SOUTH PACIFIC, Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1949 musical setting of James Michener's TALES FROM THE SOUTH PACIFIC, was one of the duo's most successful productions, but this 2008 version is the first full-scale revival of the show since the original run closed. Starring the hot young ingenue Kelli O'Hara and relative newcomer Paulo Szot in the lead roles, this is a completely authentic version of the original score as it would have been performed more than a half-century ago, right down to the nearly obsolete use of a full live orchestra instead of a small combo augmented by synthesizers and samplers.
In his annotations to this cast recording of the 2008 Broadway revival of South Pacific, André Bishop, the artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater, acknowledges that many people asked, "Why South Pacific now?" He imagines that they asked because they felt the show was "dated," and goes on to defend it against that charge. Actually, those who wondered why a revival would be undertaken in 2008 were questioning whether it was advisable to revive a show that had been done so frequently over the years. Bishop refers to this as "the first Broadway revival" since the original 1949 production, forgetting the 1967 revival undertaken by Lincoln Center itself, or perhaps disregarding that one since it was a limited engagement done during the summer. This is indeed the first open-ended run of South Pacific on Broadway since the original. But in one manifestation or another the work has never been away for long, and in the young 21st century already there had been both a disastrous television adaptation in 2001 with Glenn Close miscast in the starring role of Ensign Nellie Forbush and a 2005 concert version performed at Carnegie Hall and also broadcast on TV with a delightful Reba McEntire as Nellie; each produced an album. Since the 2008 stage revival was well received, yet another album was inevitable, but it only serves as a souvenir of the production. The cast, led by Kelli O'Hara and featuring Paulo Szot as her love interest, Emile de Becque (who sings "Some Enchanted Evening"), Matthew Morrison as Lt. Joseph Cable (who sings "Younger Than Springtime"), and Loretta Ables Sayre as Bloody Mary (who sings "Bali Ha'i"), is talented, but won't make anyone forget such predecessors as Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza from the original production (which is more of a problem on an album than it is live in the theater). The producers have turned in a longer than usual disc by including plenty of reprises and some bits of dialogue. This version includes "My Girl Back Home," a minor song that was cut from the original stage production in tryouts, but added back for the 1958 movie. Wisely, the original orchestrations of Robert Russell Bennett have been retained, and they sound as good as ever. O'Hara, who should be the centerpiece of the show, is more restrained than she was in a 2006 revival of The Pajama Game, seemingly looking for a light touch. An Oklahoma native herself, she makes some slight attempts at a generic Southern accent for Nellie, who is supposed to be from nearby Arkansas. But she doesn't really cut loose, at least on this recording of the production, and that's typical of other performances on the disc, which makes this an unusually tame version of South Pacific. ~ William Ruhlmann minimize