Yeston's Cage aux Folles!

The Herman one is so bad, why bother?

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Poor Yeston always ends up writing the least popular yet better scores for hit shows. His PHANTOM remains one of his best pieces and yet only about .01% of theatergoers have bothered to listen to it because it's not the "original one." Unfortunately, Yeston had acquired the rights to the novel but since it was public domain in Englad, we got stuck with the mediocre, bombastic Lloyd Webber version.
I'm sure his LA CAGE would've probably been brilliant. I can't stand Jerry Herman's version.

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I actually like the Herman score, but would love to hear the Yeston.

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Same here. I actually love Herman's. It's my favorite show. But I am also a big fan of Yeston, and would love to see what he would do with this story in New Orleans.

I could deal with two versions.

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That's what I was trying to say about Webber's PHANTOM, most people tend to think of it as the original musical and refuse to give others a chance. I know that there were many adaptations before Webber--unfortunately--got his hands on it.

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Well to be fair ALW himself makes no pretense that he was the first to do a Phantom musical.

I do think Yeston's weakness is lyrics--and for some reason I have more and more probs with his lyrics as he progresses (I love most of Nine--I think Phantom has some almost laughable lyrics as does Titanic though not always as much to do with rhymes as to do with character--ie Titanic how we have big rants liek the telegraph guy going on about the history of the telegraph, the chorus singing about the building of the ship, stuff I don't really see their characters doing).

I like ALW's Phantom but as a guilty pleasure (and one I don't dive into very often) but as much as I think Yeston is pretty up and down as a lyricist I don't think anyone can defend Hart and (especially) Stillgoe's... (I felt a tinge of pity for Hart when I read on Wikipedia his quote about wanting to be the British Sondheim )

Cats--wow I actually agree with you on something--ALW owes a lot of his success to the vision of his production--thanks to Bjornson and Prince and how iconic that look for Phantom became. From what I've seen and reviews I've read none of the productions of Phantom by Yeston had anything as visually comparable (and I don't mean elaborate wise--I mean striking--where was tommy Tune?).

So I assume that nothing from Yeston's Cage was recorded?

Yeston's version of LA CAGE was to be called THE QUEEN OF BASIN STREET (which is such a great title) as the show was to be set in New Orleans.

Apparently the work he did must have been substantial, as Yeston got a royalty payment during the original run of LA CAGE. (No insinuation that any of Herman's songs were actually his.)