South Pacific is one of my all time favorite shows.   The new 2007 production, still playing at Lincoln Center, is wonderful theater.  The set, the lights, the orchestra, the acting, the dancing and especially the singing performances by Kelli O’Hara and Paulo Szot are terrific.  It was one of the finest evenings of Broadway entertainment that I can remember.  I waited for the CD so that I could then have a permanent memory of this great theater experience.  I must say that I think everyone should have this CD, even though some of the cast performances are not reflective of the live performance and that tends to make the CD somewhat a disappointment.

South Pacific is a musical powerhouse and though this is the first real revival of the show on Broadway, there are many recordings of the show.  There was also the movie, which was not the artistic success it should have been because of the camera filters that director Josh Logan used in the filming, but the LP and CD have been a great success.  The original Broadway performances by Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin have been the standard for most performances of  the show.  What makes this new Broadway production so different and so good is that O’Hara and Szot, and in my opinion the production itself, do not attempt to copy those performances.  The dialogue is the same, the music is the same, even the size of the orchestra is the same, but the show is different.

I believe in part this is created by the ages of the performers.  They fit.  They look the parts.   You can understand why Nellie falls in love with Emile.   This is recreated on the CD.  Their singing is dialogue connected and is much more natural than any other performance or recording of South Pacific.  Mitzi Gaynor, in the film, is the only other performer to come close.  When Nellie and Emile perform their “Twin Soliloquies”…….it works.  And when the orchestra begins “Some Enchanted Evening” and Szot begins to sing, there is no separation from what has just taken place; it is a beautiful segue.  This happens throughout the show and the CD.  Many reviewers have trashed this recording.  They have called it lifeless, lacking drama in the singing and have said that O’Hara and Szot do not come across as they do on stage.   I totally disagree where O’Hara and Szot are concerned; although I do believe that Danny Burstein as Luther Billis and Loretta Ables Sayre as Bloody Mary seem dull and lifeless on the CD.

Kelli O’Hara is a wonderful Nellie.  She does not attempt to do overdo a southern accent.  She was born and raised in Oklahoma and so her sound is Arkansas enough.  She has a lovely, pure and unforced voice that easily captures Nellie, whether speaking, or as on the CD, singing.  Her “Cockeyed Optimist” is magic.  Her phrasing, diction, language breaks and breath control really add much to Oscar Hammerstein’s great lyric.  Set in the dark days of World War II, she presents, not only her optimism, but that of America.  “My Girl Back Home,” which was in the film and added to this production and which she sings with Lt. Cable (Matthew Morrison), reminds us of what racial thinking was like in the 1940’s and makes Morrison’s  “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught” from the second act even more powerful.  The spirit she brings to “Cockeyed Optimist” she also brings to “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” and her use of rhythmic accents throughout “A Wonderful Guy” make it sound very fresh.  I really don’t care very much for the interpretation of “Honey Bun,” but I place the blame on the director of the show and not on Ms. O’Hara.   Finally, when O’Hara sings the reprise of “Some Enchanted Evening” in the second act we can hear that she has really grown up, come to an understanding with herself about the racial problems that she espoused at the end of act one and one can feel that she is truly in love with Emile.  Once again, I think this works because we can believe that O’Hara and Szot would fall in love.

Nellie and Emile have no real duets in the show.  They do a bit of “Cockeyed Optimist” together at the end of act one, but that is not really a duet.   Actually, when Mary Martin first found out that Ezio Pinza, an opera singer, was going to play opposite her, she told Rodgers and Hammerstein “I will not do duets with an opera singer on stage.”  Since they performed without the use microphones, she was afraid she would be drowned out.  Ergo, there are no real duets between the two.  Here is another interesting tidbit about the original.  When Pinza met with Rodgers and Hammerstein, he was stunned to find that they wanted him to do eight shows a week.  He walked out.  He later agreed to do the eight shows provided the total amount of time he sang for the eight shows would be equal to what he did when performing twice a week in opera.  So, Emile has two songs, though he sings part of Some Enchanted Evening three times and his total song time is about thirteen minutes per performance.

Paulo Szot, born in 1969, is an Argentine parented baritone who received his professional vocal training in Poland where his parents had moved following World War II.  He studied piano and dance as a youngster, but following a knee injury he concentrated on his singing and made his professional singing debut in 1990 at the age of 21.  His voice is quite powerful, although it seems stronger in the higher baritone range than in the lower one.  He has a wonderfully smooth sound and his phrasing and enunciation are superb.  From his first notes of “Some Enchanted Evening”, a song recorded by everyone from Perry Como and Bernadette Peters to Bryn Terful and Ezio Pinza, you forget that anyone else has ever sung this song.  He is that good.  In this recording, his work with the orchestra is more than just a partnership, they are as one.  I got goosebumps in the theater and I get them each time I hear the recording.  “This Nearly Was Mine” has never quite gotten the same respect as “Some Enchanted Evening,”  but it is a wonderful piece of music with a grand lyric and Szot nails it.

“This Nearly Was Mine” follows “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught” sung by Lt. Cable (Matthew Morrison).  The lyrics of this song created quite an alarm by declaring that it was clear that hatred, in this case racial hatred was taught at a young age.  Rodgers and Hammerstein were encouraged to drop the song, but they refused.  Together these two songs are key reasons why the show does not seem dated.  Though set over 65 years from the present, the message of the show remains powerful.   Matthew Morrison as Lt. Joe Cable, has a wonderful tenor voice.  His “Younger Than Springtime” is as romantic as his ” You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught” is dramatically charged.

Bali Ha’i and Happy Talk were both big hits following the opening of the show in 1948, but the performance by Loretta Ables Sayre just does not come across and seems, as some critics have said of the whole CD, rather dull and lifeless.  On the other hand, the male chorus performances of “Bloody Mary” and “There Is Nothing Like A Dame” are the same show stoppers they have always been.

The orchestra, one of the largest used in a show on Broadway in a very long time, is excellent.  They capture all of the rich harmonies and nuance of the original Rodgers score.  They are big enough to add real power, yet they never overpower the singers.  It is wonderful to hear a large string section in a Broadway orchestra.

Don’t be put off by some of the reviews of this CD.  Buy it, if for no other reason than that you can listen to O’Hara and Szot over and over again.

Below is a video in which you to see three excepts from the show as performed at the 2008 Tony Award Show.

Categories: Broadway Revival Cast Recordings
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