Search - Jerome Kern, P. G. Wodehouse :: Sitting Pretty (1990 Studio Cast)

McGlinn rescues a wonderful musical

05/08/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you love show music, you know that John McGlinn does it better than anyone. Sitting Pretty is the most wonderful musical that no one has ever heard of, and with this disc McGlinn has rescued it from obscurity. Listen to the disc at least twice, and if Sitting Pretty hasn't become one of your favorite musicals then you probably don't really like musicals."

This CD caught me by surprise.

08/09/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I listened to this CD not expecting much--but from the overture on I was hooked on the lilting tunes and delightful singing. Thank you, John McGlinn, for making CDs like this for those of us who love a lovely melody and sweet, romantic story. I loved "Is This Not a Lovely Spot?" and Davis Gaines singing "All You Need is a Girl." In truth, every song on this CD is wonderful. Now I'm in the mood for listening to more old-fashioned musicals..."

A pre-Showboat gem

L. E. Cantrell | Vancouver, British Columbia Canada | 10/25/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Sitting Pretty" is the last show of the immensely successful partnership of Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse and Jerome Kern. Bolton created the plot and wrote the dialogue, Wodehouse pounded out the lyrics and Kern composed the music. To fans of Wodehouse, this show will seem to be a non-series PGW novel set to music (as does, to a slightly lesser extent, Cole Porter's "Anything Goes".)



This set offers about 100 minutes of music presented by a strong cast who perform in the Broadway mode, except for one number by opera great, Roberta Peters.



Kern is one of the giants of American song. PGW's fans may also know Kern as the original of some of characters in the stories. The most obvious one being, of course, the Broadway-based hero of "A Damsel in Distress." When Kern read the novel, he instantly made the identification. He was so impressed that he brought the story to the screen with Fred Astaire in the lead.



"Sitting Pretty", while full of good stuff, does not have any songs that became standards or that stand alone from the show. I had heard a couple of earlier BW&K shows in concert form (alas, with much-reduced accompaniment), but I was not prepared for this full-scale rendering. Kern was something of a chameleon as a stylist. His "Showboat", for example, is a compendium of two generations of American song. At least half of "Sitting Pretty" is, surprisingly to me at least, styled very much in the form of Viennese operetta.



In fact, it is in the style of one Viennese operetta in particular, "The Merry Widow." When "Sitting Pretty" opened in 1924, "The Merry Widow" was only 19 years old and was unquestionably the most popular show in all the world. Kern obviously knew a good thing when he heard it. "Sitting Pretty's" orchestration is exactly the orchestration of "The Merry Widow." Whole songs could be transferred from one to the other without any change. "You Alone Would Do" and "There Isn't One Girl", both from Act I, could easily be sung by Count Danilo of Pontevedria. With only minor changes in the plot, "I Go Off to Maxim's" would sit happily in "Sitting Pretty." If the style of singing on this recording shifted from Broadway bumptuous to operatic sumptuous, the similarity would be exact.



A good performance of a good show is well worth five stars."