"Nine" - original 1982 Production- Page 3

[morosco]

Posted: 3/15/14 at 11:02am

The white costumes.

[morosco]

Posted: 3/15/14 at 11:03am

The Germans at the Spa.

[morosco]

Posted: 3/15/14 at 11:06am

The National tour of NINE incorporated some aerial staging. Jacqueline Douget as Liliane La Fleur.

[morosco]

Posted: 3/15/14 at 11:08am

National tour. Karla Tamburrelli and Sergio Franchi.

[morosco]

Posted: 3/15/14 at 11:09am

The National tour. Jacqueline Douguet, Lauren Mitchell, Karla Tamburrelli and Leigh Beery.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 3/15/14 at 11:56am

'Nine' was the second Broadway show I ever saw. The first being 'Dreamgirls'. I was in my freshman year of high school and I had an obsession with all things Italian so naturally I fell in love with the show.

I saw the original cast and I was in awe just watching Liliane Montevecchi strut her stuff on stage. I was already familiar with her because I saw her in the Elvis Presley film, "King Creole".

Sitting in that theater I couldn't help but be filled with Puerto Rican pride just watching the incredibly handsome and talented Raul Julia as "Guido Contini". I miss him so much - - - he was one of my favorite actors.

I also remember just falling in love with the ravishingly beautiful Shelly Burch - - - I could not keep my eyes off of her, and when she opened her mouth and sang the incredibly haunting, "Unusual Way" I found myself moved to tears. I'm still a fan to this day.

Thanks for sharing the memories and those incredible photos!

[bryan2]

Posted: 3/15/14 at 12:14pm

I went in after seeing Dreamgirls during its Boston tryout thinking there is now way this could be better....I was young and Dreamgirls hit all the buttons for me...I thought the concept of NINE seemed stupid and uninteresting to a 26 year old anyway...well I left that theater in love with Tommy Tune Raul Julia and every beautiful woman in the cast...It still is my 2nd favorite Musical (gypsy -tyne daly #1) ..I saw Antonio and as different as the staging was I loved that as well ..It is a great musical Raul Julia was the sexiest man I ever saw on a stage ..amazing I LOVED IT!!

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 3/15/14 at 12:21pm

Those production photos are amazing.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/15/14 at 8:48pm

Loved the cast, loved the design, but add me to the list of those who were ultimately bored.

If I were to describe my feelings about Yeston's work, I would sound like After Eight discussing Sondheim.

(P.S. to CarlosAlberto: Raul Julia made us ALL proud to be Puerto Rican, even if we aren't. He was just that good. His TAMING OF THE SHREW in the Park with Meryl Streep is still the best production of Shakespeare I have ever seen.)

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 3/15/14 at 9:48pm

A Call From the Vatican is one of the most played songs on my iPod. It's so consistently marvelous - my favorite part is the ending, "Who won't care if you come to me tired and overworked? AH WON'T, bambiiiiino!"

Not to be This Guy, but there's a video out there of her doing it in the original production and the song paired with the choreography produces the most perfectly staged number I've ever seen.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 3/15/14 at 10:21pm

I love how everyone's in white except for the two Guidos and Luisa. Is that the way it was at the very end?

[forgetmenotnyc]

Posted: 3/19/14 at 4:46pm

BIG FAN of the original here. Saw it several times with Raul, Sergio & Bert Convey & liked them all. Also enjoyed Maureen McGovern after Karen Akers left. Anita worked her magic so that even in her underplayed "Simple" in Act 2, she was all that much more. Lillian was also incredible. The international feel she brought was apparent & very special. The 2nd act Grand Canal production sequence was captivating. The kids were great & brought poignancy. I went on to also like Tommy's work in Will Rogers Follies but alas, missed Grand Hotel. Didn't bring myself to contend with the revival. Even though the movie frustratingly made Guido too much of a sex addict making it harder to empathize with him - I still found myself touched with the story. Yes, the doves at the end was incredible. I always wondered if Anita brought them over with her from her 'Sugar Babies' days. Same coordinator/owner. Sometimes you just have to be so grateful that you saw something so handpicked & groomed that you can never try & even hope to expect another version to equal it. That's how I feel about NINE orig. cast.

Updated On: 3/19/14 at 04:46 PM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/19/14 at 8:38pm

Amazing photos! I hadn't seen pics of the much talked about "train station" setting for the tour. I assume the aeriel bit is meant to be in one of the station's clocks? :P

"Speaking of Tommy Tune, whatever happened to his Studio 54 musical that played in Florida? I could have sworn that it got good reviews and was Broadway-bound."

It was done with students, right? I know it did get good press, but I never heard any Broadway plans...

[Roscoe]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 3:51pm

The original production of NINE was beautifully done on all counts -- so beautifully done in fact that the lackluster score and book were made to seem better than they were. A more than usually clumsy transition from film to stage, it at least remembered to be energetic and comic, which is more than can be said for that vile film of Rob Marshall's.

[DSamuels90]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 4:15pm

Does anyone here know why the cast album was released as a single LP? I see a note on the back of the sleeve: "Special-value cassette package containing over 80 minutes of music also available." Was vinyl already declining in popularity in 1982? I would have thought a double LP release would have been beautiful to look at. As it is, if I didn't already know what the show was about (thank you Google), this album would have left me very confused with its all-too-brief synopsis and obvious studio photograph of the main cast.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 4:25pm

The original LP issue of the OBC really was rather dismal compared to the glorious 2-CD set released two decades later. Not only was a huge chunk of recorded material not issued, but the sound quality (at least on my copy) was pretty flat. Nothing at all like the glorious sounding, near complete set we have now.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 4:32pm

Most musicals at the time got single LP releases, that wasn't unusual. Very few double LPs were done of Broadway shows -- they were the exception rather than the rule.

Updated On: 3/20/14 at 04:32 PM

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 4:43pm

Exactly, and the big sin is that this AND "Dreamgirls" were released incomplete.

[morosco]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 4:43pm

The standard recording time on a single LP was 45 minutes. (Some recordings did exceed the standard 45 minutes but in order to do that the spaces between the grooves had to be much narrower and that greatly reduced the dynamic range of the recordings.) The cassette at the time could have much more music and could be produced cheaper than having a second LP. I remember that my original NINE cassette wore out rather quickly though.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 5:12pm

I think the big difference with NINE is the fact that most of the show was actually recorded, just not released at the time.

DREAMGIRLS was always envisioned as a single LP and they only recorded what would fit on the single disk. NINE was obviously intended to be a single LP as well, but because of some strange circumstances more than one LP's worth of music was recorded. I guess the sound suffered because they tried to fit on as much music as they could. Some of the editing on that LP is kind of shoddy too, especially during the "Grand Canal" and the opening spa sequence.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 6:36pm

The Dreamgirls issue probably had something to do with Geffen and wanting to make it more of a pop album. It's too bad...

Nine was on RCA, right? (I don't have my copy here...) I'm mixed on Yeston, but I do love a lot of his score for Nine, by far my favorite of his work and I'm glad I was introduced to it (very late--I sorta ignored the show for some reason for a long time) via the CD.

Double albums for musicals have always been rare, but I assume by the 80s that was especially true. Sweeney got one, of course but at the time RCA and producer Thomas Shepherd had a big relationship with Sondheim and even back in '79 I think they realized that the album would ultimately turn into a worthy investment.

It was only recently that I learned about how squeezing more music onto a vinyl record caused such problems with the sound (as well as more minor issues about the playback speed being affected.) I collect a lot of obscure disco stuff (ie Costandinos' bizarre/brilliant Romeo and Juliet concept album) and it makes a lot more sense as to why disco singles often were 12" for a 6-10 minute mix (the best quality for beats when blasted in a club) and when disco acts when they'd release an actual album would simply tack on a ballad, often as an afterthought, at the end of each side where the dampened sonic dynamics weren't as big a problem.

[BobNC]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 6:48pm

Nine was Columbia/Sony's cast album label.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 7:25pm

NINE was definitely on Columbia Masterworks, as I believe it was called at the time. If it had been on RCA it might have had a better chance of getting a double-disc release, since RCA did almost all of the 2-LP cast recordings during that era. Of course they probably wouldn't have recorded as much as Columbia did, even if they never intended to release it.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 7:55pm

Thanks guys--makes sense. When Shepher moved from Columbia to RCA, he seemed to take the "prestige cast album label" with him, at least from '76-late 80s or so.

[OperaBwayLover]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 10:10pm

Love the photos! Thanks for sharing!