On the Town

Background

The album includes three numbers that were dropped from the musical before its première in 1944: "Gabey's comin'", "Ain't got no tears left" (a song that Bernstein later adapted into the "Masque" of his Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety) and, in an appendix, "Intermezzo".

Recording

The album was assembled from digital recordings of two semi-staged live performances given in June 1992 in the Barbican Hall, London.

Cover art

The cover of the album was designed by Serino Coyne Incorporated.

Critical reception

Reviews

Edward Seckerson reviewed the album in Gramophone in October 1993. On the Town, he reminded his readers, was the first musical with a text by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and the first composed by Leonard Bernstein, yet was nevertheless "a peach of a show, a show which positively hums along on the heat of inspiration". A comedy about the romantic adventures of three World War Two sailors enjoying twenty-four hours of shore leave in the Big Apple, it explored the way in which transience brought people both sorrows and joys. The semi-staged production at which the album had been recorded over "two amazing nights" had been a thing as fleeting as the events that it narrated. There was no denying that the atmosphere of those two midsummer evenings could not be entirely caught on a CD, but Deutsche Grammophon's live recording had transmitted more of it than any studio album could have done.

Frederica von Stade was a "super-cool, dusky-voiced Clare", crowning her "Carried away" with a high C that no-one had imagined her capable of. Tyne Daly was not quite so successful as Hildy. In the Barbican Hall, she had "knocked 'em in the aisles with her huggable personality", but listeners to the album would notice limitations of her vocal technique that would have been less obvious to people distracted from them by her acting. It was true that her singing had improved since she had starred in Gypsy on Broadway. She was "terrifically spunky" in "Come up to my place", but she struggled with the syncopation and breath control needed for "I can cook too". A more expert artist would have been able to convey its sexual innuendo more effectively. Vocal difficulties were also evident in the performances of Cleo Laine as the Nightclub Singer and Evelyn Lear as Madame Dilly. So powerful were Laine's instincts that they kept one "hanging on every breath [she] takes", but her tone was somewhat "threadbare". And the casting of Evelyn Lear was "slightly sadder (even embarrassing)".

The album's male singers could all be praised without reservation. Thomas Hampson's "Lonely Town" and "Lucky to be me" were "handsomely sung with careful avoidance of that peculiarly 'operatic' articulation". Kurt Ollmann - something of a Bernstein specialist - was "excellent", and David Garrison was "the business" in his duetting with von Stade. Musically, the three sailors blended well, and dramatically, "you could put them on any stage and never look back". Samuel Ramey sang "gloriously" in "I feel like I'm not out of bed yet", a dock-worker's hymn to the dawn, and was "very funny indeed" in his second role as von Stade's stupendously tedious boyfriend. And "you haven't lived till you've heard Adolph Green's Rajah Bimmy sounding a little as though some middle-eastern voodoo chant has been processed through a ring modulator."

Accolades

In the Gramophone Awards of 1994, the album won the prize for the year's best musical theatre recording, and its VHS and Laserdisc versions won the prize for the year's best video.

CD track listing

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

On the Town (1944), orchestrated by Hershy Kay (1919-1981), Don Walker (1907-1989), Elliott Jacoby, Bruce Coughlin and Ted Royal (1904-1981) with the composer; book and lyrics by Betty Comden (1917-2006) and Adolph Green (1914-2002) with a contribution by Bernstein (in "I can cook too"), based on an idea by Jerome Robbins (1918-1998)

Act I

1 (2:07) "I feel like I'm not out of bed yet" (Three Workmen, Quartet, Ozzie, Chip, Gabey)

2 (4:00) "New York, New York" (Ozzie, Chip, Gabey)

3 (6:11) Presentation of Miss Turnstiles (Announcer, Ivy)

4 (2:06) "Gabey's comin'" - Pickup Song (Ozzie, Chip, Gabey, Girls)

5 (3:09) Taxi number: "Come up to my place" (Chip, Hildy)

6 (3:01) "Carried away" (Claire, Ozzy)

7 (3:30) "Lonely Town" (Gabey)

8 (0:39) High School girls

9 (3:13) Lonely town: Pas de deux, ballet

10 (2:35) Carnegie Hall pavane (Ivy, Madame Dilly, Chorus)

11 (3:03) "I can cook too" (Hildy)

12 (3:03) "Lucky to be me" (Gabey, Chorus)

13 (4:32) Times Square: Finale to Act I, ballet

Act II

Personnel

Performers

Lindsay Benson, Workman and New Sailor

Stewart Collins, Workman

Tyne Daly, Brunnhilde "Hildy" Esterhazy

Meriel Dickinson, Diana Dream

David Garrison, Ozzie

Adolph Green (1914-2002), Rajah Bimmy

Thomas Hampson, Gabey

Cleo Laine (1927-2025), Nightclub Singer

Evelyn Lear (1926-2012), Madame Dilly

Marie McLaughlin, Ivy Smith

Bruce Ogsten, New Sailor

Kurt Ollmann, John "Chip" Offenblock

Samuel Ramey, Judge Pitkin W. Bridgework, First Workman and Announcer

Nicholas Sears, New Sailor

Frederica von Stade, Professor Claire de Loone

London Voices

London Symphony Orchestra

Michael Barrett, piano and associate conductor

Michael Tilson Thomas, piano, conductor and music director

Other

Alison Ames, executive producer

Pål Christian Moe, co-producer

Ruth Leon, coordinator

Arend Prohmann, recording producer

Helmut Burk, balance engineer

Jobst Eberhardt, recording engineer

Stephan Flock, recording engineer

Ingmar Haas, editor

Release history

In 1993, Deutsche Grammophon released the album on cassette (catalogue number 437 516-4), digital compact cassette (catalogue number 437 516-5) and CD (catalogue number 437 516-2). The CD was accompanied by a 44-page insert booklet including photographs of Bernstein, Comden, Green, Tilson Thomas and the cast, the text of the musical (in English only), notes by Ethan Mordden (again in English only) and synopses by Mordden in English, French, German and Italian.

Deutsche Grammophon also issued a 115-minute film edited from the same two semi-staged concerts at which the album was recorded, including intercut footage of New York City in the 1940s as well as an encore, dialogue and interlinking narration by Comden and Green that were omitted from the CD. The film was made available as both a VHS cassette (catalogue number 072 197-3) and a twelve-inch analogue video Laserdisc (catalogue number 072 197-1), but has not yet been issued as either a DVD or a Blu-ray.