WICKED, STARRING KRISTIN CHENOWETH, IDINA MENZEL AND JOEL GREY. Decca Broadway proudly presents the original cast recording of WICKED, Broadway's most talked about new musical. The box office is already over $10 Million! With a score by Stephen Schwartz (Broadway's Pippin, Godspell), libretto by Winnie Holzman (TV's My So-Called Life) and based on the best-selling novel by Gregory Maguire, the musical is a prequel to the legendary classic, THE WIZARD OF OZ. WICKED explores the early life of the witches of Oz: Glinda and Elphaba. One witch, born with emerald green skin, is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. WICKED stars Tony Award® winner Kristin Chenoweth (You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown) as Glinda, Idina Menzel (Rent) as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Tony® and Oscar® Winner Joel Grey (Cabaret) as The Wizard. The Original Cast Recording -- featuring an essay by Wicked novelist Gregory Maguire, original color photos from the show and a complete libretto.
One of the most common complaints about musicals is that the books are flimsy pretexts from which to hang numbers. Wicked runs into the opposite problem: it has a great plot, but too often the songs just get in the way. Based on Gregory Maguire's novel of the same name, Wicked tells us what happened between Glinda the Good and Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, before Dorothy showed up in Oz. And the show is lucky to boast a pair of ace leading women in the main roles. As Glinda, Kristin Chenoweth delivers a sensational star turn, displaying a crystal-pure voice and sharp comic timing; Idina Menzel lends her powerful pipes to the tricky role of Elphaba. Unfortunately, you wish they had better material to work with. Stephen Schwartz's pop score is often dragged down by overly synthetic orchestrations and sentimental lyrics (think Chicken Soup for the Witch). Still, at its best Wicked is a seductive slice of popular entertainment that could well give a younger audience a lasting taste for musical theater. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Customer Rating:
Summary: Great music
Comment: Item arrived as promised and in excellent condition. For lovers of musicals, it is a great CD that would enhance any collection.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Wicked
Comment: I loved this CD and not only ordered one for myself, but ordered some for gifts. The music was wonderful and we are all looking forward now to seeing the play. What a great deal I got from Amazon.com. Why would I shop any where else.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing amazing amazing!!!
Comment: This has to be the best broadway cast recording i have heard in a long time. Idina and Kristin's voices are amazing. Even though they are totally different they mesh together so well. The orchestration is amazing as well. I love that almost whenever Elphie does a song its percussion and brass driven [almost like a lurking shadow effect] and when Glinda does a song its mostly strings and woodwinds. This CD is just genius. And the show is amazing defintaly go see it!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Oohs and ahhs
Comment: Just as the original Gregory Maguire novel on which this tremendously successful musical made hay by playing with the elements of Frank Baum's original WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ, so too does this Winnie Holtzman-Stephen Schwartz work play with the conventions of musical theatre. There are power ballads and love duets, and a stirring recurring theme that recalls the early rock opera works of the Seventies (as well as Orff's "Carmina Burana"), and probably the most satisfying part of both the original cast album and the show itself are when its heroines go to see a show-within-a-show in the "One Short Day" number where the music of Jule Styne seems to be directly evoked. WICKED is by far the best musical that Schwartz ever wrote, and he was lucky enough to have a book that hit all the right notes with his audience and two stunning leads in Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth (as, respectively, Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, who in this story are old college roommates who become best friends--and then square uneasily when against one another during a complex political power struggle over the future of Oz). Unfortunately Joel Grey, as the Wizard, gives an unforgivably schmaltzy take on his big solo, "Wonderful" (which other actors have done much better with); but how could you find better singers in the lead roles than Menzel and Chenoweth? You have only to listen to the score to see why it's been such a success, and why so many younger theater-lovers know all the words to songs like "Popular" and "Defying Gravity."

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Something Wicked This Way Comes
Comment: Absolutely loved this and wish I could have seen the production with the original cast. Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth's voices mesh so well together. Their voices just evoke such emotion.

This story of how the Elphaba became the Wicked Witch of the West is interesting. It reminds me of a noir story. Every action has a consequence. The music and songs are successful in conveying the complexity of the story.

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