CDs: Another Twelfth Night Musical

JAY Records has been devoting considerable attention to recordings of productions by the York Theatre Company, including The Musical of Musicals, I Sing!, The It Girl, Lucky Stiff, Prodigal, and Roadside. The label also made a live recording of a June 9, 2003 York Theatre benefit concert called NEO, and it recently released the result as a 100-minute, double-CD set.

NEO stands for new, emerging, and outstanding, and the evening was devoted to songs by the current generation of show writers, a self-described "celebration of emerging talent in musical theatre." A few of these authors already have a reputation, like Bat Boy's Laurence O'Keefe. Avenue Q's Jeff Marx is listed among the names on the cover, but his work isn't heard on the recording. Bryan Batt La Cage aux Folles is the host and introducer of the songs, which get piano accompaniment, mostly by Mark Hartman.

Outstanding is the operatic opener, "God Bless These Boys," from a show about the Civil War nurse Mother B. It's the work of Steven Fisher, and it's powerfully sung by Judy Kaye. Matthew Morrison is heard in "A Normal Life," from Douglas J. Cohen's score for The Opposite of Sex, which had a San Francisco production subsequent to this concert.

There's the catchy "Any Day," belted by Hairspray's Kerry Butler and Laura Bell Bundy, from The Three Musketeers by George Stiles Mary Poppins and Paul Leigh. Kaitlin Hopkins and James Barbour have fun with "Slinky Dress/Grumpy Mood," from Adrift in Macau by Peter Melnick and Christopher Durang.

Concerned with a celebrity gossip columnist, The Lady in Penthouse B Matthew Ward-Peter Napolitano yields "Say Hello," performed by Christiane Noll. And there's the outrageous "Sensitive Song," from O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin's musical version of the TV show Cops, delivered by Bat Boy's Deven May.

May and Butler recreate "Inside Your Heart" from Bat Boy. And there's the curiosity item "He's Got Designs on Me," written and sung by John Lypsinka Epperson, from his musical Dial M for Model.

Of course, there's much more, the singers also including Tonya Pinkins, Laura Benanti, Barbara Walsh, Philip Bosco, and Mario Cantone. I can't say that this collection made me wildly optimistic about the future of contemporary musical theatre. But as a sampler of some of the current composing talent around, it's worth a listen.

ILLYRIA Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is among the most frequently musicalized of classic plays. It has been the source of straightforward musical adaptations that retain the names of Shakespeare's characters off-Broadway's Love and Let Love, Broadway's Music Is, both unsuccessful and other musical versions that update and reset the action the off-Broadway hit Your Own Thing, the Broadway flop Play On!, the current Broadway All Shook Up.

Joining the list of straightforward musicalizations of Twelfth Night is Illyria, which was presented last December at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. The company has now produced a seventy-three-minute cast album of the production.

The book, music, and lyrics are by Peter Mills, with Cara Reichel joining Mills for the adaptation. The most recognizable cast name is Joel Blum the Livent Show Boat, who plays jester Feste, but there are fine performances all around. The CD is available at the theatre in Madison, New Jersey or online at www.ShakespeareNJ.org.

Adaptations like Illyria face two significant problems. Can the lyrics hope to equal the quality of the Shakespearean dialogue that remains to surround the songs? And does a comedy as lyrical as Twelfth Night really need songs?

With the accompaniment of a six-piece orchestra, the Illyria score is very much in the style of off-Broadway musicals of the 1960s, which were often adapted from classic plays. Things start out most promisingly, with Feste's title-song "Prologue"; "Any in Illyria" for Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Maria; and the Orsino-Viola duet "How These Things Start." Notable thereafter are Viola's "Olivia"; the catchy ensemble "Cakes and Ale"; Sebastian's "The Lady Must Be Mad"; and the first-act finale, a wistful trio for Viola, Olivia, and Orsino called "Save One."

Illyria is consistently pleasant, a respectable adaptation of its source. Yet it's not quite distinguished enough to convince one that Twelfth Night cries out to be a musical, at least without an updated concept, as in Your Own Thing or All Shook Up.

BROADWAY'S FABULOUS PHANTOMS Lucky Lai/Rhino Records/Warner Strategic Markets

This CD features vocals by eleven of the men who have taken the title role in the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera. Several of them have also appeared in the show on tour, and several of them have also played other roles in the show. Included are such long-running Phantoms as Howard McGillin, Davis Gaines, Hugh Panaro, Brad Little, and Mark Jacoby. Notably absent are Broadway's second and third Phantoms, Timothy Nolen and Cris Groenendaal.

While you might expect several renditions of "The Music of the Night," you don't get any; all eleven men are heard in non-Phantom material. Some of the tracks are taken from other CDs, like Gaines' "Ol' Man River" and McGillin's "All the Things You Are," both excellent. The most bizarre inclusion here is a dramatic Michael Crawford number from the London cast album of the Charles Strouse flop Flowers for Algernon.

Gary Mauer delivers a powerful "This Is the Moment." Panaro is heard in the pretty David Friedman song "You're Already There." Little offers a handsome "Forever From Here" Skip Ewing and Kent E. Blazy. Jerry Herman's lovely "Marianne" gets a strong rendition by Ted Keegan. And Jacoby offers a fine "So In Love."

As indicated, the songs have nothing in common; the tracks have been selected simply to show off the vocal prowess of a bunch of men who have worn that famous mask. Devoted fans of the Lloyd Webber show may want this as a record of most of Broadway's Phantoms. Otherwise, it's an attractive but random collection of male vocals.