Bobby's High Notes in Company — Page 2

Yes WEEZ, John's recording is not in context with the show, but I just like how he builds the number to make it his own as well as reaching for that climactic stage of realism.

I simply just don't like Raul in the recording, he was fantastic live, and his acting in the recording is amazing....he shows a side of Bobby I think that many have not seen, someone who knows what he wants, but really does not know how to get it, a bit confused, but also full of adventure at a moments notice and that feeling especially within the dialogue is amazing. I just felt he was trying way to hard in Being Alive, but only on the recording, I think this is a performance you have to see to understand the his moment on the recording.

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Bernadette Peters? Speaking of reaching for the notes....

Awww, I love Bernadette's Being Alive. :3

Raúl... now, I know you can't tell as much from little video clips as you can from being right there in the theatre, but from what little I can tell, he's already better in video clips than he is on the recording. He strikes me as one of those performers who's simply amazing in person but just doesn't translate to recording quite so fairly, because they're bringing more than just their voice to the performance, but their voice is all you get out of recordings.

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I think that's an issue with a lot of the new recording, though, in terms of the reliance on actually seeing it in performance. One of the most obvious examples to me is that in order to fully appreciate the sax trio in You Could Drive a Person Crazy, you have to see it. Sure, it sounds nice, but you lose a huge element of what makes it so adorable when you just hear it. For a lot of the things on the CD (as effective as it is), seeing them in performance is just more powerful.

I think Raúl does a very admirable job of acting with his voice (it would be totally lame to just sing the songs straight), and he does so noticeably more on the recording than you'll see him do in person. He doesn't need to in person because he has so much more to work with, whereas in audio, all you have is his voice and there is so much to convey, especially for such a passive character. For me the issue with him is not that he doesn't translate "well," but that there's such an interesting larger-than-life quality to his acting which no matter how much he acts vocally, can't be captured on audio alone. That's probably true of most good performances, to some degree or another. I probably sound like I'm making excuses, but hopefully that makes sense. I think it's just sort of inevitable that he's going to be better in performance.

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Updated On: 2/21/07 at 06:03 PM

I think it's just sort of inevitable that he's going to be better in performance.

Absolutely. Especially with the way he nails Being Alive on stage, and how intense it is to watch.

However, I almost prefer Marry Me a Little on the recording. Not only the sound, but in the context of the recording it seems a little less anticlimatic. Everything I thought seeing it live was almost doubled when I listened to the recording, hearing every nuance of how it repeatedly rises and falls within itself.

I'm not especially partial to the way Raul delivers most of his spoken lines on the recording, but I think his best moment on the album is the understated "keep me company" in "Marry Me a Little." There's so much behind the way he sings that phrase.