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120792bk King&I 4/2/06 9:36 PM Page 2 Original Broadway Cast, 1951 Studio Recording, 1951 22. March of the Siamese Children 3:37 Music: Richard Rodgers New York Philharmonic Orchestra Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II 1. Overture 3:22 13. Overture 3:46 conducted by Richard Rodgers Transfers & Production: David Lennick Orchestra Al Goodman & His Orchestra Columbia CL 810, mx XLP 34520 Digital Restoration: Graham Newton 2. I Whistle A Happy Tune 2:40 14. My Lord And Master 2:36 Recorded 27 December 1954, New York Special thanks to Joe Cascone and Gertrude Lawrence Patrice Munsel with Al Goodman’s Orchestra Anthony Middleton 3. My Lord And Master 2:05 15. A Puzzlement 3:47 Doretta Morrow Robert Merrill with Henri René’s Orchestra Also available in the Naxos Broadway Musicals series … 4. Hello,Young Lovers 3:07 16. I Have Dreamed 3:32 Gertrude Lawrence Tony Martin & Patrice Munsel with 5. March Of The Siamese Children 3:14 Al Goodman’s Orchestra Orchestra 17. Shall We Dance 2:43 6. A Puzzlement 3:30 Robert Merrill & Dinah Shore with Yul Brynner Henri René’s Orchestra 7. Getting To Know You 3:26 RCA Victor LK 1022, mx E1-LVC-45/46 Gertrude Lawrence & Chorus Recorded March 1951, New York (tracks 8. We Kiss In A Shadow 3:26 13, 14, 16) & Los Angeles (tracks 15, 17) Larry Douglas & Doretta Morrow Original London Cast, 1954 9. Shall I Tell You What I Think Of You? 18. Getting To Know You 3:27 3:24 Valerie Hobson, King’s Wives & Children 8.120780 8.120787 8.120788 Gertrude Lawrence Philips PB 194, mz AA 26063 2H6 10. Something Wonderful 2:34 19. Shall I Tell You What I Think Of You? Dorothy Sarnoff 3:47 11. I Have Dreamed 3:26 Valerie Hobson Larry Douglas & Doretta Morrow Philips PB 192, mx AA 26066 2H6 12. Shall We Dance 2:50 20. Something Wonderful 2:58 Gertrude Lawrence & Yul Brynner Muriel Smith Orchestra & Chorus conducted by Philips PB 191, mx AA 26065 2H6 Frederick Dvonch 21. A Puzzlement 3:44 Decca DL 9008, DU 40207/12 in album Herbert Lom DA 876, mx W 80855/66 Philips PB 194, mx AA 26068 1H6 Recorded 16 & 17 April 1951, New York Orchestra conducted by Reginald Burston 8.120789 8.120790 8.120791 Recorded August 1954, London These titles are not for retail sale in the USA 5 8.120792 6 8.120792 120792bk King&I 4/2/06 9:36 PM Page 1 having declined to write the show, now turned Shall We Dance? and We Kiss in a Shadow Lawrence’s voice continued to come in for dominated the stage.’ The King And I down the male lead as well. that delivered their full potential. much criticism throughout the run of the This disc also features selections from an Original Broadway, London and Studio Cast Recordings, 1951–1954 They were at a loss until a Russian-born But there was still something missing, and show. What no one (including her) ever knew RCA ‘cover’ recording made with popular actor of mixed Roumanian-Mongolian heritage that sage veteran Lawrence put her finger on it. was that she was dying of liver cancer. After vocalists of the period. It was actually released Music by Richard Rodgers • Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II sat squat-legged on the stage and accompanied ‘Let me sing a song with the children’, she collapsing on stage one afternoon, she passed before the show opened on Broadway and himself on the guitar with a wild gypsy folk pleaded with Rodgers and Hammerstein, away on 6 September 1952. She was buried in features an Overture that was put together Irony is not always the first quality that comes vehicle for her client. song. His name was Yul Brynner and although referring to the fifteen offspring of the King the pink ball gown she had been wearing in expressly for the purpose. to mind when discussing a Rodgers and But at first, no one else agreed. Both Cole he had only appeared in one Broadway show, who were delighting audiences. the “Shall We Dance?” sequence. Patrice Munsel and Tony Martin deliver Hammerstein musical, but it certainly rests at Porter and Noel Coward declined writing the the 1946 Lute Song, his leading lady from that Hammerstein recalled a favourite melody of The King And I, despite its mixed notices, reliable versions of their assigned ballads, but the heart of the creation of The King And I. score, finding nothing to entice them in the production told Rodgers and Hammerstein to Rodgers that Joshua Logan had made them cut went on to become one of the classics of Robert Merrill’s A Puzzlement is a bit of an Even though the work was originally story of the woman who came to Siam in the ‘grab him’. from South Pacific. In that show, as “Suddenly modern musical theatre. Its initial run of 1246 oddity, with lines like his unpunctuated ‘Is a conceived and written as a vehicle for its 1860s as the governess to the multitudinous Since her name was Mary Martin, they Happy”, it didn’t work and had been replaced performances was a solid one and the 1956 puzzlement what to tell a growing son’, starring lady, the show has come to linger in the children of the Siamese monarch. heeded her advice. by “Younger than Springtime”. film (starring Brynner and Deborah Kerr) sounding like a preview of his later triumph as public consciousness as a triumphant showcase A chance meeting with Dorothy Things were tense throughout rehearsals. But now, with the new title, Getting To scored a major success. Tevye, rather than the King of Siam. for its leading man. Hammerstein, on the way to the delicatessen to Director John Van Druten was a low-key man Know You, it became the missing piece of the Brynner, in fact, found it hard to escape The 1953 London Cast features ever-proper It all began in 1950, when Fanny get a sandwich for her husband, Oscar, started best known as a playwright, not the ideal puzzle that made The King And I click. from the shadow of the King. He eventually Valerie Hobson, often called ‘the Iron Maiden of Holtzmann, the super-agent behind musical another set of wheels in motion and before choice to whip a large musical into shape. When it opened on 29 March 1951, the stopped trying and toured with the show until British cinema’ as Anna. Muriel Smith (the comedy legend Gertrude Lawrence, set out to long Broadway was surprised to hear that the The cost of the show was $360,000 which reviews were generally favourable, but many of he died of lung cancer on 10 October 1985 Bloody Mary of London’s South Pacific) as find a vehicle for her client. unstoppable team of Rodgers and Hammerstein, was a record for the time and Rodgers and them echoed Brooks Atkinson in the New York The original cast recording heard here Lady Thiang and Herbert Lom (best Although once the toast of Broadway and fresh from their Pulitzer Prize for South Pacific, Hammerstein were worried about their Times when he called it ‘no match for South leaves out (for time reasons) some of the remembered as Inspector Dreyfus from the London, it had been nine years since the were about to start writing a vehicle for investment. Pacific’. numbers from the production, most notably Pink Panther series) as The King. opening of Lawrence’s last solid-gold hit, Lady Gertrude Lawrence. To top it all off a visibly weakened The other dissenting opinion involved “Western People Funny”,“Song of the King” Last, but not least, is the composer himself in the Dark. Rodgers, to be honest, had his doubts, both Lawrence struggled against ill-health, missing Lawrence. She was credited with ‘a thoroughly and the lengthy ballet “The Small House of conducting the New York Philharmonic In the intervening time there had been about Lawrence’s tyrannical personality and her the final week of rehearsals before the first out professional, though uninspired performance’ Uncle Thomas.” Orchestra in a 1954 recording of The March some less-than-winning plays (September Tide) uncertain pitch, but Hammerstein’s passion for of town tryout due to pneumonia. by John McClain in the Journal-American and Listening to Lawrence’s thin voice, one of the Siamese Children. and a disastrous film version of The Glass the story won him over. In New Haven, it ran four hours long and most of his colleagues agreed. might wonder at her stardom. So did dancer The King And I may have been conceived Menagerie. Ethel Merman had Annie Get Your They had trouble initially finding someone was found in need of serious surgery. A whole When it came to Yul Brynner’s King, Gemze de Lappe, until she found herself out of opportunism, created in trepidation and Gun; Mary Martin had South Pacific. Gertie willing to share the stage with their diva, series of songs ‘that we realized just in time however, they tripped over themselves with watching the show from the audience one forged in crisis, but in the end, it truly emerged needed a hit musical of her own. however. Rex Harrison refused the opportunity were boring’, to quote Rodgers, were excised. superlatives like ‘striking’,‘excellent’,‘regal’ and night. as “Something Wonderful”. Holtzmann was sent a copy of Margaret to recreate his film role, saying ‘I never bathe in They bore forgettable names like “Why?”, ‘dynamic’. ‘She had such star quality,’she recalled,‘that Landon’s 1944 best-seller Anna and the King the same water twice’.