Bernstein: Wonderful Town
Kim Criswell, Audra MacDonald, Thomas Hampson
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group & London Voices, Sir Simon Rattle
This piece is probably best watched on DVD, where it can be found with the same cast and conductor. For listeners, it's unlikely this account will be surpassed.
Bernstein: Wonderful Town
Kim Criswell, Audra MacDonald, Thomas Hampson
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group & London Voices, Sir Simon Rattle
Purchase product
This piece is probably best watched on DVD, where it can be found with the same cast and conductor. For listeners, it's unlikely this account will be surpassed.
About
Wonderful Town is a musical with a book by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov, the lyrics are by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and the music by Leonard Bernstein. The story is based on Fields' and Chodorov's 1940 play ‘My Sister Eileen’. First performed on Broadway in 1953, Wonderful Town won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The story is of two sisters, Ruth and Eileen Sherwood, who travel to New York City from Columbus, Ohio in search of love and fortune.
Contents and tracklist
- Rod Gilfry (baritone), Audra McDonald (soprano), Kim Criswell (mezzo-soprano), Aura McDonald (soprano), Kimberly Cobb (soprano), Michael Dore (tenor), Carl Daymond (tenor), Thomas Hampson (baritone), Brent Barrett (baritone)
- Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, London Voices
- Sir Simon Rattle
- Recorded: 1998-06-11
- Recording Venue: 9 - 11 June 1998, Studio No.1, Abbey Road, London
My Darlin' Eileen (Solo cop [Lonigan] / Men's chorus / First Cop / Second Cop / Third Cop / Eileen)
Track length3:33
Swing! (Villager / Ruth / Chorus / First Man / Second Man / First Girl / Second Girl)
Track length5:14
Awards and reviews
March 2010
This piece is probably best watched on DVD, where it can be found with the same cast and conductor. For listeners, it's unlikely this account will be surpassed.
2011 edition
in a fizzing account, starrily cast, Rattle gives a performance that is vigorously idiomatic and warmly refined in the many lyrical moments.
