Kismet (1953 Original Broadway Cast) [CAST RECORDING] [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED] [EXTRA TRACKS]

Kismet (Related Recordings), George Forrest, Doretta Morrow, Robert Wright, Joan Diener, Richard Kiley, Alfred Drake

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 30, 2000)
• Original Release Date: December 1953
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Cast Recording, Original recording remastered, Extra tracks
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B00004THLY
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #35,138 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Using themes by 19th-century Russian composer Alexander Borodin to musicalize a play set in ancient Baghdad seems the kind of harebrained idea only a crazed producer would have. And we should thank him for it. For Kismet is Broadway at its most demented--just the way we like it. Robert Wright and George Forrest reworked Borodin's music so that it would function as the basis for show songs. And what songs: "Stranger in Paradise" and "Baubles, Bangles and Beads" have become classics, and the rest of the score is delightfully kitsch. Alfred Drake equals his performance in Kiss Me, Kate in a bombastic tour-de-force, and to top it all off, Borodin got a posthumous Tony. Fans (you know who you are) will enjoy the bonus interviews with the leads. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mono sound but still the BEST performance/recording., August 30, 1998

By	A. Andersen (Bellows Falls, VT USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Kismet: A Musical Arabian Night (Original Broadway Cast) (Audio CD)

KISMET began life as a 1911 play, filmed as a silent that year and again as a talkie in Vitascope widescreen (65 mm.) in 1930. It got the MGM Technicolor treatment in 1942 and then was adapted into this sumptuous operetta in 1953, followed by a leaden and boring fourth film version -this time of the musical - in 1955. Here is the extraordinary original cast - Alfred Drake Doretta Morrow, Richard Kiley, Joan Diener and Henry Calvin. Sound is excellent, performances both dramatically and musically are superb and the orchestrations are lush, dramatic, sumptuous and breathtakingly beautiful. Too bad the book is humorous fluff - but the score is one of the glories of the musical theatre. This was the first LP designed solely for that format (times weren't trimmed to fit on one side of a 78 or 45 rpm alternate disk) and the first to be recorded in microgroove, allowing for far more recorded sound per LP side than before. Exceptional clarity, the excitement of a live Broadway performance and deserved winner of six Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Book, Best Score and Best Actor. It ran for 583 performances on Broadway and was revived in 1978 in an African version, TIMBUKTU. Exceptional conducting. Here are the 18 original musical numbers. Dance music is not included but in any case this is a gem in the recorded annals of musical history. Very worth owning. (Note: This was Kiley's first show and Diener's next to last. Years later he was to star as Don Quixote in MAN OF LA MANCHA with Diener costarring in her last role as Aldonza). Note the "theatrical" approach of Alfred Drake from the rear of the recording studio in RYMES HAVE I - another "touch" of Goddard Lieberson, recording producer for Columbia.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Joyous vitality!, November 10, 2001

By	D. MCGOVERN "Derek McGovern" (New Zealand) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have loved this recording since I was nine years old, and will never tire of it. The combination of Borodin's wonderful melodies and the wittiest lyrics that ever graced a musical are simply irresistible. This is one of those recordings to play on a gloomy day - its joyous optimism will cure any depression.

I've always regretted that Alfred Drake did not star in the film version of this musical. Good though Howard Keel was in the 1955 movie, no one has ever sung the lead role with such commanding vocal presence and attention to the lyrics as Alfred Drake. His Shakespearean background no doubt contributed to his superb enunciation, and he brings such wit and mischief to his portrayal that the listener is utterly seduced by his charm. What a shame he only made one major film appearance!

Henry Calvin and Joan Diener as the wicked Wazir and his wife are equally impressive, and Diener displays exactly the right combination of beauty and steel in her rousing Not Since Ninevah. Calvin enjoys himself immensely in the wickedly clever Was I Wazir?

Among the other players, Doretta Morrow and Richard Kiley provide solid support as the young lovers. Kiley struggles with his upper register, but produces a sweet falsetto in Night of My Nights.

But what makes this recording a masterpiece is the contribution of its star Alfred Drake - surely the ultimate Broadway performer. Forget the 1991 remake with the dull Samuel Ramey, this is the definitive performance.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A BYGONE AGE OF MAGICAL MUSIC, September 1, 1999

By	"vanyar" (SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kismet: A Musical Arabian Night (Original Broadway Cast) (Audio CD)

Every song in this disc has exciting and glorious music ( and why not?; They're' by Borodin). The lyrics, too, remarkably adapted not only to fit the music as though they belonged, but also showing wit, melodic sensitivity and, what's more,intelligence. They also assume that the listener has some intelligence. The voices?; Beautiful and appropriate to the part. (Did you know that Joan Diener graduated from Shaker Heights High in Ohio and that her first (?) role was in HMS Pinafore at the Clevelad Playhouse?) Well, she only gets better! I never tire of listening to the score.