CDs: Now It Has Everything

Back in January, I offered a two-part survey of the many cast and studio recordings of Fiddler on the Roof. Needless to say, the essential English-language versions of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick's score are RCA's original 1964 Broadway set, featuring Zero Mostel and the best supporting company, and the 1967 CBS London cast recording, with fine work from Topol.

PS Classics' new, seventy-two-minute recording of the current revival is only the second New York/Broadway Fiddler on the Roof recording, and the first major Fiddler of the CD era. For that reason, it's more comprehensive than any previous English-language cast version, featuring a number of items only rarely preserved elsewhere. These include two of "Tevye's Monologues" "They gave each other a pledge..."; "....They're going over my head"; the "Chaveleh" sequence; the "To Life" dance music; the wedding procession; the complete wedding dances; a "Now I Have Everything" reprise; the correct ending for "Far from the Home I Love"; and the closing scene and music.

Of course, it should be noted that the revival drops "The Rumor"/"I Just Heard," a number preserved on the '64 Broadway CD, replacing it with a brand new song, "Topsy-Turvy." Then too, there is a JAY Records studio-cast recording with Len Cariou that preserves the complete, original score, although that recording has yet to be released.

All the additional material gives the new Fiddler a marked advantage over other available recordings. And the CD also features a number of solid performances, notably Randy Graff's fine Golde; a lively "Matchmaker, Matchmaker"; John Cariani's sweet "Miracle of Miracles"; Laura Michelle Kelly's pretty "Far from the Home I Love"; and Robert Petkoff's pleasing "Now I Have Everything."

But all of the other singers on a Fiddler recording matter less than its Tevye. Alfred Molina's readings remain resolutely naturalistic, avoiding any trace of old-work heightening or stylization. His "If I Were a Rich Man" is satisfactory, but one wants a bigger, stronger voice and more expansive singing. Molina, who throws in a number of chuckles to indicate Tevye's winsome personality, is likable but doesn't sound like the larger-than-life force of nature Tevye should be. As a result, one of the great musical-theatre characters becomes less imposing than usual. Even with all the extra material this Tevye gets to preserve, Molina doesn't quite dominate the proceedings.

As for "Topsy-Turvy," which is led by Nancy Opel's Yente, it's moderately catchy and a major selling point for the new CD. But the new song restates ideas that have, by the second act, been made clear. And the number is actually less amusing than "The Rumor."

The attractive packaging includes color photos, lyrics, and essays by director David Leveaux and librettist Joseph Stein. Leveaux's comments are about as pretentious as those he penned for PS Classics' recording of his previous musical revival, Nine. This Fiddler features the original Don Walker orchestrations, with Tony nominee Larry Hochman handling those for the new song and other incidentals.

The new Fiddler can be recommended for all that it preserves; barring a three-LP Japanese recording, this is the most complete Fiddler stage cast album. It's also a respectable, correct, contemporary performance that falls short of inspiration. It doesn't resonate with old-world traditions, and, as a result, it's never as moving as it should be.

NEVA SMALL: MY PLACE IN THE WORLD Small Penny

Neva Small is best remembered for playing Chava in the film version of Fiddler on the Roof and for her belty performance including "I Wonder How It Is" as one of the two principal schoolgirls on the cast album of Henry, Sweet Henry 1967. But Small appeared in a number of other musicals that were never recorded.

She attempts to rectify that situation on her first solo CD, whose most valuable tracks are two of the songs she sang in The Prince of Grand Street 1978, "The Girl With Too Much Heart" and "My Place in the World," the latter the disc's best track. Grand Street was a Robert Preston vehicle that closed on the road and featured a score by Henry's Bob Merrill.

Small sings a number Theresa Merritt performed in F. Jasmine Adams 1971, a faithful off-Broadway musical version of The Member of the Wedding in which Small played Frankie. Small was the daughter of Barbara Cook and Arthur Hill in the 1964 Broadway flop Something More!, and Small preserves one of Cook's catchier numbers from the Sammy Fain/Marilyn and Alan Bergman score, "I Feel Like New Year's Eve." Small also does "You've Gotta Taste All the Fruit," cut from Something More! but sung by Mae West in Myra Breckinridge.

From the amusing and forgotten musical Show Me Where the Good Times Are Edison Theatre, 1970, Small gives us the title song, a number recycled from the score of Hot September, the musical version of Picnic that folded on the road.

A 1986 off-Broadway entry called The Golden Land did get recorded, but Small performs one of its numbers in a different version from the one on the cast album. She sings "Here I Am," which belonged to her young co-star in Henry, Robin Wilson. There's a Hoagy Carmichael song Small delivered in Hoagy and Bix, a production seen at L.A.'s Mark Taper Forum, and the plaintive "I Go On" from Leonard Bernstein's Mass. From Fiddler, there's the cut When Messiah Comes.

Four of the tracks here were recorded in the '80s, including a "Matchmaker, Matchmaker" with Dizzy Gillespie. The other nine numbers have been newly recorded, produced by Walter Willison and arranged and orchestrated by Fred Barton. Small's voice is just as big, powerful, and distinctive as ever, and it's nice to be reacquainted with it.

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