The latest in our series of mainly obscure musicals on 10" LPs is Tonight We Sing from 1953.
The film is a biopic on impresario Sol Hurok. Why anyone would want to watch a movie about a concert promoter is beyond me - I guess it was just a way to string together musical sequences featuring Hurok's attractions such as Ezio Pinza and Roberta Peters. That's them acknowledging the unseen audience on the cover above as Jan Peece looks on from the prompter's box. (Poor Peerce didn't actually get into the film, although his voice did. Pinza and Peters were more lucky, if you can call it that.)
Tonight We Sing is available on Hulu so I sampled some of it, and was amazed to find that Fox had cast David Wayne as the Ukrainian immigrant Hurok. Pinza played Chaliapin. (Wayne couldn't have been more miscast if they had cast him as Chaliapin.) The segment I saw showed Chaliapin (depicted as a blustering buffoon) only agreeing to leave Russia for an American tour when the Bolsheviks set off a bomb outside his window. Then he shows up in New York unexpectedly and Hurok goes to fetch him for what appeared to be an instant tour, leaving his wife (Anne Bancroft!) miffed because it means once again postponing their long-delayed honeymoon. This rift apparently supplied whatever tension the movie had.
 |
| Ezio Pinza and Roberta Peters |
So the film isn't that great (what I saw of it) but the music is surprisingly good. The LP starts off with Peerce and Peters in a love duet from Madama Butterfly, presented in a extroverted, crowd pleasing manner. The rest of the program - Pinza in Boris Godunov scenes and a Russian folk song, various combinations in Gounod and more Puccini - is on a similar high level. Leading the Fox orchestra is Alfred Newman, who keeps things moving along. The band plays well, as far as I can tell - the voices are well to the fore. Balance aside, the sound is good.
Below is a 1953 Billboard ad that touts not only this flick but The Jazz Singer and The Desert Song - both of which are available here, for those interested.
Below is a 1953 Billboard ad that touts not only this flick but The Jazz Singer and The Desert Song - both of which are available here, for those interested.
Note (June 2024): This soundtrack has now been remastered in ambient stereo, and has much better sound.
9 comments:
I have never had the opportunity of seeing Tonight We Sing. I always enjoy watching biopics, even though I am aware that just about all of them are terribly fictionalized.
Wasn't it Jerome Kern who said: "When you make a film about my life, don't give them the truth - my life was far too dull. Spice it up a bit!"? Or words to that effect.
But that's beside the point; I know all the singers on the soundtrack LP and it looks great. Sempre libera is one of my top favorite operatic arias.
Thanks to you, and a couple of like-minded people over at the Golden Age and elsewhere, I'm building up quite the collection of rare and obscure musical soundtracks.
Keep up the good work!
Hi Buster
Fan of your work here. Especially nice un-re-released BSO/Munch things. I have many. Any you looking for?
I have a request and wonder if you have anything by the Claude Williamson Trio. Their stuff is super rare, I gather. Anything from the 1950s would be very welcome. Thanks!!
Hi squirrel,
I am sure I don't have any Claude Williamson, sorry, but I am also sure I have seen it around the web, so a search might be productive.
I suspect I have most of the Munch things, but would be happy to know what you got.
The things that struck me as unique, which you have not yet posted, include an album (perhaps not first-release) of Poulenc's organ concerto with Berg Zamkochian and the Stravinsky ballet "Jeu de Cartes". I have not seen these around, though I could use some mentoring in the science of discography. I also have a Katchaturian piano concerto w/ William Kappell that I thought was Munch but it turns out to be a Koussy album. Haven't heard that one yet.
The Poulenc has been reissued a number of times, but the Stravinsky only once. The latter's recording date is a little outside the realm of this blog. You may be interested in the comprehensive Munch discography available online -
http://b.duhoux.free.fr/munch.html
Please re-up.
And another thank you!!!
So glad to finally have the complete album. RCA included the Boris scenes in just about every operatic anthology they issued, it seems. The scenes were recorded complete, but the movie only uses snippets of them.
Pinza's portrayal of Chaliapin reminded me of Fred Gaisberg's description of him in his book.
Jim - So Chaliapin was actually like that?
Post a Comment