In random order -
A musical which had a lot of lovely moments but vanished rather fast was "Chess". I looked for a video of the song which explains the birth of chess as a game - because I remember it as phenomenal staging from when I saw the thing live in London, oh, many years ago. But one of my favourite songs from the musical IS available on video clip - oh, listen to the words of this - it always tears my heart out, child of the diaspora that I am:
And then there's "Cats". I have always loved the Eliot poems and the musical tickled my sense of whimsy - we all know "Memory" and I love that piece of music, but the thing that gets me grinning and gets my toes tapping is this one:
I love the utterly catlike movements that the cast as a whole have mastered perfectly...
...and from the ridiculous, to the sublime -
I love this song with a passion. Once, when I was working as an editor for Heinemann New Zealand, they took us out for dinner on the occasion of the annual sales conference for all the reps - and they picked this restaurant where the entertainment were student opera singers from the local opera conservatory - and they sang operatic arias, and then they sang a few other things, and they sang a bunch of Gershwin - but they obstinately skated around this one. So I whined, at one of the Heinemann tables. So the rest of the table said, what are you going to do about it?
Ladies and gentlemen, I sang it. Right there in the restaurant. A capella.
After three glasses of wine, mind you. It isn't something I'd do just like that. But I SANG IT. Because nobody else would and I wanted it.
(the video is a little funky because it goes on in silence for a while after the song ends - but hey - it's Kathleen Battle - forgive the trespasses and just listen to that VOICE...)
And one more. One more I love love love.
I try to sing this one, too, but goshdurnit, this is a LOW SONG. SIng it in Robeson's key and I can't hit the low notes. Sing it in a soprano register and it just doesn't SOUND right... so I have to content myself with just listening...
Any favourites you care to share?
