Alain Boublil - The Complete Recording of Boublil & Schonberg's Miss Saigon
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Artist: Alain BoublilComposer: Claude-Michel Schonberg
Conductor: David Charles Abell
Conductor: Nicholas Hytner
Orchestra: William David Brohn
Performer: Donnell Aarone
Performer: Tito Abeleda
Performer: Zar Acayan
Performer: Joanna Ampil
Performer: Alan Ariano
Performer: Yancey Arias
Performer: Darrell Autor
Performer: Charles Azulay
Performer: Robert Bartley
Performer: Eric Bates
Performer: Hinton Battle
Performer: Emy Baysic
Performer: C.C. Brown
Performer: Eric Chan
Performer: Peter Cousens
Performer: Alvin Crawford
Edition: Music CD
Format: Box set, Cast Recording
CD Release Date: 1995-11-14
Music Label: Angel Records
Product features:
- box
Music CD 1
- Overture: Back Stage Dreamland - The Orch/Kevin Gray/Sonya Swaby/Emy Baysic/Sylvia Dohi/Rona Figueroa/Lydia Gaston/Margaret Gates...
- The Heat Is On In Saigon - Kevin Gray/Emy Baysic/Sylvia Dohi/Rona Figueroa/Lydia Gaston/Margaret Gates/Zoie Lam...
- The Movie In My Mind - Sonya Swaby/Joanna Ampil/Emy Baysic/Sylvia Dohi/Rona Rigueroa/Lydia Gaston/Margaret Gates...
- The Transaction - Hinton Battle/Kevin Gray/Peter Cousens/Joanna Ampil/Company
- The Dance - Peter Cousens/Joanna Ampil/Kevin Gray
- Why God Why? - Peter Cousens
- This Money's Yours - Peter Cousens/Joanna Ampil
- Sun And Moon - Joanna Ampil/Peter Cousens
- The Telephone Song - Peter Cousens/Hinton Battle
- The Deal - Peter Cousens/Kevin Gray
- The Wedding Ceremony (Dju Vui Vai) - Peter Cousens/Joanna Ampil/Emy Baysic/Sylvia Dohi/Rona Figueroa/Lydia Gaston/Margaret Gates...
- Thuy's Arrival - Charles Azulay/Peter Cousens/Joanna Ampil
- The Last Night Of The World - Joanna Ampil/Peter Cousens
- The Morning Of The Dragon - Tito Abeleda/Alan Ariano/Norman Kauahi/Ray Santos/Francis J. Cruz/Juan P. Pineda...
- I Still Believe - Joanna Ampil/Ruthie Henshall
- Back In Town - Kevin Gray/Joanna Ampil/Charles Azulay/Tito Abeleda/Alan Ariano/Norman Kauahi/Ray Santos...
- Thuy's Death/ You Will Not Touch Him - Charles Azulay/Joanna Ampil/Company
- If You Want To Die In Bed - Kevin Gray
- Kim & Engineer - Kevin Gray/Joanna Ampil
- I'd Give My Life For You - Joanna Ampil/Company
- Entr'Acte - Orch
- Bui Doi - Hinton Battle/Chor
- The Revelation - Hinton Battle/Peter Cousens/Ruthie Henshall
- What A Waste - Kevin Gray/Company
- Please - Hinton Battle/Joanna Ampil
- Chris Is Here - Junix Inocian/Hinton Battle/Kevin Gray/Joanna Ampil
- Kim's Nightmare - Thuy's Ghost/Joanna Ampil/Peter Cousens/Hinton Battle/Company
- Room 317 - Joanna Ampil/Ruthie Henshall
- Now That I've Seen Her - Ruthie Henshall
- The Confrontation - Ruthie Henshall/Peter Cousens/Hinton Battle
- The American Dream - Kevin Gray/Company
- Finale - Joanny Ampil/Peter Cousens
Music reviews of The Complete Recording of Boublil & Schonberg's Miss Saigon
Music Review: First Les Miserables, and now The Miserables
Rating: 3 Stars
Oh, what a mixed package this recording is !
First, it's confusing that this package is called "The Complete Recording". Because that's what the OLC was, at the time when that one was put together. The differences between the OLC and this newer recording are additions or revisions that have all been made since the show first opened in London.
These changes may have been necessary to some degree, since no version of the show has yet been wholly successful as a piece of theatre. But to be honest most of them have a "band-aid" air to them -- plugs stopping up holes in the show, rather than successfully reshaping a poor structure. Some of them -- like the more detailed interactions and backstory shared by Kim and Thuy, and the expanded depiction of the sweep of the Viet Cong in "The Morning of the Dragon" -- make it a more textured story, but aren't really necessary to make the show work; others -- like the overbloated "The American Dream" -- are simply indulgences, taking advantage of and leaning too heavily on the few parts that were actually working well.
As a consequence, this version of the show has a slightly jury-rigged, too-many-cooks patchwork feel to it that just doesn't satisfy. Like a committee-planned concept album, rather than an organic theatrical experience.
More disappointing, it is puzzlingly short on energy. There's a fair bit of shouting and over-emphasizing happening, but much of it goes past without making much impact. This leaves the overall tone being Miserable, rather than being tragic or touching or galvanizing, as the OLC performance manages to be.
I think that's mostly the producers' fault, but sadly the cast doesn't help.
Broadly speaking, the Vietnamese characters in this production are the most successful. Perhaps the stand-out for me is Charles Azulay as Thuy. His is a wonderful, detailed performance, that sidesteps stereotyping and fully captures the passionate man whose world has spun out of kilter, and who has only an uncompromising ideology to cling to for stability. He's not a sympathetic character, but in Azulay's hands (voice ?) he's very moving. And it's in her scenes with Thuy that Joanna Ampil's Kim shines most brightly.
Joanna Ampil is lustrous in her best moments, but perhaps a less-assured actress, as she can't sustain the character as solidly as the OLC's Lea Salonga. Her acting seems all in reaction, and at the end of the story, after all her being manipulated and exploited by almost everyone who comes into her life, we don't really feel we've heard who Kim is inside, as a person. Joanna Ampil's voice is lovely, although marred by the fact that she frequently pushes too hard (apparently as compensation for either a lack of natural energy or her own sense of insecurity as a performer), and there are parts where the role is outside her comfortable singing range, so she resorts to octave flipping, in the woeful tradition of Madonna's performance as Evita. Sorry, for me that just doesn't ever work.
Sonia Swaby is a wonderful and wholly successful Gigi, capturing well the frightened and still-hopeful girl inside the bitter, life-hardened woman driven to whoredom as a way of surviving and, just perhaps, snagging a place in the future. Kevin Gray has a great stab at the Engineer; what he lacks in acting subtlety, especially compared to Jonathan Pryce in the OLC recording, he makes up for to a large degree in energy and more authentic tone and mannerisms. But strangely, despite having the greatest "screen-time" of just about any character, he never becomes more than a fairly one-dimensional stereotype. And a very unpleasant and unsympathetic one, at that.
And as for the American characters ? Well, Ruthie Henshall as Ellen is adequate, though not particularly successful. (I just don't understand the fuss over her as a musical actress, as for me there is nothing remarkable about her performances besides her irritating first name.) Peter Cousens just doesn't work at all as Chris; he's got no spunk, no muscularity in his voice; he's acquiescent and -- well, miserable -- in just about every scene, even when he's trying to sound defiant; and he's got almost constant pitch problems. And as for Hinton Battle ... how on earth did this guy get a Tony for this role ?!! I'm not saying he's not talented -- he was dynamite in the Buffy episode "Once More With Feeling" -- but as evidenced by *this* peformance, the guy can neither sing nor act. I find his performance embarrassing.
So. In many ways an interesting recording, though hampered by some dodgy performances from the main singers and some embarrassing over-acting from some of the extras, an engineering process that never quite surmounts the problems inherent in having performers do their individual parts of the same scene in separate sessions held in separate parts of the world (a problem that also bugged the "complete symphonic" version of "Les Miserables", though to a much lesser degree), and some questionable tempo choices in the conducting.
If you really love the show of "Miss Saigon", this is worth having, mostly for the interesting take on the characters (and especially the Vietnamese ones) and out of curiosity to hear the surgery and grafting done on the show since its premiere. But although it has more content, it's really not more complete as a story or a piece of theatre than the OLC version.
More The Complete Recording of Boublil & Schonberg's Miss Saigon free music reviews:
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Description of The Complete Recording of Boublil & Schonberg's Miss Saigon
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