Candide - Broadway Cast

Advantages: First Broadway Rocky since the early 80s
Disadvantages: Only really for collectors, acquired taste

...I was lucky enough to see this production with this cast on Broadway - I say lucky in that many Brits wouldn't have got that chance and because I saw it for free. However, if I had had to pay the $80 or something the tickets were selling for, I'd have been very disappointed indeed. I am also reviewing from a promotional only copy, which I believe is simply a pre-release rather than markedly changed as it contains the same cast. I also got it free! The album contains all the regular stage show songs, including Once In A While, with the occasional introductory speech before a song. This would not be an album I would recommend to those who have never heard either the Picture Show album or the Roxy Cast album as the songs are treated somewhat differently and might put you off the stage version in the UK if you hadn't already heard... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Gives a new insight into a classic
Disadvantages: No major disadvantages

...emulated since. If you think of Woodstock but more choral that gives you an idea of the music style. Now this Deluxe Edition comes with two two CDs the first one is the original Broadway cast recording from 1968. Now this is great because it has has some really good singing on it, and Claude and Berger are played by the two writers Rado and Ragni. Now, on the second disc is the original Off-Broadway cast from 1967. Now some of the singing and the quality of recording isn't quite as good, but there's an amazing energy on that recording. The original off broadway show was put on in a Night Club in New York and the cast actually comprised of "Hippys" rather than Actors. Thats what gives it the lovely unfinished but real feal too it. The second disc also has some bonus tracks. Two alternative ending songs and an overture... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Well performed with a great orchestra and brilliant singers
Disadvantages: Detailed music that needs a few runs before you get used to it

...This recording of Candide is definatelly the best one I've found! Bernsteins musical, originally from 1956, has a big score and needs good voices to come to it's right. Here, both the orchestra and the singers come through excelently, and the ensemble does a good jobb in the not entirely simply choral parts. The orchestra is exact, and executes the brilliant overture with lots of energy. The musical orignially premiered in New York 1956 with most notablly Barbara Cook in the cast. The show only ran for 73 performances, and suffered a simillarly short run in London a few years later (1959, 60 performances). Barbara Cook got her breakthrough with Glitter and be Gay, though, and almost 20 years later, 1973, the show got a new chance in a revival that ran for 740 performances, far more successfull than the original. The show has been very... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful