DVDs: Till There Was You

"The Bell Telephone Hour" was carried by NBC-TV from 1959 to 1968. During that run, the program shifted from weekly to biweekly to a series of occasional specials. The show offered classical and popular music, opera, ballet, and musical theatre, with episodes often grouped around a theme or person.

VAI has released on DVD extensive opera selections from the program, as well as a 1964 "Bell Telephone Hour" salute to Cole Porter, hosted by Ethel Merman. Now they've gathered together "Bell Telephone Hour" appearances made by Barbara Cook between 1960 and 1965 for a new, fifty-minute DVD that's a complete treat.

In the '50s, Cook starred in grand TV specials of Bloomer Girl, Yeomen of the Guard, Hansel and Gretel, and Babes in Toyland. But these "Telephone Hour" sequences are probably the best record of Cook in the '60s. This was a great period for her, one that included several of her best performances, with roles in The King and I at City Center, The Gay Life, and She Loves Me. And Cook never sang or looked better than she did around this time.

Perhaps the most valuable section on the DVD is the first, a 1960 medley from Cook's 1957 Broadway hit The Music Man, performed in a fair setting. Cook sings "Till There Was You," and then, with the Buffalo Bills also from the original cast of Music Man, the counterpoint number "Lida Rose"/"Will I Ever Tell You?"

The only segment in black-and-white, a Civil War sequence returns Cook to the Bloomer Girl era for an exquisite "He's Gone Away" and a hushed "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Next is a Vienna medley with her Yeomen of the Guard co-star Alfred Drake, taking Cook back to her Gay Life milieu. Cook offers lovely versions of "Don't Ask Me Why" and "Merry Widow Waltz," and, needless to say, Drake is great too.

For a salute to the Broadway musicals of 1962, Cook is joined by Robert Goulet. Cook supplies terrific renditions of "Simple Joys of Maidenhood" from Goulet's show Camelot and "Nobody Told Me" from No Strings. From 1965 comes the most elaborate sequence, a history of American love songs that kicks off with Cook singing Carnival's "Love Makes the World Go 'Round."

Goulet returns for a salute to the American girl, which has Cook reprising her Bloomer Girl number "It Was Good Enough for Grandma," then delivering a wonderful "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair." Finally, there's a World War II segment, with Cook and Anita Gillette in the wry "They're Either Too Young or Too Old," then Cook in a superb "I'll Walk Alone."

There are occasional flaws in the source videotapes, but, given the value of the material here, they're of no importance. The settings and stagings of the "Telephone Hour" numbers are very much of their time, but they showcase the star admirably. VAI is to be thanked for putting this disc together, a disc that clearly reaffirms Cook as the greatest Broadway soprano of her time. And this program is made all the more satisfying by the knowledge that Cook is still in our midst and still singing so well.

UTE LEMPER: BLOOD & FEATHERS DRG

In my review of DRG's CD of singer-actress Ute Lemper's Blood & Feathers cabaret show, I noted that an audio-only disc couldn't provide the full effect, and that one really needed to see Lemper live. DRG has now released the same act on DVD, filmed live at the Cafe Carlyle on February 24 and 25, 2005. The running time of the DVD is eighty-seven minutes, longer than the CD because it includes two additional numbers, Kurt Weill's "Surabaya Johnny" and "September Song."

Accompanied by a quartet of piano, bass, guitar, and drums, Lemper's program ranges from her trademark Weill to the songs of Piaf, Sondheim, Arlen, and Tom Waitts, and includes one of Lemper's own compositions, the show's title song. The centerpiece of the evening is a moon medley, which takes in the work of Sting and Joni Mitchell. She concludes with a salute to Fred Ebb and Cabaret Lemper was Sally Bowles in a celebrated '80s staging in Paris, emphasizing the link between Brecht-Weill and Kander and Ebb's Cabaret and Chicago.

Lemper is a glamorous, exotic chameleon, capable of evoking memories of Weimar Germany and golden-age Paris yet fully able to deal in the most direct terms with the present. Ranging with ease from raucous madcap to pained survivor to haughty chanteuse, she offers a cabaret act that's among the most daring and in-your-face you're likely to encounter.

The voice is similarly versatile, shifting effortlessly from deep growl to soprano scat. So potent are her powers of communication that one almost doesn't notice when she moves in mid-song from English to German or French. And Lemper is capable of putting her stamp on everything, even songs like "The Ladies Who Lunch" that are so closely identified with other performers. If Lemper sometimes seems to go too far, she tends to make it all work for her.

The Blood & Feathers video is a stylized affair, shot on film, with frequent shifts to black-and-white that suggest Lemper's occasional facial similarities to screen legends of old like Dietrich and Garbo. With much cutting and camera movement, the DVD nicely captures the intimate atmosphere of the Carlyle boite.

Needless to say, the DVD of Blood & Feathers is vastly preferable to the CD version. Other commercially released Lemper videos include a Weill program; a salute to Dietrich and Piaf called Illusions; The Michael Nyman Songbook; and a documentary, The Thousand and One Lives of Ute Lemper.