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South Pacific is the third CD from first Night Records of revivals of the great Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, following on from the glorious recordings of Carousel and Oklahoma!. Now, I have always viewed South Pacific as being a little inferior to those two prestigious works. Until now, that is. This new recording of the recent RNT revival is terrific in every way imaginable and reminds us of the brilliance of the finest exponents of the craft of writing for the stage.
Perhaps I have got so used to listening to overly familiar songs like 'There is Nothing Like a Dame', 'Younger than Springtime', 'Happy Talk' and the like, but a return in the score, courtesy of this recording, happily reunited me with the less well known gems. The glories of 'Carefully Taught' with its unique blend of sweet melody and cutting words and the lyrical genius of 'This Nearly was Mine' where Hammerstein bravely turns out verse after verse without a conventional rhyme and yet offers up poetic beauty.
Credit should also be paid to Kevin Looman's arrangements and the standard of the orchestrations, which extracts extra joys from the score. Listen to the simple cello part that accompanies the ultra fresh sounding version of 'Some Enchanted Evening' and you'll know what I mean. The recording incorporates just enough snippets of underscored dialogue to tell the story without distracting in any way from the flow of the score. This recording also includes two often omitted songs in the form of 'My Girl Back Home' (which in truth sounds a little out of place) and the pleasant 'Now is the Time'.
The performances are universally superb with Philip Quast in terrific form, bringing great warmth to the role of Emile, adopting an effective but not overbearing accent. If there is a better or more versatile actor in the world of show music today I have yet to encounter him. Lauren Kennedy is great as Nellie, all hick kid in a strange new land, and her duets with Quast are particularly impressive. Nick Holder as Luther Billis and Sheila Francisco as Bloody Mary, both perform well and the chorus comes alive on the occasions that they are given the chance to.
Even the inclusion of a children's chorus in 'Dites-moi' (what was it with R&H that in their later shows they became obsessed with kids singing?), or positively the worst lyric that old Oscar the II ever wrote - 'Her hair is blond and curly, her curls are hurly burly, her lips are pips, I call her hips, twirly and whirly' are not enough to prevent me from awarding this new recording five stars. Okay, you may have half a dozen other versions of the score in your collection, but this one is still essential listening. So if you have a few shekels to spend on CDs, forget Urinetown and The Full Monty and buy a piece of 22-carat class. It's that good!
(Thanks to Carol for providing this article)
