Director-choreographer Gower Champion and star Angela Lansbury during rehearsals for Prettybelle in Boston (December 1970).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Mira” from CARNIVAL
music and lyric by Bob Merrill
performed by Anna Maria Alberghetti
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I feel like we always live under threat of a CARNIVAL revival, though I’m not sure the material is strong enough for one to truly succeed. All the music for Alberghetti is lovely, but poor Jerry Orbach is stuck with a series of formless, recit-like ballads with almost no accompaniment support.
This is slowly turning into a Bob Merrill appreciation blog. DEAL WITH IT.
“Overture” from PRETTYBELLE
I have no idea if this was even used during the show’s out of town tryout. It’s not on the soundboard recording I have (though that doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t in the show), and director Gower Champion was one of the pioneers of Overture Cutting (even HELLO DOLLY has a brief “prologue” instead). Regardless, I don’t know if an overture has ever made me more excited/intrigued to hear the rest of the score.
