Customer Reviews

Disney's Beauty and the Beast: The Broadway Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording)

5 star:		(75)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are looking for an accurate recording of the Broadway show (that is available for rental through MTI), you should get the London or Australian Cast Recording of the show. The OBCR was recorded BEFORE the Broadway run even started rehearsals, so it does not reflect many, many lyric changes, music changes, and dance arrangements that happened between the show's Houston tryout and Broadway opening. Granted, there are waonderful performances on this CD, but if you want to know what the show ended up being for nealry all of its thirteen-plus-year run, get London.

I really loved this CD. Being a HUGE Broadway fan, I absolutely crave new talents and soundtracks. First, the vocal sounds were wonderful, especially Terrence Mann as the Beast and Susan Egan as Belle. Second, the songs are so beautiful. 'If I Can't Love Her' is a wonderful way to see how lonely and depressed the Beast is. 'Gaston' shows what a hothead the guy is. 'Human Again',my personal favorite, expresses the enchanted objects' longings to be human once more. And, of course, we absolutely CANNOT forget 'Beauty and the Beast', which sort of tells the story of Belle and the Beast. This CD is fabulous and truly is something every Broadway fan should have in their collection. I give it 3 thumbs up!!!

Disney's animated movie "Beauty and the Beast" is my all time favorite of their animated movies. And this is coming from a guy who owns them all on VHS and is working on DVD. When they first announced plans to turn their movie into a Broadway show, I was thrilled. And it works so well.

All the songs from the movie are here, just as wonderful as in the movie itself. What I love about this soundtrack is the new songs, however. They add so much more to the characters and overall story. Belle's "Home" is such a powerful cry of despair after agreeing to stay in the castle. And the Beast's songs "How Long Must This Go On?" and "If I Can't Love Her" allow him to express emotion and make him a sympathetic character from act one before he starts showing it to Belle.

And I must mention my favorite of the new songs. Gaston's marriage proposal "Me" is an absolute riot. Makes me laugh every time I hear it.

I've listened to this CD so much; sometimes it feels like there's something missing when I watch the movie. Ironically, "Human Again" isn't one of my favorites. I wished they'd picked one of the other songs to add to the movie for the re-release instead of that one.

Any fan of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, stage or screen, will love this recording. It's a must own.

I was a Terry Mann hater for years, but that ended with the purchase of The Scarlet Pimpernel OBC with his amazing portrayal of Chauvelin. On the Beauty and the Beast OBC I again got to hear the Terry I'd grown to love! This is Terry at his best! His beautiful voice makes the gorgeous "If I Can't Love Her" just that much more heartbreaking, and his innocent joy in "Something There" and "Human Again" is so darling! The others on this recording are also all amazing, especially Susan Egan's lovely Belle and Burke Moses' egotistical Gaston! Amazing voices, amazing show, and one amazing recording!

Let me begin by saying that i love beauty and the beast. the original soundtrack is one of my alltime favorites. its an amazing score with great songs and a nearly flawless cast. the songs are all so broadway-esque that this broadway show was just a natural move. so how does it live up to the brilliance of the original? well surprisingly it does so quite well.

I was actually prtty apprehensive at first. i mean there's no paig o'hara, robby benson, angela lansburry or jerry orbach. now as i write about this, i think how great that would rlly be, but at any rate i was skeptical. but for 10 bucks off amazon, i thought "ehh, what the heck." i was very pleasently surprised.

PERFORMERS
first up is the cast, i'll admit that they can't rlly hold a candle to that original cast from the film, but they all still do a great job of creating their own characters with separate identities from the film that work very well. Terrance mann's beast is very emotional and moving. susan egan's belle is good, but the only downfall is that she's not paige o'hara, but i can't stress how good she trully is at the part. the rest of the cast all favor quite well. the most important thing to remember is that this is NOT the movie; it is a seperate entity altogether, which works much better than if it merely tried to impersonate the film. that would've been a disaster

PERFORMERS 4 out of 5

SONGS
the original songs are just as fresh and brilliant as ever of course. howard ashman's brilliant lyrics stand the test of time brilliantly. for that reason, it seemed kinda shady that tim rice would step in to flesh out the piece, but he does a great job. the more satirical songs like "me" work great to advance the story and characters. and the more moving songs like "home" and "if i cant love her" are effective and moving. the best part is the music. alan menken pulls many of the themes for these songs straight out of his brilliant score. you can hear them all if you go back and re-listen to that great score like i did. that use of the score gives this a great coherence and you cant tell which are original and which are new to this production. truly top notch.

SONGS 5 out of 5

in the end, this walks a fine line between being an extension of the film and being a seperate piece altogether. it walks that fine line perfectly and is a great way to relieve the film since you can just hear where all these songs would fit in. there's a reason why this is the longest running american musical on broadway. A++

OVERALL 5 out of 5

This soundtrack has all the great songs from the movie, and tons of new ones that were made just for the show. You wouldn't have needed to see the show to enjoy the music. My favorite addition is Home, which is a song Belle sings right after she gets to the castle. All the songs in this cd are worth listening to over and over again.

"Beauty and the Beast" is the greatest love story ever told- in the best way a tale can be told! Susan Egan steals the show as Belle. I love the songs "Home" and "Me". I wish they'd been in the movie, Belle needed a solo song. Wonderful music from a wonderful Broadway show!

Being a fan of Disney's 1991 animated version of the story, I was thrilled when I heard Disney was staging a live Broadway version of the story. After going into the play with high expectations, I must admit it was absolutely wonderful. This CD does a really great job at recreating that magic and music created onstage for a recording. The songs on the album include all the songs originally written by Allan Menkin and Howard Ashman for the film (including "Human Again", which was originally cut from the film and added again for the 2002 re-release). The CD also includes a number of songs written by Allan Menkin and Tim Rice especially for the play. Highlights of these include Belle's beautiful "Home" in which she sings about her loss of Freedom when held captive by the Beast, "If I Can't Love Her" in which the Beast laments that he will never find love, and Gaston's humorous "Me" in which he makes his own special marriage proposal to a very unimpressed Belle. Another wonderful addition to the show is an expanded version of the "Something There" sequence in which Belle and the Beast begin to become friends through a delightful addition of dialogue. The Cast is fantastic and brings their own special touches to the character instead of merely doing an imitation of the animated characters. This album is defiantly a must-have for any Disney or Broadway fan.

I recently saw the touring production of Beauty and the Beast, and I must say this album comes close to capturing the sheer joy of seeing this (as the program states) INTERNATIONAL SENSATION live on stage. ALL the performers from the original Broadway cast were perfect for the roles they played. Susan Egan is by far the best Belle on recording. Her performance is so full of brilliance that it almost becomes impossible not to want to skip ahead to her next song and forget about the others. But that too would prove to be almost impossible with such songs as "Gaston" (Featuring an amazing new dance sequence) "Be Our Guest" (Performed here by the amazing - Gary Beach, probably better known as Roger Debris in The Producers), "Human Again" and "If I Can't Love Her" (In my opinion, the most emotional act one finale on Broadway) My only complaint about this CD is the total absence of DIALOGUE!!!! Without it the songs don't connect - they don't make sense. Elaine Strich said at the 2002 Tony Awards "the book of a musical gives the characters their reasons to sing and their reasons to dance". After seeing the show live listening to the CD makes me long for something more, and no recording of Beauty and the Beast has been able to offer that. I also recommend picking up the original London Cast Recording of Beauty and the Beast ... for about two lines of dialogue that this CD does not contain, and Susan Egan's CD featuring the song "A Change in Me" which was added to the show after this CD was recorded. If you are looking to have a good time - you can't go wrong with Beauty and the Beast! (Even without the dialogue!)

What a superb soundtrack. it is full of passion, and expands the story of the original movie. The song "Home" Sung by Belle is not to be missed. Pure emotion rings through the music. The gaston song "Me" is excellent, arrogant, and wonderful. All in all, this CD, and this play, is not to be missed.