Posted: 1/8/16 at 5:49pm
It's such a shame to marry squirrels in the country.
Posted: 1/9/16 at 8:41am
Newintown, the question is not how contemporary Russian speaking Russians pronounce Moscow but how early 19th century primarily French speaking Russian elites would. Perhaps they might say Moscou (mo-sku) as the French do. (I hav no idea btw how it was said in the Boston production)
And as for it not being difficult to say the city's name as it's said in Russian, it's certainly not difficult to say Roma or Pari(silent s) in English, but we don't.
Posted: 5/10/16 at 9:49pm
It's funny, I hadn't given another thought to this lyric since this discussion on here, but just today I discovered that Dave Malloy himself has published online annotations for all of his lyrics from "Natasha, Pierre." For this lyric in "Charming," see here: https://genius.com/9130179
And the big answer to our question is......Yes, it's just a result of Dave Malloy's bad French, combined with composer's stubbornness, and then only later did he try to spin it into a character trait. 
Posted: 5/26/18 at 6:46pm
Posted: 5/27/18 at 12:28am
FWIW, I actually think Amber Grey does sing that other line with a worse accent (and therefore, more in character) on the Broadway cast recording compared to the original recording. But I know virtually no French so might be misjudging that.
