Customer Reviews

Sondheim: Passion (1997 London Cast)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The reason I bought this CD is that I am a huge Michael Ball fan. I had heard the Broadway Cast Recording and decided to give this one a try. I am so glad I did! This CD is almost perfect. Helen Hobson as Clara is good, but her low notes sound somewhat strident and forced. Her speaking lines, however, are perfect. Maria Friedman as Fosca is excellent. I had to listen to her several times before I liked her, though. She has more of a hoarse, low voice than Donna Murphy of the OBC, but she puts even more emotion into her performance than Donna Murphy and comes across more realistically, adding anger into the mix of her emotions. Michael Ball as Giorgio is absolute perfection. You can just see the range of his feelings - anger, sadness, confusion, longing. His speaking lines are delivered with just as much emotion as his singing. If you haven't heard this gorgeous version, do yourself a favor and buy it!!!

I found the American orchestra slightly synthesized where as the London recording has a wonderfully classical orchestration that fits the piece to the tea. The numbers flow from one to the other without any detectable breaks. As others before have said, I find the whole piece more operatic than musical theatre. I imagine that opera companies will take to performing Passion like they've done with Sweeney Todd and A Little Night Music. His composing ability is at its top form comparable to any modern classical composer.
I do challenge the people who say the musical contains no songs to look deeper than the surface. There is the Love that Flies duet, I Read solo, I wish I could forget you, and Happiness. Everything, the song, the dialogue, and the music, is about the scene. The craft of construction is more Wagnerian than pop like your Stephen Schwartzes (who I like by the way). Each is crafted with beautiful melodies that twist the subtle changes in lyrics. As an example "just another love story that's what they would claim" to "Just a simple love story needn't end the same" (probably misquoting, but you get the idea). Georgio with the same theme makes an about face in his concept of love. Sondheim has used his lyrics extremely well in revisiting the same melodies with new shading completely changing the meaning. The desperation and pain in Fosca with the first statement of the melody is restated by Georgio as his desperation and pain toward the end of the musical. The king of lyricists, he remains strong and firm with scepter in hand.
I found that the London cast tends to act more and read lines less. Some of the scenes on the Broadway recording sounded read as opposed to really acting the musical. Maria Friedman's voice is rough and dispirit while singing and husky while speaking. I believe it works well for the tragic Fosca. Michael Ball, clearly the star of this recording whether you are listening or just looking at the cover, dominates the recording with vocal power. Jere Shea's Georgio is a wilting flower compared to Ball and his force of will. He is no victim in this recording. Helen Hobson has a nice soprano voice, a good contrast to Friedman's, but sinks into the background in this recording. I read once, as said by the director of the Kennedy Center's production of Passion in 2003, that the musical requires a balance between the three leads. He said Donna Murphy so wonderful in her performance destroyed the Broadway production because she overshadowed the other performers. That is why I don't find the dueling divas in this production distressing. It is the conflict between Georgio and his choice of Clara or Fosca. I am not sure what Hobson could have done to be more prominent, but she does a good job in the recording.
The first time I listened to this musical I hated it. I didn't get it. It wasn't until the third time I listened to it; I actually began to enjoy the skill and craftsmanship. Passion is not a passive musical it requires active listening. Now I think it is wonderful and endearing.

This cd will never die! I purchased this soundtrack from "Dress Circle" in London and it was well worth the wait! Maria Friedman gives a chilling, tormented performance of the ill, sickly, and isolated woman "Fosca Ricci". Michael Ball's performance is perfect as the lovesick "Giorgio", head over heals in love with a married woman "Clara"(played by Helen Hobson, who is also amazing, a wonderful singer.) Steven Sondhiem's beautiful music score and lyrics capture the loneliness, passion, and longing of Fosca for Giorgio; her ultimate companion. Maria Friedman's performance is the highlight of this recording, her voice is strong(with a strong creepiness at points, which is perfect for the part) and presents Sondhiem's lyrics perfectly! This recording is the ultimate Sondheim musical. Well worth the search!

I have to say that I was totally emotionally shaken by this musical.
It tells the story of a young Italian soldier, Giorgio (Michael Ball), who was involved in the love relationship with two women: Clara (Helen Hubson), for whom Giorgio originally had a passionate love, and Fosca (Maria Friedman), who had a passionate love for Giorgio. It is a somewhat common love story, but the way the story is told is totally unusual and brilliant. The whole play is threaded with the letters among Giorgio, Clara, and Fosca. The music is, what should I say, simply breathtaking. The principal melodies are arranged so cleverly and songs (solos, duets, and trios) are connected so smoothly that you feel all pieces of music as one part.
Michael Ball is wonderful, remarkably wonderful. He uses his voice with such ease that you feel he can go anywhere. And the great emotion he puts into each song is unbelievable. There is a solo for Giorgio, which is not in the original Broadway show and I believe Stephen Sondheim specifically wrote for Michael, called "No One Has Ever Loved Me". This haunting number brings out especially the best of Michael's singing and makes the play more completed. "Passion", which is the play that lured Michael back to the musical stage after six years of absence since he did "Aspect of Love" on Broadway, once again shows that Michael is such a natural for the musical stage.
Maria Friedman as Fosca is also great. Fosca is the kind of role that any actress would dream to get. The depth, the emotions and the uniqueness make the character so complicated and so human. Maria's voice in the show is very expressive, though I wouldn't say it is beautiful, and is perfect for the suffering and bitterness of the role. Her "Loving You" would touch you to the bone.
This is the CD I would recommend to anyone who loves good music and appreciates great voices, and certainly to Stephen Sonheim fans, Michael Ball fans, and Maria Friedman fans.

Anyone who saw the Broadway production of this musical would have been amazed at the West End production with Michael Ball and Maria Friedman. This is actually a concert recording done after the West End run, but the voices soar!! While I remember the Bway production in shades of gray, with no color to speak of, The London production was filled with Light and energy, it was like watching a different show! And all that comes out on this cd! Buy it, please, buy it and experience the difference!

I am a HUGE Sondheim fan. I have a minimum of one recording for every show he's written, in most cases at least two recordings. I bought the original recording of "Passion" when it first came out in the mid 90s (94, I believe). About two years ago, I stumbled across this recording. As other reviewers pointed out, there are strengths and weaknesses here. The Clara is no Marin Mazzie from the original. Maria Friedman holds her own against Donna Murphy (I love Friedman's "Loving You.") What makes the difference here is Michael Ball. Completely different from the Broadway recording, Ball's "No One Has Ever Loved Me" at the end of the CD is worth the cost of the disc alone. Whenever I put this CD on I listen to that one track several times over before I can move on to the end of the show because it is so beautifully done. Overall, I would say that this recording is worth buying because let's face it, either you're going to REALLY like this show or hate it. There's no in between. If you really like it and have maybe only heard the Broadway recording you owe yourself the pleasure of hearing Michael Ball's performance.

I have not seen either the broadway or London version of this show. There is not a song that really stands out but it has moved up to my second favourite musical of all time. As I said there are no catchy numbers but it is addictive. It was like reading a book and not wanting to put it down. Michael Ball, Helen Hobson and Maria Friedman are excellent. I wish with all my heart that I could have seen this on the London stage. If you like musicals you will love this.

Someone said that when Stephen Sondheim writes for musical theatre, everything is part of the story. All the notes, the words, the pauses have to do with telling the story, establishing the mood of the characters. There is very little stand alone music in this CD. However, all the songs fit into establishing the storyline and define the people involved. Michael Ball has a wonderful, expressive voice for storytelling. The passion of the story is quite evident in his voice. His songs change from the anger and frustration he feels from his initial experiences with Fosca to sympathy for her feelings. Listening to a CD when you have not seen the stage production is missing part of the story. This CD tells the story with very few gaps. This is a wonderful theatre experience.

Sondheim's Passion (1994) won a handful of Tonys, but it didn't run for long, and the audience found itself confronted by a very uncomfortable twist in the show's romantic parable: beauty loses to the beast. The score is largely through-composed, like an opera, but with some dialogue that isn't underscored -- the anguished tone isn't far from verismo opera's tortured love stories. The original Broadway cast worked its way into the soul through a shocking emotional vulnerability. There was no hiding place safe from Donna Murphy's searing pain and obsessive ardor. Still, she wasn't a beast; Giorgio's repelled reaction at first seeing her was somewhat artificial -- most of the audience must have been grateful, because it would have been unbearable to see a scarified Fosca; her music was painful enough.

The London production from two years later, here being performed in concert, softens the painfulness and wrenching doom that haunted the original. By ordinary standards Maria Friedman makes for a powerful Fosca, especially in her dominating chest voice, but she has put on a couple of layers of generic passion. The whole cast is a touch generic, in fact. We can sit back and feel safer than before. Her Giorgio, Michael Ball, has a stronger tenor than Jere Shea, and it's for him that I mostly return to this version. But Shea was more vulnerable psychologically. Hard as he works, Ball cannot quite escape his Robert-Goulet-for-our-time image.

This season there was a new London revival at the Donmar Warehouse (an intimate theater well known for its revival of obscure Sondheim shows, like Merrily We Roll Along). Celebrated as Passion is, it isn't often revived; audiences don't like being put through the wringer so tortuously. Apparently the new Fosca is a slim Victorian invalid, not at all repellent to gaze upon. As one reviewer notes, she is more Jane Eyre than Mrs. Rochester, the crazy in the attic. So this reversal of beauty and the beast continues to throw us off balance. Passion is the only show I know that deeply needs psychoanalysis to heal it pain.

Being a great Sondheim fan, I saw the show in the West End, London. The score is hugely romantic and lush. Michael Ball is a terrific singer and comes across better on the c.d than as an actor on the stage. He had many fans sitting down the front all whooping at him, which, did, to an extent spoil the powerful sentiment of the story being conveyed.

Maria Friedman won an award for her tragic portrayal and deservedly so - she certainly gave that part some stick (as we say here in England). I've seen her "live" many times and she is fabulous - also check out on Amazon: "Blues in the Night", "Witches of Eastwick", "Cabaret", Lady in the Dark", "Off the Wall" and "Merrily we Roll Along". She also appears on Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber compliations. Her solo c.d is wonderful (if you can still get it). She's also starred in "Chicago", Sunday in the Park", "Ghetto", appeared with Barbara Cook and Michael Ball et al, on radio shows and tv. "By Special Arrangement" - her award winning one woman show, (at the Donmar Warehouse (the same place Nicole Kidman gave us "theatrical viagra") was particulrly stunning. I hear she is soon to re-create the role of Fanny Brice in the new "Funny Girl" so I expect we'll be hearing a lot more from her. Strangely... her voice also appears as a guide track on a "pocket song" backing track for "Cabaret!" (I'd recognise that voice anywhere!!)

Singing Weasel