Leonard Bernstein - Wonderful Town DVD

 Where is the Berliner Philharmoniker?
This concert made me disappointed.Noisy,exaggerate performance.Kitsch!Simon Rattle did not let music comming.
Submitted by susanne.huang (Taipei,TAIWAN) 
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 Not very enjoyable....
a very strange concert DVD. I enjoyed the "On The Town" concert performance and hoped this would be just as much fun. I've seen the show live twice in a full production with Donna Murphy and as a child with Elaine Stritch. I'd also seen the "Encores" production with Murphy that spurned the recent revival and figured this concert version would be comparable. It isn't by any means. Though interesting vocally at times, Kim Criswell just doesn't have the star quality the role requires. Audra, who I generally enjoy, doesn't impress much either. With two less than stellar women as the leads there really isn't much to recommend here. In fact the highlight of the entire evening for me was a featured clarinet solo in the instrumental cut from the night club scene in act two. The musician playing is note perfect and does an incredible service to Bernstein's score and the extended audience ovation is well deserved. However this still doesn't save this concert from being an overall bore. The final encore of "The Conga" after the show is over is truly bizarre. The performers are dancing aimlessly into the audience, knocking into one another and the whole thing seems poorly directed with everyone seeming forced as to having a grand time. If you purchase this DVD and get through it, I doubt you'll watch it more than once.
Submitted by HarryVossenas (Port Townsend WA) 
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 Rattle Rattles Classic Bernstein Theatre Score
Sir Simon Rattle, who quite obviously idolized the late Leonard Bernstein, emulates him quite successfully as he coaxes the staid Berlin Philharmonic to swing as if it were the Benny Goodman band. Vocal soloists Kim Criswell, Audra McDonald, Thomas Hampson, and Brent Barrett are all outstanding, as is the European Voices chorus drawn mostly from London's West End. An unnamed clarinet soloist flawlessly re-creates the Goodman style (in 1955, Bernstein recast fragments of the Wonderful Town score into Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs, his only opus for a big band, which featured Goodman), and a British saxophone quintet has been added (a la Gershwin's An American In Paris) to provide some 1930's authenticity. Another UK import, pianist Wayne Marshall (perhaps better known as an organist), incorporates some fine Bernstein variations on Harlem stride piano. Superb audio and video further enhance this concert presentation of the 1953 musical hit, whose lyrics are by the nonagenarian Betty Comden and the late Adolph Green (whose death at age 87 predated this concert by only two months, and who regarded Wonderful Town as one of his all-time favorites among his collaborations). Those who saw the recent Broadway revival (starring Donna Murphy and later Brooke Shields) will undoubtedly appreciate Sir Simon's swinging concert treatment, which was recorded for the German ZDF television network on New Year's Eve, 2002 and expertly directed by Andreas Morell.
Submitted by rbrtrobb (Broomall, PA, USA) 
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