Flower Drum Song (1958 Original Broadway Cast) Music

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by: Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II

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Customer Reviews
Average Rating: Rating: - Period, not dated. One of the middle-level successes of the Rodgers & Hammerstein cannon. This is rather a whimsical look at the serious subject matter of inter-racial and inter-generational relationships in the Chinese districts of America. There is plenty of light and shade in the score, from the heavily dramatic, poignant Love Look Away to the great comedy moments in At The Celestial Bar and Don't Marry Me. Grant Avenue is a great dance number, easily visualised, celebrating Chinatown. This is sung by Pat Suzuki, who also gets to shine on I Enjoy Being A Girl, another of the score's highlights. So the storyline might no longer apply, but that is no reason for the music in this show to be so overlooked. I'm pleased to see from another review here that there is a revival heading for Broadway. Don't allow the fact that this is not one of the better known R&H shows put you off being this recording. Some good music is mixed with some great performances, to give a light, but entertaining confection. Rating: - Candy, but good candy! All right, I realize that Rodgers and Hammerstein filled this musical with outdated stereotypes about Chinese living in America (as a half Chinese, I know just how outdated they really are) and women. But there's still a lot of fun to be had in this soundtrack. Just try to listen to "I Enjoy Being a Girl", no matter how ridiculous the portrait painted might seem to a nineties women, and not, well, enjoy it thoroughly. "Chop Suey", "The Other Generation", and "Grant Avenue" are also standouts. Rating: - A Hundred Million Miracles While this is certainly one of the lesser works in the Rodgers & Hammerstein canon, it is still head-and-shoulders above the work of many other composers of its time. The cast is wonderful and there is hardly a sour note among them (even from the inimitable Juanita Hall who was eight years on from her best voice). This show has the distinction of sharing one of the composing duo's most lovely and one of their most banal songs. "You Are Beautiful" is, in my opinion, one of the finest ballads ever written for the Broadway stage. Its sentiment is beautiful, as are its melody and performance. Unfortunately, most critics agree that "Chop Suey" is arguably the worst song R&H ever wrote. Bad, bad, bad! Otherwise, the songs are pretty much par for the course for the talented men. "A Hundred Million Miracles," "I Am Going to Like it Here," "I Enjoy Being a Girl," "Grant Avenue" and "Sunday" are all songs that are well-written and well-performed, but none of them really seem to stand out. Don't get me wrong, I love them all. But the overall score here seems to be lacking a certain vitality. Some of it is probably due to the material R&H were working with, some of it due to having Gene Kelly as an inexperienced (at least on Broadway) director and some of it due to the fact that Rodgers had just beaten cancer and Hammerstein was fighting the same dreaded disease. Taking all of this into account, the score is lovely to listen to and, as another reviewer pointed out, is period, not dated. Listen to the album and enjoy the experience of being a newly arrived Chinese immigrant in San Francisco, circa 1958.

Flower Drum Song (1958 Original Broadway Cast) Music

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