CDs: Danke Für Die Lieder

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CD: MAMMA MIA!-German Cast Recording Polydor

Within the first five years of their blockbuster careers, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, and Les Miserables all had multiple cast recordings. But the show that now appears poised to surpass those titles to become the biggest hit in musical-theatre history has made it through the first five years of its international life with only a single cast recording.

The show is Mamma Mia!, and while it has already been performed by countless performers worldwide, the only cast album up to now has been the one documenting the world premiere, the 1999 London cast recording on Polydor/Decca Broadway. Even though the show became a huge Broadway hit, no recording was made of a New York company that included such vocally impressive folk as Louise Pitre, Karen Mason, and Judy Kaye. Kaye was similarly unable to preserve her Tony-winning Broadway role in that other blockbuster, The Phantom of the Opera.

Recently released by Polydor is Mamma Mia!'s second cast album, a live recording of the smash what else? German premiere production in Hamburg, a lively performance complete with laughter, applause, rhythmic clapping, and even the pre-overture loudspeaker announcement.

When Saturday Night Fever played Germany, the dialogue was translated into German, but the well-known, pre-existing pop songs were sung in English. One might have expected the same for the ABBA songs around which Mamma Mia! is built. But as the new recording makes clear, the songs have been translated into German, and by that master of German musical-theatre translators, Michael Kunze, who's also the co-author of Dance of the Vampires and Elisabeth. Even in translation, some of the songs "Honey, Honey," "Money, Money," "Mamma Mia," "Chiquitita," "Dancing Queen," "Super Trouper," "S.O.S.," "Voulez-Vous" retain their original titles.

It was a good idea for a second recording of the show to be done live. While the tunestack is identical to that of the original recording, the German disc naturally includes more integral dialogue and is a far better representation of the actual show than the London CD. The London cast recording was recently reissued with three bonus megamix-finale tracks, including "Waterloo"; none of the finale is heard on the Hamburg set.

Considering the dozens of Mamma Mia! casts that have gone unpreserved, the Hamburg company is indeed lucky to get its own recording. Carolin Fortenbacher, whose roles have included Evita and Aldonza, is an intense, guttural Donna, and Peggy Pollow is sweet and strong as daughter Sophie.

Probably because I was not familiar with these songs prior to Mamma Mia!, this collection of random ABBA hits by now sounds to me almost like a real show score. On July 18, a second German Mamma Mia! company opens in Stuttgart, and the Donna will be Jasna Ivir, who sings Rosie on the Hamburg recording. Also expected soon is a Mamma Mia! Dutch cast recording.

CD: AIDA-German Cast Recording BMG

Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida is the only one of Disney's trio of hit Broadway stage musicals that has yet to be seen in London. But some time ago, Disney's Aida yielded a Dutch cast recording. And added to the field this year was a German cast album, from the Aida that opened at the Colosseum Theater in Essen last October and continues to run there.

The German Aida duplicates the Broadway staging, choreography and design. The German lyrics are again the work of Michael Kunze. The song "Elaborate Lives" becomes "Durch Das Dunkel Der Welt," or "Through the Darkness of the World." The CD features the same twenty-two tracks as the Broadway and Dutch Aida recordings; the show's brief overture is still absent.

Aida requires three young principals who are good-looking and who possess powerful voices. From the recording and the photos in the booklet, the Essen trio appears to fill the bill. What they don't manage to do, at least on disc, is to emerge with the distinctive vocal personalities of the Broadway originals. So while the score remains enjoyable, the performance here is assertive but on the bland side. In the title role, Florence Kasumba is the most vocally impressive. Amneris is played by Maricel, a lady with one name, like Madonna, Cher, Lilo, or Orfeh. The alternate Aida is simply named Oceana. Mathias Edenborn is Radames.

DVD: AUTANT EN EMPORTE LE VENT-2004 French Cast Warner Vision

With a score by important Broadway composer Harold Rome Pins and Needles, Call Me Mister, Fanny, Wish You Were Here, Destry Rides Again, I Can Get It for You Wholesale, a stage musical version of Margaret Mitchell's beloved novel Gone With the Wind was first mounted in 1970 in Japan, where the book was especially popular.

Best known, of course, from its 1939 film version, Gone With the Wind was a property that didn't cry out for stage musicalization. But the spectacular Japanese production, staged by Joe Layton, moved on to London's Drury Lane Theatre, where, with Harve Presnell as Rhett Butler, it played for a year beginning in 1972. The American version of the Layton-Rome musical, with Lesley Ann Warren as Scarlett O'Hara and Pernell Roberts as Rhett, expired on the West Coast, an announced April, 1974 Broadway opening cancelled.

Japan was so fond of the property that a homegrown musical version was later tried, this one mounted by the all-female Takarazuka company. Recently released on DVD in PAL format is a live, January 2004 taping of a new French pop-opera version of Gone With the Wind, called Autant En Emporte Le Vent, which is also the name of the film in France.

The words and music are by Gerard Presgurvic, who wrote the awful Romeo and Juliet pop-opera spectacle that was also performed in Paris and also released on DVD. With English lyrics by Don Black, Presgurvic's Romeo and Juliet was subsequently mounted in London, where it flopped, but was recorded.

Taped at the vast Palais des Sports, Autant En Emporte Le Vent has most of the characters you would expect, from Scarlett, Rhett, Ashley, and Melanie to Belle Watling, Gerald O'Hara, and "Mama" Mammy. A major addition is "Le chef des esclaves" head slave, who leads an "Ol' Man River"-style protest number called "Être Noir."

Even with the appropriate and very lavish sets and costumes, Autant En Emporte Le Vent is typical of these Eurotrash pop spectacles, mixing nondescript pop-rock music, elementary lyrics, aerobic choreography, state-of-the-art lighting, and beautiful performers. These French spectaculars barely qualify as musicals, functioning more as pop concerts built around famous titles. Whether it be Cinderella, The Ten Commandments, The Little Prince, Notre Dame de Paris, or Gone With the Wind all available on DVD, the scores are pretty much interchangeable.

For a couple of scenes in the second act, though, Autant En Emporte Le Vent actually behaves like a real musical, particularly in "Mentir," a number in which Rhett, Mammy and company comment on Scarlett's deceptive nature. Because of the property it's taken from, this is considerably more interesting than those other French pop-opera DVDs. Still, it makes Rome's Gone With the Wind musical look like My Fair Lady.

Scarlett is plausibly enacted by a young woman named Laura Presgurvic, presumably the daughter of the composer-lyricist. The enormous production is directed and choreographed by Kamel Ouali. Unfortunately, there are no English subtitles, but it's easy enough to follow the action of the two-hour production. And there are numerous DVD bonus features, including music videos of the principal songs.

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