"musicaltheater1, I'm pretty sure John Barrowman WAS supposed to be the CSR Chris (I remember the first few press releases), but they opted for a half-assed Australian cast recording instead."
I remember hearing a story that he actually recorded some tracks, but CamMac didn't like the sound and fired him. But that could just have been rumor. Cousens, unfortunately is a disaster. I can't stand the CSR. Aside from Kevin Gray, all the other leads are clearly surpassed by their London counterparts. This is not to say that these actors were not good when they tackled the roles on stage (I saw Ampil in London and she was lovely, and Battle in NY and he was very passionate), but they just didn't do it for me on record. After the OLC, the Japanese recording is my clear second favorite.
I think part of the problem, aside from the obvious one of selecting the right voices, is that bringing together a studio cast, particularly one composed of actors from all over the world, makes it less likely that you'll have the right chemistry amongst the actors. When you record a stage production, the actors already relate to one another in a certain way, and this becomes part of the performance they put down on record. It's an intangible quality, but it's important. It's very difficult to achieve that with a studio recording, particularly with one like the CSR, which was recorded by traveling around the world to the actors (I don't believe the actors -- even just the leads -- were ever all together in the studio at one time). I had the same issue with the Les Miz CSR (though on the whole I think it's a more successful recording than the Miss Saigon CSR).
"This is wanting something, this is reaching for it,
This is wishing that a moment would arrive.
This is taking chances, this is almost touching, what the beauty is." --The Light in the Piazza
