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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
-
STAY AWAY FROM THIS VERSION!
Ok. I'll try and keep it short.
Sunset Boulevard is an amazing piece of musical theatre that I would reccomend to anyone. I have over 60 CDs of musicals, and Sunset would be it my top 10, possibly top 5. It has an amazing story, together with some stunning music, possibly Lloyd Webber's best score. I bought the 1994 Los Angeles cast a while ago and was blown away. Recently I found out my local library had this version, the 1993 London cast, available, and I thought I'd get it out, just out of interest.
I was disgusted. Before now, I'd never realises how much difference the actors/actresses make. I just thought in a musical that it was really just the music that really made the difference. I didn't know how wrong I was.
Norma Desmond is a great character, and Glenn Close (in the Los Angeles cast) is a great actress. She plays the role of Norma perfectly, not too over the top, but still making her interesting and funny and almost lovable. In the final scene you actually feel for Norma.
In this cast however, we have Patti LuPonne. I know lots of people rave about her, but I've never seen the attraction to be honest. She has quite a powerful voice, but apart from that, I don't know what else she's got. She plays Norma with none of the things I mentioned before. She turns Norma into a completely boring and dull character. And she's got this thing, I don't know what it is, but she always seems to sort of, slur her words slightly, almost like she's drunk. And she like that every time I've heard her, only on this CD it's even more noticable.
Next, Kevin Anderson, who plays Joe. I have heard more emotion coming from a telegraph pole, to be honest. I'm not sure if Anderson was trying to sort of, play down the role, like Hollywood had killed his soul sort of thing, but to me, it just sounds like bad acting, and like he doesn't want to be there. He is just so dull! The scene where Norma tells Joe she loves him has no tension or...anything! It is completely lifeless. I wouldn't say that Alan Campbell, who plays Joe in the Los Angeles cast, was anything that special or amazing, he was by no means bad, but nothing like Glenn Close. Compared to Kevin Anderson though, Alan Campbell is like a Broadway God.
Meredith Braun plays Betty in this cast. She sounds like she is 12 years old, and her accent is shocking. If she had that much trouble doing an American accent, she should have just stuck with English, instead of the sort of bizzare combination she has. Judy Kuhn plays Betty in the Los Angeles cast, and it fantastic, making her a really strong character, instead of just the lovestruck puppy Meredith Braun is.
And lastly is Daniel Benzali, playing Max, Norma's servant. He is not that bad, but Michael Cervais (in the Los Angeles Cast) is just so much better. Cervais has a great, much deeper, richer bass voice, which suits the role much better, whereas Benzali is a pretty average tenor. And Cervais' accent is much better, playing the role of the strange, forgein butler almost with a bit of a nudge and a wink. Benzali's is a lot weaker, and just not as strong.
Finally, nothing to do with the cast, although Lloyd Webber himself says in the front of the CD that there are a few trims dialogue-wise, there is over 35 minutes less than the Los Angeles cast! Granted, there is a new song, but and there may be a few songs slightly slower, but there is quite a bit of dialogue and filling music missing, which does leave a few bits hard to follow.
Just summing up, Sunset Boulevard is amazing show, but just stear clear of this version, I beg you. There is no reason to buy the London Cast when there is the incredible Los Angeles cast out there!!!
Rating: -
Patti LuPone barely manages to salvage this wretchedly directed and orchestrated "glorified highlights album."
No matter what some bitter and pretentious pseudo-intellectuals say, "Sunset Boulevard" happens to be one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's most beautiful, haunting and most accomplished works. This remarkably faithful adaptation of the timeless Billy Wilder film-noir about the evils of Hollywood and it's media hype is probably the definitive "jazz opera" with some of the most jaw droppingly innovative and groundbreaking production design. So, why the low rating on my part? Well, technically, this has nothing to do with the score and the show itself, but rather this particular album.
Where to begin? There are just so many things horribly wrong with this recording, but I think that the orchestrations themselves are a good place to start. Unlike what can be heard in the American, German, and even the lackluster Canadian recording, the music on this album is horribly disorganized and in some parts the instruments go completely out of tune. This is especially painfully obvious in "This Time Next Year" and "Eternal Youth is Worth a Little Suffering." At one point, poor Daniel Benzali actually goes completely flat due to the botched orchestration of "The Greatest Star of All." It is truly mind boggling that a production of such scope would allow for this absurd unprofessionalism.
My next big gripe comes with the afterword by Andrew Lloyd Webber, where he claims that some of the score on the recording had to be "edited for time in places." Well, that sure is putting it mildly. Over an astonishing forty minutes have been hacked off of this recording for some unknown reasons, since the album is on two discs; which means that no corner cutting was neccessary. I have strong suspicions that this happened because someone decided to save some money by using the audio cassette master for the CD release, but that is just a theory of mine. The cuts are horrible, leaving the basic plot of the musical nearly incoherent and with some jaw droppingly awful cuts, like the painful jump cut in the middle of Schwab's Drugstore scene. All of these cuts reduce this alleged "World Premiere Recording" to a pathetically glorifed highlights album.
However, what completely killed this recording for me was the horrible direction of the entire affair, which is apparent from the less-than-subpar perfomances. Everyone seems to be high on valium and bored to tears, but there are some "joyful variations." Kevin Anderson sounds whiny and raspy (in a bad way) with all the emotional range of a chair. What a waste, since Mr. Anderson has proven himself to be a fine dramatic actor. Daniel Benzali seems to be doing some sort of a lame Michael Crawford impression for "Forbidden Broadway" and the botched musical score isn't doing him any favors (see above.) However, the most butchered number in the entire recording is the group ensemble "Eternal Youth is Worth a Little Suffering." The song, already damaged by a badly out-of-tune orchestra and horrific jump cuts, seems to be sung by what only can be described as "Ritalin addicted Zombie Women of Planet Monotone." Such utter shame; since it's a wickedly comic and hilariously disturbing number that appears as a mere shadow of itself on this album.
There are however two people that rise above all this travesty. They are the wonderful Meredith Braun, who brings youthful energy and sweet innocence to character of Betty Schaefer with her lovely young soprano voice and the majestic Patti LuPone, giving a powerhouse vocal perfomance as the tragic Norma Desmond. Miss LuPone is one of very few people who did not require the complex score's key to be lowered, and boy, does it make a difference in "With One Look" and "As If We Never Said Goodbye." It's too bad her perfomance is mangled on this album with the horrific direction and numerous incomprehensible cuts made to various crucial scenes and songs. I do agree that Patti LuPone was a tad too young and "gentle" sounding for the role back in 1993, but if there's to be a revival of "Sunset Boulevard" in the near future, she would be one of my top choices to headline the show as Norma. Sadly, this will never happen, since Miss LuPone is too busy planning Andrew Lloyd Webber's untimely demise together with Faye Dunaway.
Aside from the great perfomances by Patti LuPone and Meredith Braun and the awkwardly hammy portrayal of Max by Daniel Benzali, the one other reason to get this wretched cast recording is the novelty to hear some alternate renditions of various familiar music numbers. The most interesting are a drastically different number during the Schwab's Drugstore scene (which is sadly cut to ribbons), an alternate finale to "New Ways to Dream" and a different, albeit a very abrupt, final sequence.
All in all, this has got to be one of the absolute worst "original cast recordings" ever unleashed on the unsuspecting public. The only worth of this album are the perfomances of the two leading ladies and the interesting alternate renditions of various numbers that have been drastically (and not so drastically) changed for other productions.
Rating: 
-
Sunset Boulevard (1993 original London Cast)
Patti Lupone is brilliant in this recording - makes all subsequent Norma Desmonds seem very lightweight.
All the excitement and enthusiasm of an original recording is contained within.
Rating: -
The Definative Recording of Sunset
It's quite interesting to take a project and with time rewrite it to be sufficiently worse. Well Lord Lloyd Webber did this when he rewrote Sunset Boulevard before taking it to America.
First off, let me say I am not ALW's biggest fan. I am however a strong proponent of Evita and Sunset Boulevard. I think that both are incredibly satisfying musically and dramatically. However, I did not realize how incredibly satisfying this score was until I heard Patti LuPone, Kevin Anderson, et. all perform it. (The only voice worth listening to on the US Version is George Hearn)
Instead of the incessant screaming Glenn Close and Alan Campbell provide, LuPone & Anderson "Sing" their rolse and also provide the lyrics with justice. Now anyone who knows these lyrics knows they are far from fabulous, but they do tell the story, and you can understand the story when LuPone & Anderson tell it.
The score has far better orchestrations, and has more dialogue. My biggest problem with the US version is since almost everything is sung, it seems as though nothing needs to be sung. The orchestration provides more countermelodies, etc. Some of the most beautiful and powerful orchestrations were removed by the time the show hit the US and the orchestra here, sounds arguably, like what a Broadway rendition of a film score should sound like.
The cast is just more musical overall and the tempi are more natural. "Let's Have Lunch" finally sounds like the down and dirty sort of atmosphere we associate with the old studios. Too Much in Love to Care doesn't seem forced and rushed. With One Look brilliantly soars and doesn't have the akward key changes Glenn Close needed to sing the role.
Overall, this is "the" Sunset to get.
Rating: -
Such Silliness
The silliness and misinformation surrounding this unfortunate show continues to amaze and amuse.
The simple fact is, regardless of what the sadly misinformed have to say, Patti LuPone (who did NOT, as one reviewer claimed, "create" "Evita") was personally triumphant in her British run of "Sunset". However, she and Mr. Webber had major artistic differences over the concept of the total show. He felt, for better or worse, that La Patti was not "on board" with his concept of the show, which in fairness to LuPone, was in a state of flux. She was simply not engaged for the New York run. Glenn (not Glen) Close auditioned with Webber several times. He liked her dramatically, while realizing she would be unable to sing parts of the role as had been originally written. He altered the songs to fit her voice ("Just One Look" is the most obvious example). Her interpretation is more fragile, for lack of a better word, and, it seems, more in line with what Webber wanted by the time the U.S. production was ready. The financially crucial Los Angeles/Touring production was to star Faye Dunaway, but, word has it, Webber accepted her unheard on the word of others who said she could sing the Close version of the role. He learned in L.A. rehearsals that Dunaway was unable to sing ANY version of the role, and he fired her. She sued and they quickly settled out of court. Close continued in the role for a brief period and the U.S. show closed, at Webber's insistance, without a touring company and deeply in debt.
For those who want to spend the money, BOTH recordings are well worth owning. LuPone is, well, LuPone. And that is always fun. Close is the more incisive, dramatically, and the U.S. recording is much more complete.
