1. Opening - The Orchestra 2. Direct from Vienna - Kaye Ballard, Henry Lascoe 3. Very Nice Man - Anna Maria Alberghetti 4. I've Got to Find a Reason - Jerry Orbach 5. Mira - Anna Maria Alberghetti 6. Sword and a Rose and a Cape - Tony Gomez, George Marcy, James Mitchell, , 7. Humming - Kaye Ballard, Henry Lascoe 8. Yes, My Heart - Anna Maria Alberghetti, Tony Gomez, George Marcy, , 9. Everybody Like You - Jerry Orbach 10. Love Makes the World Go 'Round - Anna Maria Alberghetti, Pierre Olaf, Jerry Orbach 11. Yum Ticky - Anna Maria Alberghetti, Pierre Olaf, Jerry Orbach 12. Rich - Anna Maria Alberghetti, Pierre Olaf, Jerry Orbach 13. Beautiful Candy - Anna Maria Alberghetti, Pierre Olaf, Jerry Orbach 14. Her Face - Jerry Orbach 15. Grand Imperial Cirque de Paris - Pierre Olaf 16. I Hate Him - Anna Maria Alberghetti 17. Her Face (Reprise) - Anna Maria Alberghetti, Jerry Orbach 18. Always, Always You - Kaye Ballard, James Mitchell 19. Always, Always You (Reprise) - Kaye Ballard 20. She's My Love - Jerry Orbach 21. Finale - Jerry Orbach 22. Very Nice Man [*] - Bob Merrill 23. Mira [*] - Bob Merrill 24. Yes, My Heart [*] - Bob Merrill 25. Love Makes the World Go 'Round [*] - Bob Merrill 26. I Hate Him [*] - Bob Merrill 27. Mira - J.J. Johnson 28. Magic, Magic - Paul Smith 29. Love Makes the World Go 'Round - Richard Chamberlain 30. Her Face - Mel Tormé
Customer Reviews of This Album/CD
Cirque de Paris Submitted on: 2009-11-11
When I was in high school, our drama department put on a musical every year, and tyhis was the first of them I remember. Rival schools would stage famous musicals--West Side Story, Oklahoma, Guys and Dolls, but the ones our teacher produced were musicals of--what?--the second rank--or third rank? Well, it strikes me only now that maybe he was paying less for shows like Carnival than his rivals were paying for West Side Story. But he told us he wanted to put on "fresh shows," shows that hadn't been spoiled by seeing them so many times. (In subsequent years we did Take Me Along, Where's Charley, etc)
But despite everything Carnival will always have a special place in my heart! It was the first time I was on stage, scared to death, playing some sort of circus freak way in the shadows, but I sang my heart out in the big opening number, "Direct from Vienna," swaying in quasi-gypsy costume and acting giddy and crazy with performing excitement. The show itself, of course, is quite dark, but when you're 14 that's just the sort of thing one likes. The love story between Paul and Lili, I thought, could scarcely be improved on. (Liner notes in the new CD tell us that the novel "Love of Three Dolls" is even darker, nearly Sadean in its weird, cruel enslavement plot.) I loved the puppets almost as much as Lili did. We had a leading lady without any of Anna Maria Alberghetti's charm and or ethnicness. But she was great, and our Psul had a thrilling voice half the time, and the puppets so cute! "Everywhere I look, I can see her face," was to me the most beautiful love song ever written. OMG what Mel Torme does to it on one of the extra bonus tracks included here--he "swings" it to death, you just want it to be over.
After our show closed--well, it was only for two performances--our drama teacher guy took us to New York to see the City Center revival with Victoria Mallory as Lili (and Karen Morrow aa the Incomparable Rosalie). We all agreed, our high school had done it better.
Great entertainment Submitted on: 2009-09-01
Carnival was an award-winning musical. I have an original-issue copy of the LP (signed by the star - ok, I just had to gloat a bit - now back to your regularly-scheduled review, already in progress). I have enjoyed this show's enchanting score since I first heard it. The CD issue is superb. The tracks all sound fresh and the balance between the orchestra and the voices is perfect and has well-defined left and right channels. All the cast members sing very well with especial kudos to Jerry Orbach who sang as himself and also as four puppets (male and female). Anna Maria Alberghetti has a a sweet, light soprano that gives Lili the innocence the role requires. Kaye Ballard is another standout. The disc has two tracks from the score, both reprises, that are not on the LP. It also has nine bonus tracks of demos sung by the composer/lyricist, Bob Merril and individual performances of four of the songs, including "Magic, Magic" which was not recorded for the cast album. This is a very entertaining CD that I never get tired of listening to.
Dreams from the Upper Shelf Submitted on: 2009-08-31
Having somewhat vilified Bob Merrill in previous reviews, I thought I should give him credit when he got it right. And he did, big time, with his 1961 score for "Carnival." I can't say it's one of the great Broadway scores of all time, but it's splendid nonetheless. The simplicity and warmth of the story seems to have brought out the best in Merrill. Song after song, the score is fresh, exuberant, clever and emotionally rich. Credit is due as well to a committed cast, most notably Anna Maria Alberghetti who perfectly personifies Lili's naivete and heart.
The image of "Beautiful candy, too pretty to eat" is a perfect one for the score of "Carnival": It's sweet, delicate and lovely; a treat to which you'll come back again and again.
"Like a lucky bird landed on my head!" Submitted on: 2009-03-29
The thing about the 1961 musical CARNIVAL is that it succeeds exactly on its own terms: if you don't care much for the charms of innocence and whimsy then this just is not the musical for you. Based on the Fifties Leslie Caron film LILI (itself an adaptation of the novel THE LOVE OF SEVEN DOLLS), CARNIVAL (which once always had an exclamation point after the title--it seems to have fallen off with the passage of time) is about a completely guileless vulnerable young orphan in Europe who joins up with a second-rate carnival troupe and becomes a success with a group of puppets with whom she converses with utter faith in their reality. (The plot revolves around the orphan having to realize that the bitter, handicapped puppeteer is one and the same with the puppets she adores--which of course doesn't speak much to her intelligence.) The musical was a success largely because of the charming melodies Bob Merrill crafted for it and for its first-rate cast: Anna Maria Alberghetti as the orphan, Jerry Orbach as the puppeteer, James Mitchell as the womanizing magician the orphan first works for and Kaye Ballard as the magician's assistant and lover tormented by his straying heart.
CARNIVAL has become a minor staple of the high school musical repertory, mostly because of its sweetness (and because it has multiple sizable roles), but it really needs professionals to pull it off so it doesn't drown in its own sweetness. (A hard task when you've got lyrics like "The sun today will be scrambled for my soufflé!" or "I keep millions of Spaniards on fire,/ They admire/ My yum-ticky-ticky-tum-tum!") But the charms of this original Broadway cast album are hard to deny. Orbach is in beautiful voice here (unlike as with his offkey performance on the cast album for PROMISES, PROMISES, his other big Broadway hit from the Sixties), and Alberghetti is just about perfect. She exactly hits the right notes of innocence and vulnerability without seeming either stupid or unbelievable. There are some very likable bonus tracks of Bob Merrill singing several of the songs while accompanying himself on the piano; there is also a bizarre (and unwelcome) Wurlitzer instrumental version of "Magic, Magic," the only major song from the score that was (unfortunately) left off the original Broadway cast album.
ONE OF THE LAST FROM BROADWAY'S GOLDEN AGE Submitted on: 2008-12-15
I remember the musical more fondly than any of its contemporaries; West Side Story, My Fair Lady, Funny Girl, Hello Dolly, Wildcat, and even Gypsy.
Nothing compared with the Chaplainesque Pierre Orloff wandering onstage to sit at its edge and play his melancholy concertina. Around him wagons and circus folk began entering and before the audience's eyes a huge big top tent was erected. All the folk together inline kicking up their legs and singing, The Grand Imperial Cirque de Paree. It was a fabulous experience bringing the classic movie Lili to Broadway musical expression. Anna Maria Alberghetti as Lili was sheer genius. Jerry Orbach fresh from The Fantastiks made his presence uncontended. Kaye Ballard tore the roof off with her Mermanesque singing style. But the coup de gras was its director Gower Champion. No one on Broadway has done it the same nor better, he was the greatest musical director of his or any time.
Take time and listen to the story come alive. A waif named Lile becomes the top attraction as she naively wanders in to the Carnival and meets with Jerry Orbach's puppets... talking, joking, and singing with her friends, she believes they are real and alive. No one can escape this musical's charming story combined with a great score and memorable lyrics.
The recording's sound has been improved for modern format and even its lyrist sings one of the songs at the album's end. Close your eyes, sit back, relive, and enjoy a true gem in musical lore.
Cirque de Paris
Great entertainment