It's sad, confounding, and kind of scary that the recent Broadway revival of the evergreen Burton Lane/E.Y. Harburg musical, Finian's Rainbow, had such a brief run despite receiving almost universal acclaim from the critics. But the pot of gold at the end of this evanescent rainbow is the recently released cast recording from P.S. Classics.
In one sense, this CD wasn't vitally necessary, as Finian's already had a legacy of four excellent recordings: (1) the exciting Original Broadway Cast album, featuring the strange but bracing vocal embellishments of Ella Logan in the leading female role of Sharon McLonergan; (2) the 1960 Broadway revival album, highlighted by Jeannie Carson's lovely, more straightforward renditions of Sharon's songs; (3) the 1968 film soundtrack with Petula Clark and Fred Astaire, a wonderful presentation of the score even if the movie itself doesn't quite work; and (4) the recording of the Irish Rep's delightful 2004 Off-Broadway production, commendable for the performances of Melissa Errico, Max Von Essen, Malcolm Gets, et al., even if the accompaniment is limited to two pianos.
But the new cast album is a worthwhile addition to the library if only because it captures the vocal performances of Kate Baldwin, Cheyenne Jackson, et al., and it also gives us Robert Russell Bennett's and Don Walker's gorgeous original orchestrations in state-of-the-art digital stereo sound for the first time.
The recording starts unpromisingly with a somewhat stiff account of the overture; I assume this is because the full piece was not played in the theater, and when the cut sections were reinstated for the recording, the performance suffered because music director Rob Berman wasn't used to conducting the whole thing, and the musicians weren't used to playing it. But, thereafter, all is more than well in terms of both orchestra and singers. Baldwin is terrific as Sharon, one of the most refreshing aspects of her performance being that she "belts" a good deal more of the role than her recorded predecessors. Only momentarily does this turn out to be an unwise decision: When she goes for the high note on the last word of the phrase "and he's not the hero" in "If This Isn't Love," it sounds less than pretty. Elsewhere, she expertly mixes chest and head voice, and the warmth of her middle register is greatly appreciated on such ballads as "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" and "Look to the Rainbow."
As Woody, Jackson displays a warm, rounded baritone and has a warm, friendly presence. Jim Norton's Finian gets more lines to sing on this recording than this character is usually allotted (the film soundtrack is a major exception), and he delivers them with great verve, humor, and authenticity. Christopher Fitzgerald is a pixified delight as the leprechaun Og, charming and tickling us with some of Harburg's cleverest lyrics.
Which brings me to an oddity in this otherwise virtually complete aural document of the score. As originally written by Harburg, a section of the song "That Great Come-and-Get-It-Day" goes as follows: "Bells will ring in every steeple; come and get your test on the movie screen. Come you free and you equal people, come and get your beer and your Benzedrine!" For the new recording and the production it documents, the lyrics of this quatrain and the previous one were rearranged and the line "Come you free and you equal people" was cut.
It's hard to guess why this happened or who's responsible for it, but there were a few other weird little cuts made for the show and the CD - some of which may have been the doing of David Ives, who's credited with having adapted the show for the City Center Encores! presentation that yielded the Broadway revival. Or maybe the person responsible is Arnold Perlman, who adapted Ives' adaptation for Broadway. Whatever, these excisions are unfortunate, even though they represent only a few seconds in a generally respectful revival and recording of one of the most beloved musicals in the canon.
