Hi all! I just saw A Gentleman's Guide To Love and Murder on Saturday and absolutely LOVED it! What a great show! Does anyone know if an OCR is in the works?
I would highly encourage anyone who loves musicals to go see this show! I really hope it has a successful run...it is really well done. Jefferson Mays is outstanding and the rest of the cast is top notch as well.
Eddie Korbich told me after the matinee today that he is very excited for the upcoming recording session. "January 13th. It can't come fast enough for us!"
Agreed! I saw this gem of a musical last night and absolutely loved it. Fun. Charming. Magical. The production values all excellent, especially the costumes. (The sets, lighting and sound were all wonderful, but the costumes truly stood out.) The score is gorgeous and extremely well song. Everyone was just exemplary. It is my hope that this musical will "catch on" and find its audience. It is truly superb.
ARTc3 formerly ARTc. Actually been a poster since 2004. My name isn't Art. Drop the "3" and say the signature and you'll understand.
I wonder if they'll augment the orchestra for this recording. That seems to happen less and less, doesn't it? While I didn't care for the show or most of the score, I thought Jonathan Tunick's orchestration were absolutely lovely.
Has anyone seen an option to preorder the hard copy and get the download right away? I really want to buy the physical CD, but I don't want to wait to hear it and I don't want to purchase twice...
Just purchased and listened to it, and I'm really pleased. I'll be seeing it for the first time in about a week, and the album greatly increased my excitement about the show.
There are a few standout melodies, but the lyrics really shine consistently and have a wit and bite to them. Bryce Pinkham has such an appealing voice, I could probably enjoy listening to him sing anything. Good production quality and editing, too. Love it!
PianoMann- you can listen to the music on YouTube. The tracks are on the official YouTube account for "Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" Gent's Guide on YouTube
Is this one of those shows that you need to see first before you can really appreciate the cast recording? I gave it a listen and I'm not quite so sure what's so funny about it and I'm not really hearing any of these standout melodies. Seems like Drood did it better. Am I just overlooking something?
I can't really answer because I saw the show first, but check out "I decided to Marry You." I love that song :) But maybe a visual would help. Clip of "I've Decided to Marry You"
I intend to post a full review and commentary on the show, nut this deserves to take home buckets of awards, including score and orchestrations. The writing is so, incredibly smartand very witty. I think seeing the show DEFINITELY helps, espcially for a few songs, such as "Better With A Man". The elements of the production and show so incredibly well married and intertwined that I think you may appreciate each element inidividually but not get how fully perfect they are without experiencing them all in context. And no, Drood did not do it better... More importantly, while they share some similarity, it is nevertheless VASTLY different than Drood, where the skill of the writing is aimed for a very different purpose.
"Bryce Pinkham has such an appealing voice, I could probably enjoy listening to him sing anything. Good production quality and editing, too. Love it!"
I fully concede that I am in the (very small, it seems) minority on Gentleman's Guide. I think the NY Post's Elizabeth Vincentelli might be the only person who agrees with me.
I found the show cliched and amateurish and, with a couple of rare exceptions, painfully unfunny. I also found the score to be incredibly dull and mediocre with the exception of Jonathan Tunick's wonderful orchestrations. But even I can get behind that^ statement. I thought Pinkham was one of the most compelling leading men I've seen in a Broadway musical in years. Jefferson Mays, rather unfairly, gets all the attention for his showy role, but I think it's Pinkham who actually keeps this wobbly affair afloat. He just exudes charm, authority, a playfully dark side, and generates some genuine erotic heat with his leading ladies. Although his character's obviously a wicked, devious guy, there are also hints of a certain vulnerability he could deploy in other roles. And, yes, he has a great voice, too. I would love to one day see him in a better written show. I bet he'd do well with some Sondheim--he'd be a smashing Bobby in Company. I think he might even be able to pull off George in Sunday in the Park in a few years.
I liked the score very much in the theatre; listening to the recording, I like it more and more. These were the wittiest and best-crafted lyrics heard on Broadway in a while, and I find "Sibella" is musically one of the most haunting and beautiful theatre songs there is. Tunick's orchestrations are, as always, exactly right.
I wasn't at all familiar with Lutvak's work before now, but I very much admire what he's done with this score. I rarely care much about awards, but I hope this one gets the Tony; to me, it's in an entirely different world from the other new scores this season (thus far, which includes First Date, Big Fish, Bridges and Rocky; but I think the only other new score to come is If/Then, right?).
I haven't had the chance to listen to the entire cast recording yet, but in addition to everything that's been said in praise of Lutvak's work, I'm DELIGHTED that he wrote two fantastic parts for sopranos.
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
Those two actresses had marvelous voices, that's true. I did think that Lisa O'Hare looked far too contemporary for a period piece, though, but she sounded swell and seemed to have a pretty sharp comedic sensibility.
I just downloaded the score from ITunes and it arrived on my computer as TWO albums, each with about half of the song list, but not in order. (I.e., one download had songs 6, 8 and 18 through 23; the other had 1-5, 7 and 9 through 17.)
I solved the problem by creating a playlist and reassembling the song lists in order, but has this ever happened to anybody else? Anyone know why?