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120788bk Kate 16/2/05 9:39 PM Page 2 Kiss Me, Kate 14. Bianca 2:11 21. Farming 2:43 27. Medley: I Hate You, Darling— Original Broadway Cast Harold Lang Danny Kaye, with orchestra & vocal group Ace in the Hole—Farming 2:43 conducted by Johnny Green William Scotty & His Cotillion Room 1. Overture 2:42 15. So In Love (Reprise) 2:16 Alfred Drake Columbia 36583, mx WCO 32167-1 Orchestra Orchestra Recorded 19 January 1942 Liberty Music Shops L 345, mx W-11 2. Another Op’nin’, Another Show 1:46 16. Brush Up Your Shakespeare 1:44 Recorded c. November 1941 Harry Clark & Jack Diamond 22. I Hate You, Darling 2:53 Annabelle Hill & Chorus Mary Jane Walsh, with orchestra conducted All selections recorded in New York 17. I Am Ashamed that Women Are So 3. Why Can’t You Behave? 3:12 by Max Meth Music & Lyrics by Cole Porter Simple 1:57 Lisa Kirk & Harold Lang Liberty Music Shops L 343, mx W-9 Transfers & Production: David Lennick Patricia Morison Recorded c. November 1941 4. Wunderbar 3:40 Digital Restoration: Graham Newton Alfred Drake & Patricia Morison 18. Finale 0:46 23. A Little Rumba Numba 2:58 Special thanks to Jack Raymond Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison & Company Hildegarde, with orchestra conducted by 5. So In Love 3:37 Harry Sosnik Patricia Morison Orchestra conducted by Also available ... Pembroke Davenport Decca 23243, mx 69809-A 6. We Open in Venice 2:02 Columbia 55042/7, mx XCO 40353/64 Recorded 13 October 1941 Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk & Recorded 13 January 1949 24. Ev’rything I Love 3:02 Harold Lang Issued as 78 album C 200, long play album Mary Jane Walsh, with orchestra & chorus 7. Tom, Dick or Harry 2:08 ML 4140 conducted by Max Meth Lisa Kirk, Harold Lang, Edwin Clay & Liberty Music Shops L 344, mx W-7 Charles Wood Let’s Face It! Recorded c. November 1941 8. I’ve Come to Wive it Wealthily in Original Cast & Studio Recordings 25. Let’s Not Talk About Love 2:28 Padua 2:14 Danny Kaye, with orchestra conducted by 19. Medley: Everything I Love— Alfred Drake & Chorus Johnny Green You Irritate Me So 3:04 Columbia 36582, mx WCO 32168-1 9. I Hate Men 2:15 William Scotty & his Cotillion Room Recorded 9 January 1942 Patricia Morison Orchestra 10. Were Thine That Special Face 4:14 Liberty Music Shops L 345, mx W-10 26. Ace in the Hole 2:55 8.120786* Alfred Drake Recorded c. November 1941 Mary Jane Walsh, with orchestra conducted by Max Meth 20. You Irritate Me So 2:53 11. Too Darn Hot 3:38 Liberty Music Shops L 344, mx W-8 Hildegarde, with orchestra conducted by 8.120787* Lorenzo Fuller, Eddie Sledge & Fred Davis Recorded c. November 1941 12. Where is the Life that Late I Led? 4:28 Harry Sosnik * Not Available in the U.S. Alfred Drake Decca 23243, mx 69810-A Recorded 13 October 1941 13. Always True to You (In My Fashion) 4:02 Over 70 Channels of Classical Music • Jazz, Folk/World, Nostalgia Lisa Kirk NAXOS RADIO www.naxosradio.com Accessible Anywhere, Anytime • Near-CD Quality 5 8.120788 6 8.120788 120788bk Kate 16/2/05 9:39 PM Page 1 concept has never truly been settled. Saint rechristened it Wunderbar. the opening, and features most of the score, some specialty comedy numbers of her own Kiss Me, Kate Subber suggests the idea was his and stemmed On the other hand, no other Porter score although several numbers were cut due to into the score for her husband, but Porter Original Broadway Cast 1949 from the days he was on tour with Alfred Lunt contained so many quality songs discarded length including the first act ending that gives himself came up with two winners for the and Lynn Fontanne and watched the married before the opening for one reason or another, the show its title (although a fragment of it can comedian, Farming and Let’s Not Talk About Let’s Face It stars bickering onstage as well as off. including the haunting “We Shall Never Be be heard in the finale on this recording). Love, both of which Kaye romps through on a Original Cast & Studio Recordings 1941-1942 Bella Spewack insists she was first Younger” and the naughty “What Does Your The other thing worth noting is that what is 1942 recording. approached about just turning Shrew into a Servant Dream About?”. called the Overture is actually the “Entr’acte”, The overly earnest cabaret artist who called Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter musical and that she originated the backstage Spewack was struggling in her own way as played before Act II. Kiss Me, Kate as originally herself ‘The Incomparable Hildegarde’ always story,while Cole Porter is on record as saying much as Porter was and although it killed her to performed had no Overture. loved Porter’s work, although the feeling wasn’t the whole thing began with Alfred Drake. do so, she finally turned to her estranged After all these years, we can still enjoy the mutual. She recorded You Irritate Me So and The overture is about to start. And then there was Cole Porter. Throughout Everyone agrees that Porter took a long time husband Sam to help with the book. He came lush theatricality of Alfred Drake, the razor-like A Little Rumba Numba in October of 1941. You cross your fingers and hold your heart. the 1920s and ’30s, his name had been in being convinced of the project, but the up with the subplot about the debt-collecting control of Patricia Morison, the saucy charm of Mary Jane Walsh was a popular Broadway synonymous with smart, sophisticated musicals. dynamic Bella wouldn’t take no for an answer gangsters which gives the show much of its Lisa Kirk and the sheer cheekiness of Harold singer of the period who was also in the Those lines from the opening number of His score for Anything Goes alone would have and the songwriter finally relented. comic zip and inspired one of Porter’s wittiest Lang. A great cast in a great score, no matter original cast of Let’s Face It! and she is heard Kiss Me, Kate were probably running through earned him a place in theatre history. One reason for Porter’s reluctance may have songs, Brush Up Your Shakespeare. how hard it was to get together. on a November 1941 version of three selections the brains of everyone connected with the now- But a tragic riding accident in 1937 had left been the fact that he was in what he later called A legendary case of ‘what do the experts Also on this recording are nine selections from the show, I Hate You Darling and Ace classic musical when it opened on 30 December him crippled and his work began a slow ‘complete agony’ during the period, due to an know?’ happened at the final run-through before that cover much of the score from Porter’s In the Hole and Ev’rything I Love. 1948. decline. By the time he started Kiss Me Kate,he abscess on one of his badly damaged legs. But, the show finished rehearsing in New York. An 1941 popular hit Let’s Face It! Period bandleader William Scotty and his For most of the major players involved, this hadn’t had a hit in five years, while Rodgers and self-medicating with alcohol, he plowed ahead, insecure Saint Subber had cognoscenti like Moss This was a typical wartime romp, based on Cotillion Room Orchestra complete the show was either the big break or the last Hammerstein and Irving Berlin were enjoying usually writing in the wee small hours of the Hart, Edna Ferber and Agnes DeMille watch the a 1925 farce called The Cradle Snatchers.In collection with two medleys from November chance: the musical that would put them on the the biggest smashes of their careers. morning and awakening a not-delighted production and offer their advice. They all told the original version, three bored society wives 1941 that cover five songs from the score. map, or knock them off the board forever. Clearly a lot was at stake here, and the fact Spewack to sing her selections like Why Can’t him it was doomed to failure. flirt with a trio of jazz age gigolos. In the musi- Let’s Face It! shows Porter in a purely Saint Subber was a stage manager who that a musicalization of Shakespeare’s The You Behave? However, when it opened in Philadelphia on cal, the men become recent draftees (although conventional vein, no better or worse than the dreamed of being a producer; this was his one Taming of the Shrew was the vehicle that Still Porter plowed ahead, driving past pain 2 December 1948, the critics and audiences fell the show opened two months before Pearl material he had to work with. But Kiss Me, big opportunity. Patricia Morison was a B everyone pinned their anxious hopes on shows and insecurity to create his finest score. Some in love with it instantly and only a few minor Harbor brought America into World War II). Kate, on the other hand, demonstrates the picture ingénue who at 33 knew she had to how desperate they were, because no one on of the numbers (Where Is The Life that Late I cuts were necessary before it faced its Broadway The star of the show was Danny Kaye, genius he was capable of when given a project become a star this time out or give up her Broadway thought it was a good idea.