Miss Saigon Original Broadway cast

[Steven9]

Posted: 6/21/14 at 6:08pm

why is there no Original Broadway Cast Recording of Miss Saigon? There is an Original London Cast recording and a complete symphonic recording, but no original broadway.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 6/21/14 at 6:25pm

Not terribly uncommon when the original is British. Many producers feel there isn't a good enough reason to spend the money, why not just make more off the already produced one.

[Steven9]

Posted: 6/21/14 at 6:32pm

thanks!

[FishermanBob]

Posted: 6/21/14 at 7:14pm

"Many producers feel there isn't a good enough reason to spend the money, why not just make more off the already produced one."

Especially when the two stars in the London production, Lea Salonga and Jonathan Pryce both came over to do the Broadway production.

[Steven9]

Posted: 6/21/14 at 7:28pm

Yeah, but Mackintosh did both London and Broadway Reording for all his other musicals except this one. Colm Wilkinson and Frances Rufelle came over to do Les Mis and they still did a Broadway recording (granted it is Les Mis, but Saigon was still extremely popular). I just wish they would've because of the change from Peter Polycarpou to Hinton battle, and all the lyric changes made to the Broadway Version

[James885]

Posted: 6/21/14 at 8:22pm

Aren't most of the lyric changes made for Broadway reflected on the symphonic recording? Obviously the original Broadway finale "Little God of My Heart" isn't on there but to the best of my knowledge, the CSR does contain pretty much all of the other changes.

[NoName3]

Posted: 6/21/14 at 9:28pm

There's no OBC recording of Phantom, either -- they just re-released the OLC over here. Again the reasoning was that the two leads were the same, a new recording would have been redundant and not worth the cost.

Updated On: 6/21/14 at 09:28 PM

[jsg03jd]

Posted: 6/23/14 at 3:01am

I remember being so surprised at the line/lyric changes from the OLC CD, which I'd committed to memory, when I saw the show the Saturday evening performance after the 1991 Tony Awards. The opening lines at the Broadway Theatre were rewritten completely with Kim not singing until her moment in "The Heat is on in Saigon." For those changes, which were improvements in my view, I wish there had been an OBC CD.

More importantly, Lea Salonga's voice had developed much more resonance and technical agility compared to how she sounds on the OLC CD. I so wish that there had been an OBC CD for commercial release because Salonga's singing from Drury Lane to Broadway was quite a noticeable vocal transformation.

[adamgreer]

Posted: 6/23/14 at 7:50am

I just wish they would've because of the change from Peter Polycarpou to Hinton battle, and all the lyric changes made to the Broadway Version

If it's just Hinton Battle you're looking for, he plays John on the complete symphonic recording.

[Steven9]

Posted: 6/23/14 at 4:04pm

No, I wanted it because I wanted to hear Hinton Battle along with Lea Salonga, and as for money...yeah, it would have cast some more money to release an OBC recording, but hell, it's a famous show, along with Mackintosh being a multimillionaire (maybe billionaire, idk, probably millionaire at this point in time)...I know he would have profited from an OBC recording.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 6/23/14 at 4:10pm

Yeah, but Mackintosh did both London and Broadway Reording for all his other musicals except this one.
That's not true.

[Steven9]

Posted: 6/23/14 at 4:38pm

That point has already been made

[eatlasagna]

Posted: 6/23/14 at 4:52pm

i had the same thing as jsg03jd... i had memorized the OLC and finally saw the national tour in 1995 at the Ahmanson... i was singing along in my head and i was like... wtf happened to all the songs?!?! haha... i also wasn't into theatre yet so I wasn't aware of what previews were and how shows go through changes...

[Steven9]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 8:56pm

Yeah i agree, a lot of the lyrics had been changed in a lot of the songs...The American Dream, Overture, heat Is on, etc. yes, they are apparent to the pubic in the complete symphonic cast recording, but I would have much rather heard an original broadway cast recording than a complete symphonic recording. if they had money to do the Complete symphonic, then it WOULDN'T have been a waste to do an OBC.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 9:41pm

^^^^^^
Very true. They could have pulled a SUNSET BOULEVARD and billed the OBC as the first and only complete recording.

[jsg03jd]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 11:38pm

Except Boublil, Schonberg and Maltby can't seem to stop tinkering with the show. Had there been an OBC CD it would've been, for lack of a better phrase, "rendered obsolete" by the Symphonic because of the revised FINALE replacing LITTLE GOD OF MY HEART. Even NOW THAT I'VE SEEN HER's opening lines went through changes during the show's first year in New York.

Now the West End Revival has even more new lyrics that have made the songs worse. It feels like these guys were on a mission to put in superfluous and unnecessary revisions to at least one phrase in almost all the major numbers and Ellen's new song simply sucks. To me, the worst rewrites are the new lines for Kim in I STILL BELIEVE. They are awful and have made the vocal line choppier than the original. Epic fail on that one particular number.

[KathyNYC2]

Posted: 6/24/14 at 11:45pm

I remember there was a strong feeling here that a OBC recording of Matilda would not be made, because two of the leads also were the same as in the original British recording.

But the OBC recording wound up being done, and is highly superior IMO - with more tracks included, the Matilda voices being identified (and more evenly distributed) and the changes from Stratford included. It was happily done before some of the more recent Americanized changes. (It is sad that there was never an original London recording made - so the four girls that won the Olivier award for best actress have no recording.)

But I digress....there should have been an OBC of Miss Saigon, each recording has it's own personality - and I am sad it was not done. I certainly would have purchased it.