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 enlarge | Artists: Laura Benanti, Boyd Gaines
Creator: Patti Lupone
Label: Time Life Entertainment
Category: Music
List Price: $18.98
Buy New: $11.97
You Save: $7.01 (37%)
New (34) Used (10) Collectible (1) from $9.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  44 reviews
Sales Rank: 403
Format: Cast Recording
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.8 x 0.4
MPN: 19659
UPC: 610583243123
EAN: 0610583243123
ASIN: B001CHFM12
Release Date: August 26, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Factory Sealed!- New York's largest selection of CDs & DVDs at the lowest prices. Celebrating our 31th anniversary
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| Customer Reviews:
 Everything's Coming Up Poses October 10, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This recording of the latest Broadway revival of "Gypsy" is a rather dismal affair. The show's been knockin' 'em dead in New York and the three principals won Tony awards for their efforts, but you'd never know it from this feeble effort. Everyone is trying to hit the songs up into the balcony with so much theatricality that you'd expect someone to hit them back. Patti Lupone, always a mush-mouthed singer at best, brings all of her usual mannerisms to the fore...weird cadences, odd pronunciations and scooped notes aplenty. She sounds like Mama Rose channeling Mrs. Lovett by way of Gertrude Lawrence. Lupone punches lyric lines willy-nilly with no relation to their meaning, and just listen to her staccato take on "Mr. Goldstone". Bizarre. Then there's her diction. In "You'll Never Get Away From Me", somehow becomes "somehoe". In "Everything's Coming Up Roses", do is "dyoo" and me is "mae". She gets a musical director; we need a lyric sheet. Lupone is nearly matched by the amateur thesping of Laura Benanti. Considered one of the up-and-comers on Broadway these days, she's completely out of her depth here. This Louise is all artifice and affectation, a ditzy dope or superficial showbiz manipulator that Benanti is never able to fully realize. Her emabarassing line readings are of the "high school musical" variety and her singing is no great shakes either. For example, every choice she makes as a singer or actor in "The Strip" is utterly wrong, and her duet with the throaty, overripe Leigh Ann Larkin (another homerun hitter) on "If Momma Was Married" is easily the worst recorded version of this song. Only Boyd Gaines as Herbie and Tony Yazbeck as Tulsa remain unscathed, but since this show is all about the ladies, they're blown away by Hurricanes Patti and Laura.
Granted, the classic overture is here in all its exuberant glory and the immortal score remains one of the highlights of the American musical theater. It will always be a worthwhile listen, but the worthier versions rest elsewhere. There are several new recordings of songs that were cut from the original production but they're mainly curios that make a strong case for judicious "try-out" shearing. The recording itself is surprisingly muddy and lackluster despite all the mezzanine-aimed punch. Maybe that's the problem: there's a "been-there-done-that" quality of familiarity that permeates everything. The same could not be said of the Bernadette Peters cast recording from 2003. Crisper and sharper in every way, its cast inhabited their performances and made the characters come alive. Here, they're just showing off. It may seem unfair to make comparisons but that's also part of the history of "Gypsy", and this one just doesn't rate. The Peters CD deservedly won a Grammy award for best cast recording. Don't expect the same this time around. "Patti's Turn" is just a relic from the past.
 AWESOME REVIVAL !! October 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
THERE'S NOT A DOUBT IN MY MIND THAT "GYPSY" WILL LIVE ANOTHER LIFE THROUGH THIS REVIVAL! CAST IS WONDERFUL!!!
 great new version October 2, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
cd is great especially if you have been lucky enough to see the show on broadway.Brings it all back and yu feel as if you are back in the theatre, also there are quite a few bonus tracks which were not in the show would definately ecommend if you like stage shows.
Patti Lupone's Gypsy October 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I went to see this play on Broadway and was astounded by the brillant performaces of all three cast memebers, especially Patti Lupone. I just had to buy the CD and I'm glad I did. This is a top notch edition of this classic musical.
Gypsy? Says who? September 30, 2008
4 out of 10 found this review helpful
Bought this disc based on local reviewer's rave review. HA! It is flat and every song pretends it's a mockery! Who needs this? Patti Lupone is a fine singer but she is NOT Rose! She has no oomph and spark. Strictly played for laughs (are they laughing at us for buying this turkey?) I know that the show has been sold out on Broadway but this is a new market; these people can't possibly remember how good the original was with Ethel Merman. While I certainly cannot fault producers for wanting to revive great shows (and this is a great one) they need to be more careful and try not to modernize, satirize, etc., the older versions. And what's more, isn;'t the director 90+ years old? What was he thinking? Not a great disc. Mama Rose is NOT Evita!
Buyer beware. Seek out the Columbia disc of the original Broadway cast with Ethel Merman and Jack Klugman.
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