List $28.98

Written by Richard Fawkes - Audio book narrated by Kim Criswell - Unabridged Audio-Original Nonfiction - 4 COMPACT DISCS - 5 hours, 13 minutes

Publisher, Naxos Audiobooks (November 2001)

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A major production for Naxos AudioBooks and a unique audiobook.

This bold and entertaining undertaking traces the musical from its origins in classical music (Gay's The Beggar's Opera, Offenbach's operettas and Gilbert and Sullivan) through to its flowering in America:

Showboat
Anything Goes
High Society
Guys and Dolls
Oklahoma
West Side Story
The Sound of Music
Oliver
Cabaret
A Little Night Music
The Rocky Horror Show
Phantom of the Opera
and more....

Follow the stars who made the musicals live: the composers, Kern, Porter, Gershwin, Bernstein, Lloyd Webber; the famous partnerships such as Rogers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe; the performers: Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Howard Keel, Julie Andrews... and the tempestuous creative background to the productions themselves.

With over 120 musical examples illustrating this remarkable story, the history of the musical in all its glory comes alive.