Customer Reviews

The Girl in Pink Tights (1954 Original Broadway Cast)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Fortunately for collectors CD's of older musical shows are being released. The Girl in Pink Tights boasts the music of Sigmund Romberg whose songs in this piece do not quite have the staying power that flow through his operettas. Nonetheless the songs have humor, sparkle and romance. Noteworthy is the appearance of the French ballet artist Jeanmaire whose talents were choreographed by Agnes de Mille.

A couple of fun numbers are I Promised their Mothers and Love is the Funniest Thing, sung by Charles Goldner in both and Brenda Lewis in the second. Lost in loveliness and My Heart Won't Say Goodbye are appropriately romantic. And as every show about shows has to have a song about the theater in You've Got to Be a Little Crazy.

It's good listening. When are they going to release Li'l Abner? or Joel Gray's The Grand Tour? I got a list.

THE GIRL IN PINK TIGHTS is a fairly stock-standard 50's Broadway musical, but features some lovely songs. The show is really only noteworthy as the "legit" Broadway debut of French ballet dancer-singer Zizi Jeanmaire.

The story is about a stranded French ballet troupe, and the numerous romantic entaglements that occur. Jeanmaire sings wonderfully, and headlined the musical with European actor Charles Goldner. Others in the cast included Brenda Lewis, David Atkinson and Alexander Kalioujny.

The score by the late Sigmund Romberg and Leo Robin is quite formulaic, but does feature a handlful of memorable tunes like "When I am Free to Love", "Lost in Loveliness", "Up in the Elevated Railway" and "My Heart Won't Say Goodbye".

As always, Zizi Jeanmaire is a stellar performer, be it on disc or in person. She made her Broadway debut several seasons before PINK TIGHTS, dancing the leading role in her soon-to-be-husband Roland Petit's ballet version of Bizet's CARMEN, which played at the Winter Garden Theatre. In the early 1980's she returned to Broadway to star as La Mome Pistache in a short-lived revival of CAN-CAN, a show that bears a certain similarity to THE GIRL IN PINK TIGHTS.

THE GIRL IN PINK TIGHTS is another of those lost gems that has been brought into the light by those folks at DRG. Highly-recommended.

This is as another reviewer indicated another lost gem...I did not even know about this wonderful Romberg score from the fifties until I was consulting IBDB and Amazon...so glad it is available with beautiful ballads like "Lost in Loveliness," "In Paris and in Love," and many others. David Atkinson, Jean Marie and others shine in this rather limp story with gorgeous music...hurray for the reissue of this wonderful score!