Original Broadway Cast, 1965 (Kapp/Decca) (5 / 5) This first recording of the Mitch Leigh-Joe Darion score for their musical inspired by Miguel de Cervantes’ epic novel Don Quixote is definitive. Richard Kiley is so vocally and dramatically brilliant as Cervantes/Quixote that he set the bar almost impossibly high for all future interpreters of the role. His fully committed, richly sung performance of the score’s signature item, “The Impossible Dream” — one of the last Broadway songs to become a pop hit in the 1960s — is all that anyone could ask for. Playing opposite him as Aldonza, Joan Diener gives an amazing vocal performance. She was one of those rare singing actresses who boasted a strong chest voice with a full soprano extension, and when Diener ends her powerfully belted performance of “It’s All the Same” with a flight into the soprano stratosphere, or when she switches back and forth between registers in “Aldonza,” the effect is breathtaking. Completing the musical’s central triumvirate, Irving Jacobson’s Sancho Panza is warm, funny, and endearing. Among the excellent supporting cast, the golden-voiced Robert Rounseville and Ray Middleton are the Padre and the Innkeeper, respectively. Harry Theyard, as a muleteer, offers two starkly contrasting performances of “Little Bird” — one gorgeously lyrical, the other frighteningly violent. Even though the flamenco rhythms employed by Leigh are inappropriate to the period, and some of Darion’s lyrics are ungrammatical, there is much to love about this score. If there’s anything to regret in the CD transfer of the recording, it’s that the “I, Don Quixote” number eliminates the terrifying Inquisition theme that begins this track on the LP. On the plus side, the technical quality of the digital remastering is superb. — Michael Portantiere

Original London Cast, 1968 (Decca, 2LPs/no CD) (3 / 5) While this is not really a “complete” Man of La Mancha, the two-LP set does give us a vivid sense of the show through its inclusion of the bulk of the script (by Dale Wasserman) and some well produced sound effects. Keith Michell is almost as magnificent a Cervantes/Quixote as the role’s creator, Richard Kiley, both dramatically and musically speaking. Joan Diener is back as Aldonza, but most unfortunately, her performance here is extremely over-acted and lacking in spontaneity; it sounds as if she had given up on playing the character, having decided instead to deliver a star turn. Despite this major caveat, the London Man of La Mancha deserves a CD release. With the glaring exception of Patricia Bredin as Antonia, who back-phrases most annoyingly in “I’m Only Thinking of Him,” the supporting cast is fine, especially Alan Crofoot as the Padre. The sound quality of the recording is excellent, and another plus is that we get to hear that chilling Inquisition theme more than once. — M.P.

Film Soundtrack, 1972 (United Artists/Varese Sarabande) 0 stars; not recommended. What a disaster this is. On paper, Peter O’Toole and Sophia Loren would seem excellent casting for a film version of Man of La Mancha, providing that their singing voices were skillfully dubbed by others. Alas! Simon Gilbert, who ghosts for O’Toole, has a good-enough voice but very strange mannerisms of enunciation; just listen to him sing the lyric “thou art base and debauched as can be,” hitting every “b” with a sledgehammer. As for Loren, she was unwisely allowed to do her own singing here, and the results are borderline embarrassing. Her poorly supported, unpleasant sounding voice has about one-third the range required for Aldonza’s music, and her weirdly modified Italian accent is a further liability. Up against these two, James Coco manages to retain his dignity as Sancho, although he sings his part in “I, Don Quixote” down the octave from where it’s written. Ian Richardson has far too thin a voice for the Padre, but this is almost a moot point, as the beautiful song “To Each His Dulcinea” has been cut. The one good thing about this recording is that the orchestrations for symphony-sized forces were done skillfully; it’s nice to hear strings playing this score, even if the original orchestrations for a much smaller complement of musicians remain superior.  — M.P.

Studio Cast, 1972 (Columbia/no CD) (2 / 5) This recording was only briefly in print, and it’s hard to find nowadays. Jim Nabors, famous as the star of the 1960s TV sitcom Gomer Pyle, USMC, possessed a legit baritone voice that gave him some additional career mileage, but his sound here is affected and unnaturally covered to the point of camp — certainly not the impression that a good Cervantes/Don Quixote is supposed to make. Singing the role of Aldonza is superstar opera diva Marilyn Horne in a frustrating performance; her magnificent mezzo is right for the role, but she sings “It’s All the Same” and other songs so squarely and with such low energy that they make little impression. That’s surprising, as Horne was famed as an excellent singing actress in opera, and she did very well with musical theater material on other occasions. (Perhaps she was under-rehearsed for this endeavor.) By far the best of the three principals is Jack Gilford, a wonderfully endearing Sancho. The supporting cast — Madeline Kahn as Antonia, Ron Hussman as the Innkeeper, and the great opera tenor Richard Tucker as the Padre — is uniformly excellent, and the original orchestrations are wisely used, but the unsatisfying performances of Horne and especially Nabors make this album little more than a curiosity. — M.P.

Studio Cast, 1990 (Sony) (2 / 5) There’s nothing terribly wrong about this recording aside from the presence of the outrageously mannered Mandy Patinkin as Sancho Panza. But, somehow, the whole thing doesn’t jell, even though the original orchestrations are expertly conducted here by Paul Gemignani. Opera icon Placido Domingo sings Quixote’s songs with all of the glorious tone you’d expect, but his Spanish accent is distracting — even though he is playing a Spanish character. (This is, after all, an American musical.) Julia Migenes is well cast and has many fine moments as Aldonza, but her performance isn’t as mercurial as Joan Diener’s on the original Broadway recording, and she doesn’t use her chest register in the same full-out way as Diener. Jerry Hadley’s tenor sounds lovely in the Padre’s songs, but though Samuel Ramey possessed one of the richest, fullest, and darkest bass voices in operatic history, it’s not a voice that’s appropriate to the Innkeeper — or, really, to any other musical theater role. This isn’t the worst recording of Man of La Mancha, but it’s very far from the best. — M.P.

Covent Garden Music Festival Cast, 2000 (JAY, 2CDs) (2 / 5) Here’s a truly complete audio recording of Man of La Mancha –– the entire score, all of the dialogue, the whole nine yards. In the title role, Ron Raines is close to ideal from a vocal standpoint. His big, warm, powerful baritone is “legit” without sounding too heavily operatic, and his acting of the dialogue is strong, if not at the level of Keith Michell on the 1968 album. Less happily cast is Kim Criswell as Aldonza; her voice sounds wrong for the character in terms of type (not earthy enough), and she does quite a lot of shouting and growling in the lower-lying, more dramatic portions of the score. Her best performance is that of Aldonza’s most lyrical song, “What Does He Want of Me?” Avery Saltzman is an enjoyable Sancho in a sort of neo-vaudeville/Borscht Belt/American TV comedian style. In other roles, Hilton Marlton is a very British-sounding Padre who sings “To Each His Dulcinea” beautifully, and it’s nice to hear George Dvorsky in the two contrasting versions of “Little Bird.” The BBC Concert Orchestra plays excitingly under Charles Abel, aside from one or two odd tempo choices (e.g, some of the music for “The Abduction”), and the whole performance has a wonderful theatricality to it. Like the other complete recordings of musicals from JAY Records, this one would be commendable for that reason alone, over and above its other virtues.  — M.P.

Broadway Cast, 2002 (RCA) (1 / 5) Brian Stokes Mitchell’s performance as Coalhouse Walker in Ragtime was a triumph, but even judging solely on the basis of this recording, the role of Cervantes/Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha is not in his wheelhouse. While Mitchell possesses an impressive baritone, his singing style is ill-suited to this assignment; he slides off of some notes like a pop/jazz vocalist, and his grandstanding rendition of a pointlessly extended version of “The Impossible Dream” is off-putting. Equally disconcerting is his delivery of the  dialogue that’s included here. When playing Cervantes, Mitchell sounds like a genial TV-sitcom actor, and when he morphs into the Quixote characterization, he assumes an oddly ponderous tone. Most of this production’s co-stars and supporting players are also miscast. As Aldonza, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio displays a beautiful soprano voice when she doesn’t have to push (as in the moving “What Does He Want of Me?”), but there are some harrowing moments when she switches vocal registers to negotiate the more challenging sections of the score (as in the final measures of “It’s All the Same”). And her delivery of dialogue is just as stylistically inappropriate as Mitchell’s, although for a different reason: This Aldonza sounds as if she came from Brooklyn. Ernie Sabella, vocally over-parted as Sancho Panza, has so much trouble with breath support that he chops up phrases willy-nilly. On the other hand, Mark Jacoby certainly has the  goods for the role of the Padre, and Don Mayo sounds fine as the Innkeeper. It’s ironic that one of the best singers in the cast, Stephen Bogardus, has very little to sing as Sanson Carrasco. Aside from everything else, one final reason to dismiss this recording is that it doesn’t include the show’s stirring overture. — M.P.

Original London Cast, 1999 (Decca) (2 / 5) Die-hard musical theater fans love to hate this international mega-hit, which showcases two dozen songs by the hugely popular 1970s Swedish pop group ABBA. It was arguably the first and one of very few musicals to date that achieved great success at the box office by working pre-existing tunes into a new libretto. Well, in this case, sort of new: Catherine Johnson’s book is remarkably similar to the screenplay plot of Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell, which also inspired the flop Broadway musical Carmelina. The heroine of Mamma Mia! is Donna, who keeps a tavern on a tiny Greek island and is making plans for the wedding of her daughter, Sophie. Wanting to find out who her father is, Sophie invites the three most likely candidates to the wedding, thereby setting the stage for farcical complications. The songs, by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus (the male half of ABBA; Stig Anderson also contributed), often have only the barest acquaintance with the story, and at any rate, the album contains no plot synopsis. This Euro-pop is irresistible, the no-star London cast performs with verve, the songs are well arranged by Martin Koch to emulate the original versions — and yet, the recording isn’t really necessary, given the existence of the greatest hits collection ABBA Gold. — David Barbour

Film Soundtrack, 2008 (Polydor) (1 / 5) The London cast album was charming, if unnecessary. This recording is merely unnecessary. Think “karaoke night in a Malibu bar” and you’ve got an idea of this misbegotten project, in which a group of stars who are mostly under-endowed vocally try to demonstrate their pop musical comedy chops. Two of them do have the goods: Christine Baranski has a fun time partnering with actor Philip Michael on “Does Your Mother Know,” and Meryl Streep makes something reasonably touching out of “The Winner Takes it All.” Otherwise, the cast of wobbly warblers is largely drowned out by Gorän Arnberg’s bombastic orchestrations. The men fare worst: In “Our Last Summer,” Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, and Stellan Skarsgård seem locked in a competition to see who can sing the flattest. Brosnan is even worse in “When All is Said and Done,” a song not used in the stage edition of Mamma Mia! Oddly, one of the few pleasing tracks here is an extra of Amanda Seyfried offering a sensitive version of “I Have a Dream/Thank You for the Music.” The latter is performed only with piano accompaniment, and after all the preceding noise, it’s rather restful. — D.B.

Original Broadway Cast, 1966 (Columbia/Sony) (5 / 5) Seldom has a cast recording captured the thrill and excitement of a smash Broadway musical as well as this one does. From the spectacular opening bars of the overture to the huge finale, you can hear and feel the joy of the entire company. The album is so well produced that listening to it is almost like having the entire show performed in your living room. And what a cast! Angela Lansbury, in perhaps the greatest role of her long career, is an unsurpassed Mame. Her voice is rich and melodic, and her wit comes through clearly; it’s a treat to hear such a wonderful blend of acting and singing talent. Beatrice Arthur delivers a droll Vera Charles that will have you laughing out loud; “Bosom Buddies,” her duet with Lansbury, is hilarious. Frankie Michaels as Young Patrick has an amazing singing voice, while Jane Connell’s rendition of “Gooch’s Song” is-one of the great comedic performances in musical theater history. Jerry Herman’s music is among his very best, and his lyrics are sharp, funny, and impeccably crafted. The orchestra is thrillingly conducted by Donald Pippin. Mame actually improves upon the wonderful novel on which it was based, Patrick Dennis’ Auntie Mame, and its subsequent straight play and film adaptations. As wonderful as those versions may be, you can’t help missing great songs like “It’s Today,” “We Need a Little Christmas,” “If He Walked Into My Life” — and, of course, the show-stopping title tune of the musical. All of these are rendered definitively here, and there are interesting bonus tracks of Jerry Herman singing demo versions of several numbers. — Gerard Alessandrini

Film Soundtrack, 1974 (Warner Bros./Rhino) No stars; not recommended. All elements of the Broadway smash hit pointed toward Mame being turned into a wonderful movie musical, but it misfired on the big screen. The soundtrack album reveals how Lucille Ball’s lack of voice and musicality sabotaged the film more than any of its other flaws. As much as we all love Lucy, her singing here is unlistenable; she sounds ill at ease performing numbers written for someone with the vocal chops of a Judy Garland. Some of the choral work on this recording is very nice, but the orchestral arrangements are wanting. And although Bea Arthur and Jane Connell reprise the original roles for which they earned acclaim on Broadway, even they sound uncomfortable here. Only Robert Preston as Beau Burnside has a stellar moment when he sings “Loving You,” an excellent song that Jerry Herman composed expressly for the movie. — G.A.

Original Broadway Cast, 1973 (Bell/January Records) (3 / 5) This musical got the worst reviews imaginable but ran five years, thanks to its star, who could not act, sing, or dance but was a magician unlike any we’d ever seen. A skinny little hippie in jeans with a fresh, artless, chipmunk-cheeked persona, Doug Henning created illusions so startling and imaginative that the show’s hideous physical production and the basic crumminess of its book didn’t matter. On the cast album, Stephen Schwartz’s songs jump lightly from one pop genre to another in a casual, genial style of writing. This is a brief score and a minor one, but it’s not without its pleasures. The only interestingly conceived character is a beautiful young woman named Charmin, who in the show materialized before our eyes in a plexiglass box. Whenever any magician needs to conjure up a beautiful woman, it’s her — and she’s sick of it. “Charmin’s Lament,” a mock country-western number, is performed by the funny, genuinely sexy Anita Morris. Although “Lion Tamer” may be a bit too on-the-nose as ingenue Dale Soules’ first song, it’s still appealing. David Ogden Stiers’ villainous set piece “Style” is helped by the cheerful oddness of its music, as is “Two’s Company.” The most well remembered number of the score is probably “West End Avenue. ” Belted intensely by Soules, the song is skillful and effective if a tad overwrought. Henning doesn’t sing at all; his entire performance on the cast album consists of one line, spoken unsurely.  — David Wolf

Original Broadway Cast, 1968 (RCA/DRG) (3 / 5) Hardly remembered today, this show has had only one small-scale revival. It marked the return of Shirley Jones to Broadway, where she began her career in choruses before going on to star in the film versions of great musicals. Playing opposite her was her husband, Broadway veteran Jack Cassidy. Maggie Flynn was directed by Morton DaCosta, who had helmed such hits as Auntie Mame and The Music Man. The book, music, and lyrics were a collaboration of Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, and George David Weiss. With encouraging out-of-town reviews, the musical seemed to have everything going for it, but it opened in New York to decidedly mixed notices. “The Thank-You Song” may seem to be a poor man’s “Do-Re-Mi,” but there’s more to Maggie Flynn than that number. Cleverly using the New York City draft riots of 1863 as background for a romance as well as a story of racial tolerance, the show has a tuneful score that made for a really fine cast album. “Why Can’t I Walk Away?” is powerfully sung by Cassidy as Maggie’s ex-husband Phineas. Whether delivering the lullaby “Pitter Patter” or the rousing “Mr. Clown,” Cassidy uses his voice to great advantage. As Maggie, who runs an orphanage for black children, Jones sings beautifully in the clear-as-abell soprano that helped make her a star, and she’s just as engaging when belting out the cheery “Nice Cold Morning” and the sly “I Wouldn’t Have You Any Other Way.” Among the orphans are future stars Stephanie Mills, Irene Cara, and Giancarlo Esposito; the group as a whole sounds glorious, especially in the chilling “The Game of War.” Robert R. Kaye is in fine voice as Colonel Farrady (Maggie’s beau). The title tune is introduced as a ballad for Cassidy and later turns into an up-tempo production number. The recording concludes with Jones singing “Mr. Clown” while Cassidy sings “Maggie Flynn,” the two songs fitting together perfectly. — Jeffrey Dunn

New York Concert Cast, 1988 (CBS) (4 / 5) This is a musically adventurous, complex, and unruly Colombian stew by Heitor Villa-Lobos. The show was a flop on Broadway in 1948, but an admired one that was brought back decades later in a Lincoln Center concert version. The melodies, harmonies, and intricate rhythms of Magdalena sound like no other Broadway score, and the composer’s use of contrapuntal rhythms and strains — a player piano in the middle of a priest’s reverie, a pagan uprising during a state ceremony — is as sophisticated as in any opera. His orchestrations are dazzling, too, combining South American folk motifs with the sounds of late’40s Broadway. Unfortunately, the story that librettist Homer Curran and lyricists Robert Wright and George Forrest concocted is incomprehensible and annoyingly pious; the dull, religious heroine triumphs, but the fun-loving heathens have the best material. Some of the ballads and recitatives are faux-naif and bogus, but if you can endure those failings, you’ll be rewarded with a lavish, well-sung musical presentation based on the Lincoln Center concert. The witty “Food for Thought” lyrics, trilled to perfection by villainess Judy Kaye, and her later “Piece de Resistance”stand out. There’s also fine work from George Rose in one of his last roles, hamming it up lustily as a corrupt general. The romantic leads, Faith Esham and Kevin Gray, seem a little pallid by comparison, but they’re unfairly weighted down by all that shallow dialogue. Evans Haile conducts an enormous orchestra and chorus masterfully, and the flow of imaginative Villa-Lobos music is unending. A special nod to percussionist Patrick Smith, who is probably recuperating still. — Marc Miller

Original Broadway Cast, 1966 (Columbia/DRG) (4 / 5) Marshall Barer was an unsung genius lyricist of the musical theater; his output was slight in terms of quantity, but he could write a ballad or comic song with a felicity equal to anyone in the field. The Mad Show, a reunion with his Once Upon a Mattress collaborator Mary Rodgers, yielded one of the funniest recordings in cast album history. Of course, it helps if you’re tuned in to the anarchic (and New York Jewish) humor of Mad magazine. The excellence of the revue, the unity of its components, and its terrific cast all shine through on the recording. Here are Linda Lavin, JoAnne Worley, MacIntyre Dixon, Richard Libertini, and Paul Sand in the show that propelled their long, distinguished careers. A highlight of the album is a non-Barer song, “The Boy From,” which all good musical comedy queens (err, fans) know was credited to Rodgers and “Esteban Ria Nido” — a pseudonym for Stephen Sondheim. The Mad Show ran for almost nine hundred performances. Unfortunately, when the show was released for production by regional groups, it was in a bowdlerized version. To add insult to injury, the recording wasn’t issued on CD until 2005, when DRG happily remedied that situation.  — Ken Bloom

Original Broadway Cast, 1974 (ABC/MCA) (4 / 5) This beloved flop starred Robert Preston as silent-movie pioneer Mack Sennett and Bernadette Peters as his leading lady/lover, Mabel Normand. In spite of numerous revisions and revivals, the show never works. Michael Stewart’s downbeat book tells the story of a failed romance ending with Normand’s early death, while Jerry Herman’s witty, hooray-for-Hollywood songs belong to another musical altogether. The promised cocktail of tough humor and glossy tears is, in fact, a melange of unpalatable opposites. Nevertheless, it’s a hell of a score that provides a deluxe showcase for two of Broadway’s greatest stars. Preston’s gritty singing is ideally suited to the clever lyrics of “Movies Were Movies,” “Hundreds of Girls,” and “My Heart Leaps Up,” all of which layout Sennett’s philosophy of filmmaking. Peters’ Betty Boop-style belt is perfect in the galvanizing “Look What Happened to Mabel,” the furious “Wherever He Ain’t,” and the wounded torch song “Time Heals Everything.” Both stars score in different versions of the ballad “I Won’t Send Roses.” Other pluses include Lisa Kirk belting her way through the vivacious “Big Time” and “Tap Your Troubles Away,” as well as the inevitable Herman salute to the female star, “When Mabel Comes in the Room.” All of the melodies sparkle in Philip J. Lang’s orchestrations. This is a classic case of a show album that outclasses the show itself. — David Barbour

London Concert Cast, 1988 (First Night) (2 / 5) This live recording of a concert of songs from Mack & Mabel has George Hearn and Denis Quilley lending their big voices to Mack’s songs, Debbie Shapiro Gravitte walloping the daylights out of “Big Time” and “Wherever He Ain’t,” Georgia Brown’s eccentric but touching version of “Time Heals Everything,” and Tommy Tune’s ebullient “Tap Your Troubles Away.” Debits include the replacement of “My Heart Leaps Up,” Mack’s tribute to the Keystone Kops, with the inferior “Hit ‘Em on the Head.” Jerry Herman narrates. — D.B.

Original London Cast, 1995 (Angel) (3 / 5) Although the leads are not ideal, this recording contains plenty of material not found on the Broadway album, including both act finales, an entr’acte, some reprises, and a title song that uses the melody of “Look What Happened to Mabel.” Howard McGillin is vocally overqualified as Mack; in “I Won’t Send Roses,” he laments the lack of romance in his soul in a voice that throbs with feeling. Caroline O’Connor as Mabel sounds eerily like Bernadette Peters (or an impersonator of her). Still, McGillin makes a very good case for “Hit ‘Em on the Head,” and O’Connor is appealing throughout. Kathryn Evans provides lusty renditions of “Big Time” and “Tap Your Troubles Away.” And, if anything, Larry Blank’s revisions of Philip ]. Lang’s orchestrations improve upon the originals.  — D.B.