Gypsy - A Musical Fable (1959 Original Broadway Cast) ( Visit this link)
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Gypsy - A Musical Fable (1959 Original Broadway Cast)
Music by Jule Styne
Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Arthur Laurents, based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee
Starring Ethel Merman, with Jack Klugman, Sandra Church, Lane Bradbury, Paul
Wallace, Faith Dany, Chotzi Foley and Maria Karnilova.
Musical direction by Milton Rosenstock
Columbia Broadway CD 60848
So here we are are in 2003, a mere 44 years after the original production of GYPSY opened on Broadway, and that Street is gearing up for what is by my count the third major revival of the Styne,
Sondheim, Laurents powerhouse, this one to come in the Spring, with the entrancing Bernadette Peters as Madame Rose. It falls on the tiny but ample
shoulders of the diminutive Miss Peters to make the wicked, selfish, yet caring (in her way) and self-sacrificing Rose Horvick, the Mother of All Stage Mothers, come alive to terrify and tantalize as new generation of theatre-goers. No easy task. One could never
describe Ethel Merman, who created Rose back in k959 as as entrancing. Galvanizing, hypnotic, superhuman, certainly, but not entrancing. One can only guess, for the
present, what Miss Peters' vision of the role will be, or how she will sound singing Merman's--or rather--Rose's songs.
I trotted out the current incarnation of GYPSY's original cast album this afternoon and put it through its paces. It sounded better than ever. The current engineering has given this recording more clarity and presence than it ever had before, making it even more regrettable that many cuts in the score were made for the recording. Still, every note left to us is sublime. That overture! Has any Broadway overture in the history of musicals packed more electricity, power, and promise in its brief playing time. God bless
that trumpeter!!!
Of course, GYPSY, the saga of the forces that led Gypsy Rose Lee to become a strip tease artiste, with its shocking portrayal of the Stage Mother as Child
Abuser, and the sad chronicle of the end of vaudeville depends on its female protagonist to carry the show forward, and in Ethel Merman, GYPSY's creators had the most forceful musical personalities the American stage had ever produced. By turns funny, wheedling, resolute, angry, and tragic, Merman's Madame Rose is the apotheosis of the Broadway Musical Heroine. Lyricist Sondheim's snide comments aside, Merman created a living, breathing fury of a character. Still in top vocal form, Merman still
dazzles the listener with Some People, Small World, and especially
Everything's Comin' Up Roses, and the totally cathartic Rose's Turns
The Styne Sondheim songs for the other characters are necessarily less dramatic, but are often funny, highly melodic touching, and
exciting -- Louise's Little Lamb , Tulsa's sexy All I Need is the
Girl, and the three strippers' anthem to their art, You Gotta Get a
Gimmick, which may be the single funniest number ever created for a Broadway musical. Finally, of course, there is Rose's lonely, anguished and triumphant
Rose's Turn. musically and dramatically the cornerstone of GYPSY --
incomparably sung by the great Ethel Merman. If GYPSY as a show or recording contained nothing else of value,
Rose's Turn as sung by "The Merm" would amply justify its place in stage history. What a performance!
Trivia fans will enjoy the bonus tracks of songs cut from Gypsy and demos of Miss Merman performing two of Rose's songs plus, incredibly,
Little Lamb, and don't forget in Some People Stephen Sondheim , himself, snarls Poppa's line "You Ain't gettin' 88 cents from me, Rose", to Merman.
Ah, GYPSY, as it's star once sang, Who could ask for anything more?
Reviewed by Kenn Harris
Kenn Harris has been reviewing theatre, opera, ballet, and film for more than twenty-five years. His published books include The Ultimate Opera Quiz Book (Penguin, 1997 a biography of opera star Renata Tebaldi (l974) and Opera Recordings A Critical Guide.
For many years he worked in cable television in New York City. Kenn Harris has written criticism for numerous magazines and newspapers, and is currently at work on The Ultimate Broadway Musical Quiz Book
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That Trumpet In the Overture
addison de witt
Reviewed by: addisondewitt, Apr 3 2007 10:42AM