Funny Girl Broadway Cast or Film Recording — Page 2

I used to think that Barbra's voice grew in artistic style between the two recordings. But listening to her live club work from before she started Funny Girl, and from what I've read about her, I don't think this is so much the case.

Barbra wanted to have the same vocal flair for the Broadway production as she did the movie, but wasnt she told to have a more 'legit' sounding Broadway voice? Without all her inflections and such?

Smaxie, that was hilarious!

Maybe she shoulda sung the other song, after all.

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Has anyone ever heard the real Brice sing?

Oh sure. Brice recorded a number of sides for Victor Talking Machine Company between 1910 and 1929. Most of these were acoustic recordings so the sound is quite dim, but her take of "Cooking Breakfast for the One I Love" is treasonable. She was a Jewish dialect comedienne with small voice. Not a huge range but dynamite within it. Her waif-life "My Man" is a far cry from Streisand’s emotional outburst. The Victor sides are (were) out on CD from Pro-Arte paired a group of selections by Eddie Cantor.

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A Star is Born is a CAMP classic! so over the top, so many bizarro scenes--

I actually would rathe rlisten to Music That Makes Me Dance anyday over My Man - though I know I can't ever say Man isn't a classic. Just personal stuff. I think in the past too there have been times when something as arbitrary as a financial problem--ie not being able to license all the original songs so writing your own--has led to a happy solution that may make the show all the better for it--Funny Girls' OBCR just sounds a lot more of one piece and satisying--on record than the film soundtrack (which I admit works well in the movie).

*goes and puts on his 12" 10 minute version of Main Event right now*

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The film recording.

I'm a sucker for lush film sountracks, and Streisand never again got such a fantastic orchestra befind her as she does on the FUNNY GIRL film. The Keeneys and Ziegfeld numbers have an aural juciness reminiscent of the best MGM or Fox sound of the 1940s, and I don't think the delicacy and tenderness of Streisand's phrasings in the film version of "People" has ever been equalled. And that 'break' in "Don't Rain On My Parade" seems to be to be Streisands big "Judy moment" - she tears into that lyric with the ferocious joy you can imagine Garland bringing to it. And "My Man" remains the most thrilling finale to any musical film.

The problem with the Broadway cast album is that it was recorded by Capitol and not Columbia, RCA or Decca - those latter three companies gave an extra amount of care and attention to the uniquely thrilling sound of a cast recording that Capitol did not. Streisand (and everyone else) sounds not at thier best in much of the FUNNY GIRL Broadway recording, which overall has a thin, tinny sound. It seems to have been mixed strangely.

Streisand sounds much better in Broadway bootlegs of FUNNY GIRL than she does on the official album.

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Updated On: 7/31/07 at 07:10 AM

No one has mentioned just how good the overture sounds on the OBC. Pure magic! The soundrack overture sounds like any old MGM movie musical - it lacks the um...drive that the OBC has.

From what I gather, Styne would give his input on the songs that would go into the overtures for his shows, and maybe have a hand in laying out the routine, but what we credit as a Jule Styne Overture is really the work of his orchestrators. The great Robert Ginzler (who co-orchestrated Gypsy with the equally great Sid Ramin) is usually given credit for the Gypsy Overture. Funny Girl was orchestrated by Ralph Burns, one of the greats for a jazzy show, but who was really able to do it all. (He was equally at home with more reserved shows like Do I Hear a Waltz? or Darling of the Day as he was with Sweet Charity, Little Me, No Strings, Chicago..., etc.).

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