Marie Christine (1999 Broadway Cast)

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Music reviews of Marie Christine (1999 Broadway Cast)

Music Review: Another masterpiece Broadway let go!
Rating: 5 Stars

This album showcases entirely what a masterpiece Marie Christine is. Before I saw the show, I didn't think I would like it after all the horrid reviews I've read and the fact that Monday the Outer Circle Critics Awards completely dissed Marie Christine while rewarding a complete piece of crap like Saturday Night Fever a nomination for "Best Musical." I don't understand it. Critics, Awards givers, and the senseless incapable of recognizing good work public let masterpieces like Ragtime and Marie Christine go, while rewarding garbage like Cats, The Lion King, Jekyll & Hyde, Titanic, Saturday Night Fever, Footloose, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and 90 percent of the other shows on Broadway. Since Miss Saigon hit Broadway, only three shows of any merit have opened: Rent, Ragtime, and Marie Christine (this excludes revivals). Yet the mindless public, the critics, and the awards givers let two of these great works fall, notibly Ragtime which is arguably the greatest American musical of all time. Yes I am STILL bitter over a cartoon beating Ragtime out for Best Musical.

If you can appreciate a beautiful, magnificant work, then I highly recommend this cd. Marie Christine is not just orchestral writing at its greatest, it is also very entertaining- something I was not expecting. This disc is packed with one great number after another, notibly "Beautiful," "Way Back to Paradise," "The Storm," "Danced With A Girl," "Miracles and Mysteries," "Cincinnati" and the rest of ACT II!

The score is brilliant and LaChiusa utilizes many different styles, the "typical" musical repitition so evident, and rightly so, in most musicals isn't present here. Repeating themes is fine and makes sense, but it is refreshing to hear a score that (along with Ragtime) is the most original I have heard in years. If he does not win the Tony for Best Score I will vow never again to watch the Tony Awards, because this the best score I have heard on Broadway that is eligible for the 2000 Tony's... I'm sure like the Outer Circles (who I admire much more than the Tony's as they had the courage to do what was right in '98 not what the majority wanted) the Tony's will diss Marie Christine also. I was VERY surprised by this weeks nomination announcements.

Performance wise, WHAT CAN BE SAID? Audra McDonald...you don't need me to say how incredible this woman is and her three Tony's are just the beginning. It's great to finally have a musical that was written for her. It is great to hear her wonderful voice (equally beautiful and moving in dialogue as is in song) have the largest part. She will move you and knock your socks off. Anthony Crivello is also marvelous and the two compliment each other so well. Then there is the marvelous Mary Testa who treats us to "Cincinnati." The supporting cast is wonderful as well.

I guess the only weakness about this recording is it is not the complete show....When you hear this you will wish you had every word that was uttered and every note that was played and sung.

A miraculous piece that will grab you from the beginning.....let it happen.

Broadway should have fought to keep Marie Christine going, but she didn't. Broadway may have let her go, but she won't let you go. It's been a bad decade for great musicals with only Ragtime, Rent, and now Marie Christine.

Also- I have read a lot about and heard a lot about the now known debate: Is Marie Christine a musical or an opera? Well, as being a huge opera lover, Marie Christine is certainly in NO WAY an opera. I have no idea how that debate even got off the ground. Although the score is unique and very different from the main, NONE of the vocals are sung in an operatic nature...it certainly is a musical.

Description of Marie Christine (1999 Broadway Cast)

Broadway & Vocalists CDs

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