Doc’s widow, Rita Moreno — who won an Academy Award for her performance as Anita in the first big-screen version of West Side Story — offers a heartbreaking rendition of “Somewhere.” If the 2021 film itself has any flaws, they may be found in the overwriting of some of the new dialogue that Kushner created for the screenplay, but since very little of that is heard here, the soundtrack album is thoroughly enjoyable as an aural document of a superlative cinematic achievement, presented in state-of-the-art recorded sound. — M.P.

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1993 (Columbia) (4 / 5) Composer Alan Menken wrote some of his most dazzling and sophisticated music for this largely forgotten pair of one-act musicals. He and his collaborators — librettist Alan Brennert, lyricist/co-librettist David Spencer, and director Barry Harman –crafted a musical in that most neglected of stage genres, science fiction (also known as “speculative fiction”). The first piece, “The Girl Who Was Plugged In,” is based on a James Tiptree, Jr. story; the second, “Her Pilgrim Soul,” was adapted from an episode of The New Twilight Zone written by Brennert. The cast is superlative: Ellen Greene and Jonathan Hadary, the leads in both pieces, are supported by Danny Burstein, Jessica Molaskey, Valerie Pettiford, Sal Viviano, Eric Riley, William Youmans, and Marguerite Macintyre. If the music isn’t always at the level of Menken’s best — the song “Amazing Penetration” will never be found on a greatest hits album — it’s hard to think of better melodies than the first half’s “Eyes That Never Lie” and the second’s “Another Woman” and “Someone Else Is Waiting.” As for Spencer’s lyrics, they are solid and often clever. The only problem with this cast album is that it’s out of print in CD format, but you can still purchase it as a download. — Seth Christenfeld

Off-Off-Broadway Cast, 2001 (Original Cast Records) (1 / 5) Irving Berlin’s first hit was exhumed by the Off-Off-Broadway company Musicals Tonight! in 2001. According to the CD notes, the show is a fairly typical 1914 frolic with a thin-to-the-point-of-transparency plot about a will that requires its recipients never to have been in love. After that, you’re on your own; there’s no synopsis to indicate how the songs fit into the story. Furthermore, Berlin interpolated numerous songs into the show during its several months’ run, and all of them are included here.  While the recording is unquestionably of archival importance, it comes off as less a show album than a collection of novelty tunes from the early World War I era. Songs like “Come to the Land of the Argentine,” “Show Us How to Do the Fox Trot,” and “Settle Down in a One-Horse Town” could be from virtually any musical of the same general provenance. For that matter, they all sound alike, set as they are to the same ragtime beat. The young cast sings with enthusiasm; the one semi-name, David Sabella, is amusing in numbers such as “Lock Me in Your Harem.” Berlin enthusiasts and those with an interest in the period should add a star or two to the rating above, but the CD has little to offer the general listener. — David Barbour