Kismet on Disc: Part One
The score for Kismet was the work of Robert Wright and George Forrest, adapting themes by celebrated Russian composer Alexander Borodin. Wright and Forrest had previously adapted the music of classical composers when they were under contract to MGM. On Broadway, they had adapted the music of Edvard Grieg for the 1944 hit Song of Norway.
In Kismet, the team's deployment of Borodin was inspired, yet much of the score is pure Wright and Forrest, with two numbers containing no Borodin at all and most of the others featuring significant amounts of original music. The Wright-Forrest-Borodin score for Kismet produced one major hit, "Stranger in Paradise," and several other popular numbers, including "And This Is My Beloved" and "Baubles, Bangles and Beads."
Directed by Albert Marre, Kismet was a great vehicle and a personal triumph for Alfred Drake, who was following up his success in Kiss Me, Kate. Kismet opened during a New York newspaper strike, but word-of-mouth established the show as a hit before the reviews finally came out. When they appeared, those reviews were generally favorable, although Brooks Atkinson New York Times and Walter Kerr Herald Tribune, considered the most important drama critics of the day, were both unimpressed.
But audiences loved the exotic color of the production, the lush score, and Drake's virtuosic performance. Kismet won the 1954 Tony Award as best musical, with other Tonys going to Drake's Hajj, the librettists, and to Borodin himself, who had been dead since 1887.
With Drake and his co-stars Doretta Morrow Marsinah and Joan Diener Lalume repeating their Broadway assignments, Kismet had an even longer run in London beginning in 1955, the same year an MGM film version was released starring Howard Keel, Ann Blyth, and Dolores Gray. Kismet was revived in New York by Richard Rodgers' Music Theatre of Lincoln Center in 1965, again with Drake, and in 1985 New York City Opera presented it, with George Hearn as Hajj. There was a television production in 1967, starring Jose Ferrer and Barbara Eden. But the only Broadway revival Kismet has enjoyed was in the form of an all-black revisal called Timbuktu 1978. Set in Africa and co-starring Eartha Kitt and Melba Moore, it played 253 performances at the Mark Hellinger Theatre.
Although it cleverly and successfully updated the genre to contemporary tastes, Kismet was one of the last successful gasps of operetta on Broadway. Kismet has continued to be performed internationally largely because of its bountiful score.
New York City Center's Encores! series will be presenting Kismet beginning February 9, and in honor of that occasion, I'm offering a two-part column on the show's recordings. It could be argued that Kismet is rather too well-known to require an Encores! presentation, but then Encores! has already offered such other repertoire regulars and Tony winners as Bye Bye Birdie and The Pajama Game. And it must be said that, because of its roots in operetta and its sometimes hokey comedy, Kismet is not a particularly strong prospect for a major Broadway revival. So doing it at Encores! makes sense, particularly when mounted yet again as a star vehicle, this time for Brian Stokes Mitchell.
Recorded on December 6, 1953, just three days after the opening, Columbia's original Broadway cast recording of Kismet is, right up to its sparkling Hirschfeld-drawn cover art, one of the most enjoyable cast albums of its period. Featuring five ideal leads, it's pretty much flawless, with Arthur Kay's heady orchestrations an additional advantage.
Drake is, of course, definitive as poet Hajj, his smooth baritone complemented by exemplary enunciation of the sometimes tricky lyrics, his spirit infectious, his star command unquestionable. Drake tosses off such juicy numbers as "Fate," "Gesticulate," and the eleven o'clock "Olive Tree" with enormous elan.
As Hajj's daughter, Marsinah, Morrow Where's Charley?, The King and I is a lovely lyric soprano with a sweetly appealing style. She's superb in "Baubles, Bangles, and Beads," "Stranger in Paradise," and especially in the quartet "And This Is My Beloved."
Joining her in "Paradise" is the young Richard Kiley, playing the Caliph and singing in a higher range than he would use in his subsequent career. Kiley is excellent in "Night of My Nights," which concludes with a high falsetto note that he manages well.
Then there's the luscious, unique-sounding Diener, as temptress Lalume. Diener, who would work with husband Marre and Kiley again in Man of La Mancha, supplies her distinctive, sometimes reckless mix of chest and head voice on "Not Since Nineveh" and "Rahadlakum."
This first Kismet recording got a fine remastering and reissue in 2000, which added a couple of radio tracks including brief interviews with record producer Goddard Lieberson, plus Drake, Morrow, and Forrest.
Chronologically, the next Kismet recording is the soundtrack album to MGM's 1955 film version, which I have in its 1990 CBS Special Products sixty-three-minute CD reissue.
The film eliminated the songs "He's in Love" and "Was I Wazir?" and cut most of "Rhymes Have I." But added for the film was a slinky new number called "Bored" for the picture's Lalume, Dolores Gray, to sing. And it's Gray's belting and crooning in "Nineveh," "Rahadlakum," and a smoldering "Bored" that are the highlights of the soundtrack disc.
In the lead is Howard Keel, who had already taken another Drake stage role in MGM's film version of Kiss Me, Kate. Like Drake, Keel is a rich baritone, but he's not as crisp and sparkling as Drake in the lyrics. Ann Blyth is an attractive soprano Marsinah, and as the Caliph there's popular singer Vic Damone, displaying handsome tones.
The 1990 soundtrack CD release includes much dialogue, several dances, the "Fate" reprise, and the equivalent of the show's first-act finale. As for the film itself, it remains unavailable on DVD.