I was there last night and it was gorgeous. This is exactly what Encores was created to do: take a show that might never again see a Broadway production and do it in concert (hence the black binders) with only a suggestion of set and costumes and choreography and allow the score to be seen and heard.
The songs and the underscoring are truly beautiful, unlike anything we'll ever hear again. And Bruce Pomahac's reconstruction of the Robert Russell Bennett was an angelic act.
Basically, Kern and Hammerstein wrote a Valentine to the operetta form. As silly as we may think operetta is now--and as innovative as we may think Oscar Hammerstein was--the truth is that he made his fame and fortune originally writing operetta after operette. He took the Viennese conventions and made them successful on Broadway. This one was his farewell to the form, but he actually kept on using it, surreptitiously, throughout the 1940s.
In fact, some of his most innovative musicals have operetta elements, particularly in their love scenes: Show Boat, Oklahoma, Carousel.
Kristin and Douglas Sills were pure delight, in roles very similar to the egotistic theaterfolk in Twentieth Century and Kiss Me Kate. She really is a consummate comedienne, on the level of a Lucille Ball or an Imogene Coca, and he manages to be handsome and goofy and the same, with a gorgeous voice.
It was a thrill to see Marni Nixon, especially when she took her high note at the end of "Egern on the Tegern See." Sierra Bogess and Ryan Silverman were as fine as the young lovers as you can be within the form...and when you've got Chenoweth and Sills mopping up the stage with you.
I remember reading something about Oscar Hammerstein saying it was his favorite of all his musicals. Now we know why.
If you haven't seen it and you love the musical, go today. But, please, don't go, for god's sake, if you're one of those whiners who's going to come back and say "The first 20 minutes was SO slow."
That's just not the point.
