Evita (Original Broadway Cast Recording) Question

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Hello, all - sorry to start an entire thread on this topic, but I do have a question that's been bothering me. I love the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Evita - it has three electrifying performances singing the life out a great score (one of Webber's best, in my opinion) and contains virtually the entire show, excluding transitional music. However, the version I have from iTunes seems rather poorly mixed. At least, I can notice voices present on either the right or left speaker, then abruptly switching to the other or both speakers in the middle of a song (this is most apparent in "Night of a Thousand Stars". Occasionally, you can also here things that I am guessing were background noise in the studio that never were taken out. During "High Flying, Adored" there's a sound of what appears to be an alarm or a buzzer in the background, in the lyric - "High Flying, Adored (BEEP) / What Happens Now? / Where Do You Go From Here?". It sounds odd, and I don't think it's the orchestration - but it might be (some of Webber's orchestrations - as in the ones he orchestrated himself - are rather odd). It's always annoyed me, so any information on that would be appreiciated.

My main question is just if the iTunes download is the best version of this recording currently available. I know recordings are remastered all the time, so I'm wondering if this one has been. If not, I would think it might be high on the list of things Webber should look into.

[gypsy101]

i vaguely recall the original cd release being not the greatest, tracks having i accurate cutoff times and things like that. i believe that may be the version that is on itunes.

a few years ago i received a more recent remaster from the library but i for the life of me am not sure when it was released or the catalog number or anything like that, i just know it was a much better version.

i would check castalbums.org for questions such as this regarding specific releases such as this

[MichelleCraig]

A lot of the ALW cast recordings have been remastered for rerelease, but I don’t think EVITA was one of them... 

[morosco]

Correct.  The 2 CD recording of the Broadway production was never remastered but the highlights recording was.  Had something to do with which record label these were originally released on.

[BrodyFosse123]

Also of note, this Premiere American Recording (aka as the Original Broadway Cast Recording) was originally issued on vinyl/LP so when listening to each side of the 4-sided vinyls (one vinyl disc per Act), the entire musical flowed seamlessly as it was engineered this way.  The cassette tape version did as well.  When the recording was finally issued on CD, they simply created breaks so each song had its own "track".  Sadly, whoever did this must have been in a hurry as many "tracks" cut off too early at the end of a song thus the next songs starts with a blip of a note from the previous track.  This isn't an error in the recording but one from the transferring onto the CD format.    

Obviously, if and when they decide to remaster this recording, those horrible "track" breaks will be fixed, among other things. 



 

30 year old Patti LuPone recording EVITA in 1979:

[CATSNYrevival]

I hope we do get a remastered version one day. It desperately needs it but the performances still shine through any minor technical issues.

[Valentina3]

My biggest complaint with the Evita OBC album has been the same one with Sunset Boulevard OBC album - the volume is so low! I have it on full in best sound systems and still don't get to feel the fullness and soaring notes of the score. Patti at least can rise above the orchestra in Evita album, but Glenn Close's voice is painfully mute at times.