Chaplin Finds His Voice
By Peter Filichia — It’s been more than ten years since I had a certain conversation with Michael Kunze, but I remember it as if it were yesterday. Kunze was in New York because the musical for which he’d provided the libretto and lyrics was about to open on Broadway. It was a period piece, […]
All Rodgers, All Hammerstein, All the Time
By Peter Filichia — A few weeks ago, we talked about the 25-disc “Broadway in a Box” set as a holiday present for newcomers to musical theater. If that’s a little too rich for your blood, how about the new 12-disc, 11-show set that called Rodgers & Hammerstein: The Complete Broadway Musicals. The box is […]
Lyrics in London
By Peter Filichia — If you’re quite familiar with the 1966 original Broadway cast album of Cabaret, two lyrics are going to jump out at you when you listen to the 1968 original London cast album. One comes quite early, when Fraulein Schneider sings “So What?” On the Broadway disc, Lotte Lenya sings “When I […]
Life Is a Cabaret in London, Too
By Peter Filichia — “Judi sings her way to a hit!” So said the critic for the London Daily Mirror on Leap Year Day, 1968. The Judi in question, as I don’t have to inform any musical theater fan, was not Judy Garland; while the quotation would fit the legend, the first name is off […]
That Controversial Cabaret Lyric Change
By Peter Filichia — At one point during my listening to the terrific reissue of the 1968 original London cast album of Cabaret, I suddenly thought of Gladys Troupin. She was the pianist at the hotel at which I worked in 1966. In October of that year, I urged her — as well as everyone […]
