Original London Cast, 1989 (Geffen, 2CDs) No stars; not recommended. As was the case with The Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables, its equally lamentable predecessors, Miss Saigon was brought into the world by people who followed a crooked path to enormous popular and financial (but not artistic) success: Create a poorly written stage musical based on a story that has been beloved for generations and, with the help of shrewd marketing, it will run for years even if the adaptation is third-rate, or worse. The plot of Miss Saigon is based on that of the Puccini opera Madama Butterfly and its antecedents, with the action reset to the era of the Vietnam War. But the Claude-Michel Schönberg-Alain Boublil show built around that intriguing concept has one of the most impoverished scores ever contrived for the musical theater, including some dicey borrowings from the works of other composers; for instance, “Why, God, Why?” begins with a beautiful tune that was originally written by Richard Rodgers for “There’s a Small Hotel” in On Your Toes. The Francophone librettist Boublil’s collaboration with Richard Maltby, Jr. yielded lyrics that are awkwardly phrased to the point of semi-literacy. (A few examples among dozens: “God, the tension is high, not to mention the smell,” “My parents got themselves killed in the week you changed sides,” and “You must decide upon which side you’re really on.” ) The song “Movie in My Mind” illustrates the chasm between the creators’ goals and their abilities: The idea of the Vietnamese prostitutes imagining an alternate reality in order to bear the selling of their bodies is interesting, but the music and lyrics are utterly pedestrian. Although it’s difficult to identify the nadir of the score, one good candidate is “Bui Doi,” a shamelessly manipulative plea on behalf of children sired by American servicemen and left behind in Vietnam; experiencing Miss Saigon via audio recording at least spares one having to view the tasteless film that was projected onstage during this sequence. Listeners are also spared the spectacle of the completely Caucasian-looking and British-sounding Jonathan Pryce in the role of the Engineer, a reprehensible Eurasian pimp, but Pryce is badly miscast even from an aural standpoint. On the plus side, Lea Salonga sounds lovely and winsome as Kim. Simon Bowman as her lover, Chris, sings well but doesn’t sound American, which is a problem in terms of the plot. — Michael Portantiere

Studio Cast, 1995 (Angel, 2CDs) No stars; not recommended. The CD booklet notes assure us that there was much more to the success of Miss Saigon than the stunning onstage simulation of the landing and takeoff of a helicopter. Yet this recording begins with the whirring of chopper blades, as if to admit: “Yes, that special effect is what most people will remember about the show.” Billed as a “complete recording,” it includes revisions of the score that were made following the London production. The cast, drawn from several of the show’s worldwide productions, is backed by a huge orchestra. Joanna Ampil’s Kim is very much in the Lea Salonga mold, which is a good thing. The partly Asian Kevin Gray brings credibility to the role of the Engineer, but even he can’t triumph over such dreck as “The American Dream,” a hit-them-over-the-head number in which the title phrase is repeated 18 times. Like his recorded predecessor in the role of Chris, Peter Cousens, from the Sydney company, has a fine voice but is unable to sound convincingly American. Hinton Battle sings John’s “Bui Doi” for all it’s worth, which is very little, and the thankless role of Ellen is well handled by Ruthie Henshall. The orchestra, conducted by David Charles Abell, plays beautifully, and the sound quality of the recording is superb, but it’s all in service of a score that, unsurprisingly, seems to have had no staying power whatsoever outside of the show itself. — M.P.

London Cast, 2014 (Verve, 2CDs) No stars; not recommended. Can the phrase “diminishing returns” be applied to the third cast album of a show when its score has so little worth to begin with? This is arrogantly billed as the “definitive recording” of Miss Saigon, and it’s probably best to leave it to fans of the show to decide whether or not they agree with that assessment.  Many of the lyrics were rewritten for this 25th anniversary production, but not necessarily for the better. Some of the new lyrics do improve at least somewhat on the horrendous grammar of the originals, but the main impetus for the rewrites seems to have been to make the show more graphic in terms of sex and grit — so much so that this live recording bears an “explicit lyrics” warning. (Example, “If I’m your pin-up, I’ll melt all your brass, stuck on your ball with a pin in my ass.” Seriously.) As for the cast, Jon Jon Briones is an appropriately oily Engineer; Eva Noblezada’s voice is capable of sweetness and power as necessary in the role of Kim;  and Alistair Brammer has a lovely, lyrical tenor, plus he’s the only recorded Chris who sounds convincingly American rather than British.  (Note: After its run at the Prince Edward Theatre in London, this production transferred to Broadway, and Briones won a Tony Award for his performance. A high quality video of the production, captured in London, is also available for those who have any interest in such an item.) — M.P.

Original Broadway Cast, 1949 (Columbia/Sony) (2 / 5) Irving Berlin’s highly anticipated follow-up to Annie Get Your Gun was one of those can’t-miss packages that missed. It had thick postwar nostalgia, Jerome Robbins choreography, direction by Moss Hart, sets by Oliver Smith, and a book by the distinguished playwright Robert E. Sherwood. The plot is slight: Reporter travels to 1885 Paris to interview Bartholdi’s model for the Statue of Liberty, bags the wrong girl, and hilarious complications ensue. Apparently, one of the show’s problems was that audiences rooted for the reporter to end up with his American girlfriend, not the jeune fllle who ultimately lands him. But the real trouble may have been the unexciting principals and Berlin’s lackluster score. Eddie Albert, a Broadway pro by 1949, was capable but hardly one to set a stage ablaze. The girls fighting for his affections, Allyn Ann McLerie and Mary McCarty, were promising young talents, the former more a dancer than a singer (Exhibit A: her high notes in “Just One Way to Say I Love You”) and the latter an ideal best-pal sort overselling middling material. Berlin packs some good foreign-relations jabs into “Only for Americans,” and the show’s finale, “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor,” has the required dignity, although McLerie’s thin soprano undercuts it somewhat. Otherwise, the album is interesting as a document of how deeply ingrained sexism was in 1949. In “Homework,” career gal McCarty admits that her real dream is “Staying / At home and crocheting / And meekly obeying / The guy who comes home.” In “You Can Have Him,” she says that her greatest desire is to “give him babies, one for every year.” Sheesh! — Marc Miller

Original Broadway Cast, 1970 (Project 3) (2 / 5) “Good MORN-ing, ladies!!” Shelley Winters’ entrance line in this musical biography of the Marx Brothers and their indomitable mother is brayed rather than spoken, and most of her subsequent readings on this shrill cast album are snorted rather than sung. Winters had sung before –she was a replacement Ado Annie in the original Oklahoma! — but she’s hoarse here, and more pushy than the role requires. The part, a Mama Rose lite without subtext or character growth, ultimately defeats the star. Other components of this Larry Grossman-Hal Hackady work, their first for Broadway aside from a couple of revue songs, are tuneful if frequently mired in showbiz cliché: Harpo’s (Daniel Fortus’s) love ballad to his mother, “Mama, a Rainbow”; a wry brothers’ lament, “Where Was I When They Passed Out Luck?”; and father Frenchie’s (Arny Freeman’s) torch song “Empty,” cut before opening night but included here. A duet between Lewis J. Stadlen as Groucho and Julie Kurnitz as a Margaret Dumont type is glorious, and an ambitious finale depicting the progression of the brothers’ characters gets an “A” for effort. But the score lacks a certain something, and it’s not well supported by garish orchestrations that are, shockingly, the work of the great Ralph Burns. — Marc Miller

Original Broadway Cast, 1961 (RCA) (3 / 5) Jerry Herman’s first Broadway score is surely one of his best, an atmosphere-soaked tour through contemporary Israel in service of a tired soap opera plot. At age 30, Herman was already a melody master. Note his gift for well-judged production numbers (the minor/major-key intricacies of “Independence Day Hora”), stirring title songs (dancer-singer Tommy Rall delivers this one with vigor), 11-o’clock showstoppers (“Hymn to Hymie,” with Molly Picon socking across a funny lyric), and warmly appealing ballads (the ardent, chromatic “There’s No Reason in the World”). The orchestrations, by Eddie Sauter and Hershy Kay, are more interesting than those that Herman’s scores generally commanded — even his bigger hits. Robert Weede, fresh from The Most Happy Fella, could still play an aging romantic lead with the best of them. Unfortunately, this time he has less to play off of; leading lady Mimi Benzell is vocally precise but terminally dull, and she doesn’t let her hair down even when the lyrics demand it. The whole album feels a little hurried, incomplete, and short on dance interludes. But Herman comes out swinging: The opening number, “Shalom,” announces an extremely promising Broadway songwriter. That was this score’s hit song, but there’s plenty more to appreciate here.  — Marc Miller

Original Broadway Cast, 1944 (Decca) (3 / 5) Cole Porter, Herbert Fields, and Dorothy Fields enjoyed a long run with this silly piece of wartime escapism, but the major force behind the show was producer Mike Todd. First, he saturated the stage with showgirls. Then he got Porter to write a song about them for the stolid baritone Wilbur Evans to sing — “Girls (to the Right of Me, Girls to the Left of Me)” — while the chorines wiggled and shrieked around him. Disappointingly, the show’s star, the great comic Bobby Clark, is absent from this 21-minute cast album. The lead female comic, June Havoc, plays a lady bullfighter and gets to wail Porter’s “Count Your Blessings” (about the advantages of death), “There Must Be Someone for Me” (a Porter list song), and “Abracadabra.” Like so many 1940s comediennes, Havoc sounds hoydenish and too pleased with herself, bur such was the style. Evans drones the hit ballad “I Love You” without inflection, but the chorus scampers through “What a Crazy Way to Spend Sunday,” and Corinna Mura hits stratospheric notes with ease in “Sing to Me, Guitar” and “Carlotta.” While none of the material is classic, Decca’s recording of highlights conveys the incidental charms of a loud, throw-it-in-if-it-works, wartime success. As musical theater, it’s forgettable; as a crash course in tired-businessman entertainment of the period, it’s peachy. — Marc Miller

Original Broadway Cast, 1981 (RCA) (5 / 5) A big flop in its original Broadway production, this show boasts one of Stephen Sondheim’s best scores. George Furth’s book, based on a George S. Kaufman-Moss Hart disappointment, follows three erstwhile best friends — a composer-turned-producer, his former lyricist partner, and an author/journalist — backward in time from adulthood to their idealistic salad days in New York, reviewing the missteps, betrayals, and compromises made along the way. With its lurid “inside” view of showbiz, the musical was dramatically unworkable. Also, the production design was disastrous; and the performers, playing gin-swilling, backstabbing sophisticates through most of the show, were too young. But none of this matters when you’re listening to the recording. Savor the heartbreaking melodies and trenchant lyrics, or analyze the score’s jigsaw-puzzle construction in which themes and ideas are set forth, then quoted and reworked, creating a solid emotional substructure. (The melody that’s first heard as “The Hills of Tomorrow” is reused several times and serves as a strong musical through-line.) Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations are brassy and driving, and the three leads are marvelous. As composer Franklin Shepard, Jim Walton displays a piercing tenor that shines especially in “Not a Day Goes By,” one of Sondheim’s most wounding ballads. Lonny Price is appealing as Charley, Frank’s collaborator; he easily navigates the tortuous lyrics of “Franklin Shepard, Inc.” and gives a heartfelt reading of the rueful “Good Thing Going.” Another plus is a young Jason Alexander as Joe. But the big revelation is Ann Morrison, devastating as Mary, the writer who descends into alcoholism while pining for Frank. She brings an overwhelming warmth and sadness to “Like It Was” and “Not a Day Goes By,” and is just as strong in the invigorating “Now You Know.” — David Barbour

Leicester Haymarket Theatre Cast, 1993 (JAY, 2CDs) (4 / 5) This is a recording of a heavily revised version of Merrily We Roll Along, with substantial dialogue sequences included. The story line is still plagued by a breathless view of showbiz mores, and the idea that writing Broadway musicals is a career for noble souls while working on Hollywood films is iniquitous. New material includes “That Frank,” a reworking of “Rich and Happy”; “Growing Up,” sung by Frank and his second wife, Gussie; and the entr’acte, bows, and exit music. Also included is a song that was cut from the original production: “The Blob,” Gussie’s disenchanted description of the guests at her New York party. This lively, up-tempo performance has strong work from its mostly British cast, especially Michael Cantwell as Frank and Jacqueline Dankworth as Beth, Frank’s first wife. Maria Friedman strains for brittle sophistication as Mary, but she partners nicely with Dankworth and Cantwell in “Not a Day Goes By.” American performer Evan Pappas is a very capable Charley, especially in “Good Thing Going.” Louise Gold is an aptly cynical Gussie. Minor flaws include some shaky American accents and occasionally over-emphatic performances, but it’s interesting to hear the score performed by an adult cast. — D.B.

Off-Broadway Cast, 1994 (Varèse Sarabande) (4 / 5) The York Theatre production of Merrily We Roll Along is preserved on this recording, which presents a slightly condensed version of the material heard on the Leicester Haymarket album and has a slight edge over that version because it boasts superb singing and warmer performances overall. Malcolm Gets and Adam Heller are in fine form as Frank and Charley. Amy Ryder is quite wonderful as tough-talking, heartbroken Mary.  Michele Pawk is a gutsy Gussie (her brassy rendition of “Good Thing Going” is a riot), and Anne Bobby is the most touching Beth on record, especially in “Not a Day Goes By.” Jonathan Tunick’s new orchestrations, for far fewer instruments than the Broadway production boasted, work quite well, giving the entire performance energy and bite. A particular standout is “Opening Doors,” one of Sondheim’s most dazzling numbers, in an extended sequence that shows us Frank, Charley, and Mary at the beginning of their careers. — D.B.

New York City Center Encores! Cast, 2012 (PS Classics) (2 / 5) The much-anticipated Encores! concert staging of Merrily We Roll Along proved to be oddly listless, and so is this recording. The casting is partly to blame. Colin Donnell’s Frank is so bland and forgettable that at times he seems to disappear from the show. Lin-Manuel Miranda is strictly pro-forma as Charley, lacking the fury (and the vocal ability) that Lonny Price brought to the role. Celia Keenan-Bolger struggles to effectively deliver Mary’s acid-laced wisecracks  — e.g., PARTY GUEST: “I wrote the screenplay for Frank’s movie.” MARY: “Your secret is safe with me.” Also, during the reprise of “Not a Day Goes By,” one misses the effortless heartbreak that Ann Morrison brought to the number. Thanks to slower tempi and a general lack of urgency, one begins to notice that the song “That Frank” is inferior to the one it replaced, “Rich and Happy,” and that “Growing Up” and “The Blob” are among the weaker numbers in Sondheim’s songbook.  Adam Grupper and Elizabeth Stanley are fine as Joe and Gussie, with Betsy Wolfe the standout as Beth. Completists will want this recording, especially given the personnel involved, but any of its predecessors makes a better case for this famously troubled, heartbreaking show. — D.B.

Broadway Cast, 2023 (Masterworks Broadway) (4 / 5)  Endlessly fussed over but arguably never improved since its original production, Merrily We Roll Along finally achieved smash-hit status via Maria Friedman’s 2023 Broadway revival, which yielded this cast album. With Sondheim’s passing in 2021, and with the original score and script unavailable for production, this is presumably the final, standard version—alas. Dropping the framing device of two high school graduations has meant losing “The Hills of Tomorrow,” the score’s Rosetta Stone and the key to its many musical inventions. The title song, originally sung by the young cast members rebelling against the middle-aged Frank’s commencement speech, makes an enervated stand-alone opening number that, rather than building, merely repeats itself. “Growing Up,” designed to showcase the expanded role of Gussie — now a grasping, man-eating Broadway star who swallows Frank whole — is a low-energy pill inserted once into each act, its lyrics only adding to the show’s oversupply of editorializing. And yet: The crisp, staccato rendering of the overture pulses with excitement, and the three leads are sensational throughout. “That Frank” plays better than usual, thanks to the tense back-and-forth between Jonathan Groff’s Frank and Lindsay Mendez’s Mary. Mendez brings an autumnal regret to “Like It Was” and “Not a Day Goes By.” Daniel Radcliffe’s intelligent, furiously intense “Franklin Shepard, Inc.” may be the best since Lonny Price’s. All three stars display combustible chemistry in “Old Friends” and, in “Opening Doors,” their mutual affection feels natural and unforced. Katie Rose Clarke brings an interesting sense of grievance to “Not a Day Goes By.” Though Radcliffe will never be primarily known as a singer, his performance of “Good Thing Going” has a touching sensitivity that contrasts effectively with the blowsy, brassy rendition of Kristal Joy Browne as Gussie, exposing how Frank and Charley’s work has been vulgarized for Broadway. Merrily continues to be the ultimate heartbreaker, an unfixable show with a superb score, and an endless source of argumentation among fans. If you own the original recording and this one, you have a clear picture of what happened to it on its long, slow journey to box office success. — D.B.

Original Broadway Cast, 1970 (Atlantic/150 Music) (3 / 5) Based on Stephen M. Joseph’s book of the same title, The Me Nobody Knows is a collection of writings by inner-city students turned into a musical by composer Gary William Friedman, lyricist Will Holt, and playwright Herb Schapiro. Holt did his best to create lyrics without making big alterations to the material; the result is a collection of poetic songs that describe the dreams of kids growing up in the ghetto. With their defiantly hopeful voices, the show’s energetic company of 12 brings truth to songs like “If I Had a Million Dollars,” “How I Feel,” and “Black.” The cast album was belatedly released on CD; the sound quality isn’t very clean, and some of the kids’ voices are pretty rough. Still, these elements give The Me Nobody Knows an authentic feeling of time and place, while the material itself — concerning drugs, poverty, and other challenges faced by this population — is still sadly relevant. Even those who don’t appreciate the funky rock score will likely be moved by the infectious melody and imagery of “Light Sings” or the musical’s beautiful finale, “Let Me Come In.” — Brooke Pierce

Film Soundtrack, 1944 (MGM/Rhino-Turner)  (1 / 5) Based on a series of stories by Sally Benson that originally appeared in The New Yorker, Vincente Minnelli’s Meet Me in St. Louis is one of the glories of MGM’s Arthur Freed unit, but the film doesn’t have enough noteworthy music or interesting vocal performances to fill a soundtrack album. Judy Garland renders Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane’s “The Boy Next Door,” “The Trolley Song,” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” with an exquisitely light touch. She also does a lovely job with “Boys and Girls Like You and Me,” a Rodgers and Hammerstein song that wound up on the cutting-room floor. About half of the Rhino-Turner CD consists of musical underscoring from the movie, which means that a few vocal gems alternate with long stretches of orchestral tedium, even though the instrumental tracks do feature luxurious orchestrations by Conrad Salinger. — Charles Wright

Original Broadway Cast, 1989 (DRG)  (2 / 5) Back when this stage version of Meet Me in St. Louis opened, who could have ever foreseen that, not too many years later, Broadway would be reduced to a theme park full of musical revivals, revisals, and adaptations of Hollywood movies? The score of the show was a mixture of the small handful of standards contained in MGM’s 1944 film and additional numbers by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. Ironically, the paucity of invention on Broadway over the past decade makes this technically splendid recording of a so-called “New Broadway Hit Musical” worth a second listen. A revision of a stage adaptation that Martin, Blane, and Sally Benson had concocted in 1960 as summer fare for the Municipal Opera of St. Louis, the Broadway Meet Me in St. Louis was quite overproduced; its lavish set design by Keith Anderson included a frozen pond on which dancers executed intricate skating choreography by Michael Tokar. In addition to its visual excesses, the show offered a sprightly mix of Martin-Blane songs and old chestnuts like “Skip to My Lou” and “Under the Bamboo Tree” (both in the film version as well), sumptuously orchestrated by Michael Gibson and well performed by a plucky, talented cast. It’s hard not to feel an uplift of spirit when the large pit band, under Bruce Pornahac’s baton, soars through the lush overture, with its combination of brassiness and schmaltz; or when Donna Kane, the show’s ingenue, lets rip her energetic rendition of “The Trolley Song.” The show didn’t last long in New York, but its thoroughly listenable score is a reminder that Martin and Blane deserve a page in the Great American Songbook. — C.W.

London Cast, 1985 (EMI) (4 / 5) This production took a very charming, very old musical, gussied up the book, the score, and the arrangements, and presented it to the public as a lovely nostalgia fest. Me and My Girl had originally opened in London in 1937 and enjoyed a very long run. With music by Noel Gay and book and lyrics by L. Arthur Rose, the show tells the sweet tale of Bill Snibson, a cockney ne’er-do-well who turns out to be an earl and is pressured to forsake his Lambeth girlfriend, Sally Smith, when he assumes his title. Director Mike Ockrent, producer Richard Armitage, and executive producer David Aukin supervised the musical’s rebirth, incorporating revisions by playwright Stephen Fry and Ockrent, and interpolating several songs with music by Gay from other sources. The production proved to be a big success in London and, a year later, on Broadway. Among the best numbers are the title song, Bill’s “Leaning on a Lamp Post,” and the catchy “Lambeth Walk,” which was a huge international hit in 1937 and delighted a new generation of audiences when resurrected in the 1980s. The recording is skillfully produced by Norman Newell. As Bill, Robert Lindsay is a real charmer, and so is his Sally: Emma Thompson, who went on to a brilliant career as a highly respected actress in non-musical films. — Michael Portantiere

Broadway Cast, 1986 (MCA) (4 / 5) The Broadway transfer of the hit London revisal of Me and My Girl inaugurated the Marquis Theatre, located within a mammoth new hotel whose construction entailed the razing of several old theaters, including the venerable Helen Hayes and Morosco. This may have predisposed many Broadway old-timers to hate the show, but Me and My Girl was so much fun that it was impossible to harbor any ill will toward it. Robert Lindsay repeated his West End role of Bill Snibson and received a Tony Award for his efforts. Maryann Plunkett, an utterly winning Sally Smith, also won a Tony. Among the old pros on hand in supporting roles are Jane Connell as Maria, Duchess of Deane; George S.Irving as Sir John Tremayne; Timothy Jerome as Herbert Parchester; and Justine Johnston as Lady Battersby. That superb cast, plus the fact that the CD booklet notes by musical theater expert Stanley Green are far more extensive than those for the London album, will make this the preferred recording of the show for many listeners, although some will want to check out the previous album if only for Emma Thompson. — M.P.

Original Broadway Cast, 1953 (RCA) (3 / 5) It’s hard to believe, but Rodgers and Hammerstein did have a few flops in addition to their many hits. Me and Juliet was one such failure, and the team’s only foray into the backstage musical genre. Still,  even this score contains flashes of brilliance. “Marriage Type Love” is a tuneful charm song with a wonderfully romantic lyric, while “That’s the Way It Happens” has just the right pithiness and nonchalance that’s called for. Probably the best and most famous item in the show is “No Other Love,” based on a theme that Rodgers originally wrote for the background score of Victory at Sea, a television documentary on World War II. It’s a lovely song with a beguiling melody, even if it is indicative of the non-character-specific writing in Me and Juliet. Many of the songs are misfires, particularly “We Deserve Each Other” and “Keep It Gay,” both of which are leaden. There is one showbiz-themed song that succeeds: “Intermission Talk.” Isabel Bigley as Jeanie heads the cast, fresh from her starring role in Guys and Dolls; Bill Hayes displays a very appealing voice as Larry; and Joan McCracken as Betty steals the show with her special brand of sassiness. — Gerard Alessandrini

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1985 (Harbinger) (2 / 5) When Bye Bye Birdie exploded on Broadway in 1960, it was an announcement that a brand-new generation had arrived in just about every department. Since then, composer Charles Strouse has had an interesting time of it. He has written the music for more shows than any of his contemporaries, and while most of them were box-office failures, his three big hits — Bye Bye Birdie, Applause, and Annie — have more than made up for the missteps. And even his flops have been filled with terrific songs. That said, Mayor has what may be the least interesting tunes of Strouse’s career. Based on New York City mayor Ed Koch’s book of the same title, and produced while he was still in office, the musical doesn’t take advantage of the spikiness of Koch’s personality; it’s a bland, fairly generic revue that covers familiar NYC subject matter, attitudes, and stereotypes. Unusually, Strouse wrote his own lyrics for this show, and they’re okay, but there’s not much in the way of a fresh point of view here. The book is by Warren Leight, who won a Tony Award for his play Side Man 14 years later. — David Wolf

Off-Broadway Cast, 2001 (Original Cast Records) (4 / 5) The legendary 1967 out-of-town closing performance of this show is notorious for its title character, played by one Marissa Mell, being shot by a firing squad, falling, dying — and then rubbing her itchy nose when she was supposed to be stone-cold dead. In a strange way, Mell’s move has proven to be a good metaphor for this musical, which has refused to die. In 2001, the cast of the York Theatre Company revival recorded the stirring score — unfortunately, with synthesized accompaniment. (No show should use synthesizers if it’s set in an era before synthesizers were invented!) But even those machines can’t destroy Edward Thomas’s strong melodies, which are wed to deft, incisive lyrics by Martin Charnin. Mata Hari (Robin Skye) has a terrific opening song, “Everyone Has Something to Hide,” and the equally effective “Not Now, Not Here.” Captain LaFarge (Michael Zaslow), her would-be capturer/romantic interest, has the pungent “Is This Fact?” and the wistful “How Young You Were Tonight.” The jewel of the score is “Maman.” If only it didn’t sound like the singers were accompanied by automobile horns! — Peter Filichia

Original London Cast, 1996 (Dreamworks) (4 / 5) By the time this latest epic from composer Claude-Michel Schönberg and lyricist Alain Boublil arrived on the scene, the serious pop-opera genre was fading away. That’s too bad, as this is one of the best scores of its type. The book for the show, also by Boublil & Schönberg, was inspired by a historical incident best known for its dramatic treatment in the film The Return of Martin Guerre. The title character, a 16th-century French farmer, is forced into marriage with a young woman, Bertrande, in order to consolidate their Catholic families’ hold on their farmland near the village of Artigat. The marriage is a disaster and produces no children, so Martin runs off to war. Seven years later, he apparently dies on the battlefield. His companion-in-war, a man named Arnaud, subsequently visits Artigat and is mistaken for Martin. Then Arnaud falls in love with Bertrande. This tale of deception is set against a background of smoldering conflict between Catholics and Protestants. It’s a grim piece, carried along by the sweep of Schönberg’s frequently ravishing melodies. Boublil’s lyrics — translated by Herbert Kretzmer, Edward Hardy, and Stephen Clark — are often cruelly pointed, and they serve the story well. The best numbers include the title song; “Here Comes the Morning,” a duet for Martin and Arnaud; “Tell Me to Go,” Arnaud’s plea to Bertrande; and the stunning choral number “The Imposters.” These and some grandly scaled orchestral interludes give Martin Guerre the scale of a true opera. (Skip the one egregious attempt at humor, “Sleeping on Our Own,” delivered by a trio of comic crones.) As Arnaud and Bertrande, lain Glen and Juliette Caton sing beautifully. They receive strong support from Matt Rawle in the title role and Jérôme Pradon as Guillame, who loves Bertrande from afar. — David Barbour

Touring Cast, 1999 (Dreamworks) (3 / 5) After Martin Guerre failed in the West End, producer Cameron Mackintosh tried again. He had Boublil and Schönberg create a new touring version that represents one of the most extensive overhauls of any musical. Even though it follows the same general plot line, it’s an almost total rewrite, with many new songs and with melodies from the 1996 version reassigned and given new lyrics. The result is harsher, focusing even more on the religious strife that’s tearing Artigat apart. If at times the score is shrill, even hysterical, there’s plenty of dramatic power here. Alas, Stephen Clark alone translated the lyrics for the revised show, and they’re much weaker. For example, the new ballad “Live With Someone You Love” is a thesaurus of clichés. On the other hand, “Without You as a Friend” is a canny addition to the score. The title song and “The Imposters” are both still here (albeit with new lyrics), along with many other effective numbers, but William David Brohn’s orchestrations lack majesty. The new cast — Stephen Weller as Martin, Matthew Cammelle as Arnaud, Joanna Riding as Bertrande, Maurice Clark as Guillaume — is vocally skilled and dramatically apt. — D.B.

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1981 (RCA) (1 / 5) Stephen Sondheim compilation shows have always seemed silly to me. Doesn’t the appeal of his work lie largely in its specificity? The original cast album of Marry Me a Little is one of the most plodding, monotonous, and annoying recordings of Sondheim’s songs ever released. The show doesn’t have much of a story, but it does have a concept: On a Saturday evening, a man (played by Craig Lucas) and a woman (Suzanne Henry) who don’t know each other (and who never meet) sit home in their respective apartments and sing Sondheim songs. Among them: “Can That Boy Foxtrot!” and “Uptown, Downtown” (both cut from Follies), the title song and “Happily Ever After” (both cut from Company, although “Marry Me a Little” has been reinstated for subsequent productions of that show), and “There Won’t Be Trumpets” (cut from Anyone Can Whistle, but reinstated for various revivals and concert presentations of that show) . These items are interesting and worth knowing, but that doesn’t mean they work in this context.  That said, the only truly unbearable section of the album is an insufferable combination of “All Things Bright and Beautiful” (Follies) and “Bang!” (A Little Night Music). Although the singing voices of Lucas and Henry are generally lacking in distinction, these two do a somewhat better job in other numbers — but they’re never aided by the cool, impersonal, distant-sounding accompaniment of a lone piano. — Matthew Murray

Original Broadway Cast, 2000 (RCA) (3 / 5) Michael John LaChiusa turns out songs quickly — so quickly, he boasts, that he can sometimes knock off several in a day. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it is a problem when the songs don’t sound so much effortless as hurried, and there’s a strong whiff of that here. LaChiusa has a gift for ravishing melody, but he cuts corners by not bothering to develop the themes and motifs into rounded songs. Seemingly allergic to the traditional 32-bar structure, he prefers to construct his scores as ever-evolving fragments of music. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it can strike the listener as continual songus interruptus. Some parts click and other parts don’t in Marie Christine, a transplant of Euripides’ Medea to New Orleans and Chicago at the turn of the 19th century. The murderous mom here is a Creole with magical powers, who gets involved with a politically ambitious man. When the cad realizes that the liaison could stymie his career, he dumps Marie Christine for a politico’s daughter, and suffers the dumpee’s wrath. LaChiusa’s great fortune is in having Audra McDonald apply her gorgeous voice to his concoctions. She sings beautifully in “Beautiful” and tops herself in a flowing chanson titled “C’est I’amour.” Also shining like diamonds in a flawed setting are Darius de Haas in “Complainte de Lord Pierrot” (from a Jules LaForgue poem), and the always lusty Mary Testa as a toddlin’ town madam. The orchestrations, subtle and authoritative throughout, are by Jonathan Tunick. — David Finkle

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2002 (JAY)  (2 / 5) Roger Rees did first-rate work as Alfie, a Dublin bus driver who revels in amateur theatricals and yearns for a male coworker, but this show was a disappointment. The 1994 film of the same title, a melancholy comedy about Irish eccentrics, was notable for its light touch. In contrast, Terrence McNally’s libretto for the musical consists of much hand-wringing over the fate of closeted, middle-aged, 1960s gay Irish bachelors. Still, Stephen Flaherty’s seductive tunes and Lynn Ahrens’ sharp, economical lyrics shouldn’t be dismissed. High points include the opening title-tune sequence, the rousing yet acrid “Streets of Dublin” (sung by Steven Pasquale as Alfie’s unwitting love object), and the forlorn “Love Who You Love.” Faith Prince, as Alfie’s spinster sister, has to cope with substandard material, and a pair of songs about community theater — “Going Up” and “Art” — seem like they belong in a different show. Still, the score does cast a certain spell, and when it works, it can bring tears to your eyes. A bonus track offers “Love’s Never Lost,” an expanded version of a song fragment heard in the show. — David Barbour