CDs: Studio Casts with Cassidy

Columbia Records' 1957 LP of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's superb Brigadoon score was one of a series of 1950s studio-cast recordings produced for Columbia by Goddard Lieberson and conducted by Lehman Engel. The series included such titles as Pal Joey, On Your Toes, Girl Crazy, The Boys from Syracuse, Oh, Kay!, Babes in Arms, Oklahoma!, The Desert Song, and The Merry Widow. But Brigadoon is one of the best of the bunch.

RCA's 1947 original Broadway cast recording of Brigadoon offers vivid performances but runs only thirty-two minutes, lacking several significant numbers. MGM's soundtrack LP to the 1954 film version was also missing several of the stage songs. So when Columbia released its Brigadoon in '57, it ranked as the most comprehensive version available. If it lacked the dance music, an important component of the score, it preserved for the first time such songs as "The Love of My Life," "Jeannie's Packin' Up," and "The Chase."

Since then, even more comprehensive versions of Brigadoon have appeared, including First Night Records' 1988 London revival cast, and the more-or-less complete, 1992 Broadway Angel version, which runs seventy-nine minutes and stars Brent Barrett, Rebecca Luker, and Judy Kaye, conducted by John McGlinn. McGlinn also conducted that trio of soloists for a New York City Opera revival. Just released by JAY Records is another comprehensive Brigadoon CD, to be reviewed here soon.

Still, Columbia's '57 Brigadoon remains attractive because of its principal singers. In the late '50s, husband-and-wife Jack Cassidy and Shirley Jones recorded three albums for Columbia, two discs of duets and this Brigadoon. Jones makes an ideal Fiona. Her "Waitin' for My Dearie" is just lovely, and she's equally fine in "The Heather on the Hill" and "Almost Like Being in Love." Cassidy is an ardent, elegant hero, and he's in top voice, especially in "There But for You Go I" and "From This Day On."

Tenor Frank Porretta is excellent in Charlie Dalrymple's "I'll Go Home with Bonnie Jean" and "Come to Me, Bend to Me." And from the moment she belts a few lines in the "MacConnachy Square" sequence, Susan Johnson's Meg Brockie steals the album. Johnson, who appeared on this Brigadoon "by courtesy of RCA Victor Records," had already played Meg on stage, late in the Broadway original, on tour, and at City Center. She has only two major tracks here, but she makes the most of them. Her "Love of My Life" is superbly phrased and gloriously sung, with Engel's conducting helping to make it about as zesty a track as you're likely to encounter.

I've been campaigning for the CD release of Columbia's Brigadoon for years, and DRG, having already reissued the two Columbia Jones-Cassidy duet albums on a single disc, is finally releasing this Brigadoon on March 22. It remains among the most enjoyable of American studio-cast show recordings from the LP era.

ROBERTA DRG

Another entry in the Lieberson-Engel studio-cast series for Columbia was Roberta, Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach's 1933 Broadway hit. About a former football hero who inherits a Paris dress salon "Gowns by Roberta" from his aunt, the original Roberta starred Ray Middleton Annie Get Your Gun, Man of La Mancha, Tamara, Lyda Roberti, and, in his Broadway debut, Bob Hope.

Although some critics deemed the book little more than an excuse for some elaborate fashion parades, Roberta thrived largely on the strength of its songs, which included "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "Yesterdays," and "You're Devastating." There were two film versions: For the first, in 1935 and co-starring Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, and Ginger Rogers, the score acquired two new hit songs, "I Won't Dance" and "Lovely to Look At." The second film version of Roberta, MGM's in 1952, was, in fact, called Lovely to Look At, and featured Howard Keel, Kathryn Grayson, and Ann Miller. Bob Hope starred in two television productions of Roberta, in 1958 and 1969. And the show was revived in New York by the New Amsterdam Theatre Company, at Town Hall in 1984, with David Carroll, Judy Blazer, and Paula Laurence.

The most significant Roberta recordings were the studio sets on Decca 1944 and Columbia 1952. Both include the film's "Lovely to Look At." Decca's has "Don't Ask Me Not to Sing" and the Fashion Show sequence, both absent on Columbia's, which includes "I Won't Dance." In 2002, Decca reissued its Roberta paired with The Vagabond King, starring Alfred Drake, Kitty Carlisle, and Paula Laurence. Along with Brigadoon, DRG reissues on March 22 the Columbia-Engel Roberta, which was previously released on CD in 1990, on a Columbia Special Products disc that went out of print. Unlike the 1990 CD, DRG's Roberta sports the original jacket design.

With some bits of dialogue thrown in, Decca's Roberta is more theatrical and livelier. Columbia's is very well sung but a bit sluggish. Jack Cassidy, Stephen Douglass, Portia Nelson, and Joan Roberts Oklahoma!'s original Laurey all sing impeccably. But one is grateful for the rowdy Kaye Ballard, who livens things up with "I'll Be Hard to Handle," "I Won't Dance," and "Something Had to Happen."