Composer: Leonard Bernstein
Performer: Alysha Umphress, Kevin Brewis, Flora Dawson, Nathan Gunn, Stephen John Davies, Danielle de Niese, Sophia Foroughi, Duncan Rock, Ashley Riches, Jane Quinn, David Butt Philip, Andrew Keelan, Michael Baxter, London Symphony Chorus
Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Sir Simon Rattle
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: LSO
Release: 2018
Size: 1.6 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Wonderful Town
01. No. 1, Overture
02. No. 2. Christopher Street
03. No. 3. Ohio
04. No. 4. Conquering New York
05. No. 5. One Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man
06. No. 6. What a Waste
07. No. 8. A Little Bit in Love
08. No. 9. Pass the Football
09. No. 10. Conversation Piece
10. No. 11. A Quiet Girl
11. No. 12. Conga!
12. No. 13: Entr’acte
13. No. 14. My Darlin’ Eileen
14. No. 15. Swing!
15. No. 16. Quiet Incidental
16. No. 16a. Ohio (Reprise)
17. No. 17. It’s Love
18. No. 18. Ballet at the Village Vortex
19. No. 19. Wrong Note Rag
20. No. 19a. It’s Love (Reprise)
21. Wonderful Town, Act I: No. 12. Conga! (Audience Participation Version)
Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra pay homage to Leonard Bernstein with a recording of Wonderful Town that captures the energy and excitement of sold-out performances from December 2017. Featuring an all-star cast led by Danielle de Niese and Alysha Umphress, this release coincides with worldwide #BernsteinAt100 celebrations marking the centenary of the Orchestra’s former President.
Bernstein’s five-time Tony award-winning musical follows sisters Ruth and Eileen on their quest to make it big, pursuing careers in writing and acting from their cramped basement apartment in New York’s bohemian Greenwich Village. Fresh from rural Ohio, the sisters end up getting more than they bargained for, realising that life in the Big Apple is not as glamorous as it may seem.
A bright and cheery love letter to the city that never sleeps and the colourful characters inhabiting it, Wonderful Town draws on Fields and Chodorov’s 1940 play My Sister Eileen, which itself is based on a series of autobiographical short stories by the ‘real-life’ Ruth McKenney.