Album Review: Extra! Extra! Read All About It! The WORLD PREMIER COMPLETE RECORDING OF OKLAHOMA! Is An H-I-T All Over Again!

Heigh Ho, dear lovely rainbow tribe, welcome back to Bobby’s CD sandbox where we offer our broken-down breakdowns of new music releases. So, strap in and get ready, as Bobby goes on the record ABOUT the record.

This week’s album entry in the BobbyFiles is an absolute rainbow-palooza from CHANDOS Records, in collab with the Sinfonia Of London (John Mills - Leader), and under the baton of John Wilson, all of whom gathered together to record every note in their original arrangements for the musical of all musicals, OKLAHOMA! (Cue millennial eye roll and Gen Z confusion)... Whether you are someone out of the loop or a musical theatre modernist who thinks anything before WICKED is a waste of your time, the place for this show in the pantheon of The Broadway Stage can not be overstated… not even by rainbow-spouting Little Bobby. The leap that Rodgers & Hammerstein took from musical comedy to musical theatre, as they created a show about a real place called Oklahoma, is the reason a musical about a fictional land with witches and munchkins is able to exist today… No R&H’s OKLAHOMA!, no Elphaba defying that damn gravity would there be. Also, in the 80+ years since OK premiered, there has never been a recording of this depth and magnitude created, reproducing the original arrangements, right down to the scene change music and other small interludes. In the words of Sinfonia leader, John Mills, “Robert Russell Bennett’s original orchestrations (have been) beautifully restored and re-engraved by Bruce Pomahac at the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization to make complete performing editions with every last instrumental detail intact.” And that, my dearlings ain’t musical hay.
 

Coming to an understanding of the place OKLAHOMA! occupies in theatre history, though, is not understanding OKLAHOMA! To do that, you either need to be an artist working on the show OR you need this new brilliant jewel in the R&H crown. This is, in no way, meant as a slight to the most recent hit revival of the show at Circle In The Square, but their heavily revised and re-imagined vision and their subsequent cast album will not give you the full breadth of this show in the way this latest recording does. Along with providing listeners with every note, as it was scrupulously intended to be heard in 1943, in our modern recording tech, the creators have also taken great pains to assemble a superb cast of singing actors all of whom brought their A-games. TBH, my dears, they seem ready to take to the stage at any minute and do the show, live and for real. Each character has been directed and worked upon with all the skill these wonderful artists have, including in the area of dialect, as almost every player (except for Broadway’s own Sierra Boggess as Laurey and Nathaniel Hackmann as Curly) are British theatre actors. 

So, on to the music… The Sinfonia Of London was an organization completely unknown to this rainbow writer, but what a delightful discovery they have been. For this recording, they are possessed of a high bright tone with one of the most impressive string sections Little Bobby’s little ears have heard in a long time. They are precise, even in the languid ballads, never letting their adagio get stodgy-oh, and that bright tone with precision fills the more uptempo tunes with either spritely fun or temperature-raising urgency. In short, these musicians (and conductor) are as much actors in this musical play as are the vocalists… and Oh What Vocalists. Anyone who has attended Broadway in the last decade and a half and who has experienced Sierra Boggess knows that she is one of the premier sopranos on our stages today. Her Laurey is perfectly pitched in vocals and acting, and her fresh, mildly feminist take folds in nicely with the strict adherence to the original arrangements. Her fellow American, Nathaniel Hackmann as Curly, matches her, note for note, with his powerful Tenor. The rest of the leads, all Brits, deliver fine vocals with fine acting in the songs, and the abbreviated portions of the book offered for context. Rodney Earl Clarke’s mournful bellowing voice makes one really feel for Jud Fry, the bullish lumbering farmhand who never intended to be “the villain.” Louise Dearman and Jamie Parker, as Ado Annie and her hapless suitor Will Parker, are cleverer than most performers allow them to be, especially with each other, and are laugh-out-loud hilarious throughout. Sandra Marvin’s earthy voice is rough where it needs to be rough, as the weather-worn earth mother Aunt Eller, and Nadim Naaman’s patter-speak with the rousing male chorus on IT’S A SCANDAL is, as they say, a real hoot.
 

Speaking of musical highlights… with PEOPLE WILL SAY WE’RE IN LOVE, Curly & Laurey’s final attempt to resist the love they can’t deny, Boggess & Hackman balance musicality with sexual tension exceptionally well, their voices handling notes and breathless longing, line after line, until the powerful ending to the song, where their love takes them over. The dialogue following, and their ultimate surrender to one another, are lovely, as well. PORE JUD IS DAID (dead) has Hackmann & Rodney Earl Clarke serving just the right amount of ham together. Clarke’s Uber-Trained voice gives this poor smokehouse-dwelling dullard a heft in counterpoint to his circumstances while adding to the comedy of the number. It is immediately followed by LONELY ROOM, where the darkness falls and all of Jud’s longing for love and real affection comes pouring out of him like lava - perfectly dramatically presented by Clarke’s operatic voice, filled with tragic foreshadowing. Some truly glorious music comes from the Sinfonia with the DREAM BALLET. Many who have not seen the show don’t know that Laurey slips into the famous DREAM BALLET sequence after getting high off Ali Hackamm’s “smelling salts” (poppers). Laurey’s addled mind takes her through the elements of her life, community, and the dilemma she has over Judd or Curly taking her to the dance. If she feels nothing for Jud, why is she having this dramatic dreamscape, this 13 ½ minutes of music & dance that move the story forward? This is some of the most gorgeous orchestral music ever done for the Broadway stage, from the show that brought dance into the story that is being told. But, for us, it is the first number of the second act that really stands out, with THE FARMER AND THE COWMAN and the following music and choreography number FARMER DANCE. The orchestral opening is so pristine in tone and rhythm and spritely as all GitOut. This opening number of Act II is a corker. The classic dueling community factions trope started right here in OKLAHOMA! These are all Terrific voices in a perfect blend with the instruments, and then the dance happens. Oh, those precise strings!  One can hear this number's influence down through the ages in shows like ANNIE GET YOUR GUN or movies like SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS - a rousing, foot-stomping mix of music and dance that has been a part of all the stagecraft telling the stories of communities trying to find their path whether they are out in the plains or in the urban settings of industrialized cities.

Whether or not OKLAHOMA! is “the best musical of all time” is a matter of opinion, but what is a matter of history is that OKLAHOMA! was the FIRST best musical of all time, and it is all right here on the WORLD PREMIER COMPLETE RECORDING OF OKLAHOMA! Sinfonia of London is, indeed, an exciting super-orchestra and John Wilson & CO have polished a diamond of the American Musical Theatre to a high gloss, so Bobby has no choice but to say…

This one gets 5 Out Of 5 Rainbows - Put this one in your collection today!

Pick up your own CD From Amazon: HERE

Stream It On Amazon: HERE

AND - You Can Even Order A Vinyl Copy Off The Amazon: HERE

You Can See And Hear Everything About Sinfonia Of London On Their Webbysite: HERE

 

CREDITS & THINGS

OKLAHOMA!
Music by Richard Rodgers
Book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Sinfonia of London - John Mills (leader)
John Wilson, conductor
Choral: OKLAHOMA! Ensemble

Cast List:
Curly..............Nathaniel Hackmann
Laurey .....................Sierra Boggess
Jud Fry ...............Rodney Earl Clarke
Will Parker ..................Jamie Parker
Ado Annie ..............Louise Dearman
Aunt Eller .................Sandra Marvin
Ali Hakim ................Nadim Naaman
Andrew Carnes .............Leo Roberts
Ike Skidmore ...............Juan Jackson
Joe .......................... Will Richardson
Gertie Cummings ......Sejal Keshwala
Kate .........................Emma Kingston
Ellen ........................Kelly Mathieson
Virginia ..................Rebekah Lowings
Vivian ..................Charlotte Kennedy
Sylvie ......................... Ceili O’Connor
Fred ......................Danny Whitehead
Cord Elam ............Michael Colbourne
Farmer .......................... Freddie King

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