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I let it be known that I might consider playing the part
In 1949, hearing that Ezio Pinza was leaving the original Broadway cast of South Pacific, George Sanders campaigned heavily to replace him in the part of Emile de Becque. He auditioned for Rodgers and Hammerstein; he won the part. He was engaged to appear for fifteen months. And then he promptly gave himself an anxiety attack over whether he could carry a show for that long, convinced himself he couldn't, and dropped out. I have always considered this a great loss for musical theater. Sanders had a classically trained baritone; it's not especially apparent from the one album he recorded professionally, The George Sanders Touch . . . Songs for the Lovely Lady (1958),1 but if you've ever seen his elegantly shy foreign minister romanced by Ethel Merman's hostess with the mostest in Call Me Madam (1953), it's right there in "Marrying for Love." And if his identification with the archetype of the cad made him counterintuitive casting for a full-blown romantic lead, emotionally open rather than cynically charming, the role that really got me to notice him as an actor was also against type; I don't doubt that he could have done it. But he didn't, and I consigned the possibility to the same wistful alt-history as Robert Newton in Wuthering Heights (1939).
I just learned from YouTube that there are recordings: "Some Enchanted Evening" and "This Nearly Was Mine." I'm guessing they're the two sides of the audition record he mentions in his memoirs; he slightly flubs a lyric at one point, but not his strength of tone. And they're good. I'd hear an audition from someone who sent me that tape. I might want to hear a lot more of them. In more than one show, even.
Dammit, Sanders.
1. The richness of his voice is displayed to advantage, especially on languorous numbers like "September Song" and "As Time Goes By," but the material is mostly romantic pop standards; it doesn't show off his range or his control the same way.
I just learned from YouTube that there are recordings: "Some Enchanted Evening" and "This Nearly Was Mine." I'm guessing they're the two sides of the audition record he mentions in his memoirs; he slightly flubs a lyric at one point, but not his strength of tone. And they're good. I'd hear an audition from someone who sent me that tape. I might want to hear a lot more of them. In more than one show, even.
Dammit, Sanders.
1. The richness of his voice is displayed to advantage, especially on languorous numbers like "September Song" and "As Time Goes By," but the material is mostly romantic pop standards; it doesn't show off his range or his control the same way.
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Not only do I have the cast recording he's on (and have been listening to it alternating with Sanders all afternoon), in March 2009 I was lucky enough to see the last performance of the complete revival cast before Kelli O'Hara left to finish being pregnant in peace. He was the standout of the show for me.
(I also seem to have liked Sean Cullen's Commander Harbison, but I didn't leave a note for myself explaining why. He's not a singing part, so it must have been something in an exchange of dialogue. I'll get hold of a script sometime.)
The poster has Ezio Pinza following immediately, which is most interesting, hearing the three of them back to back (send her the Sanders link! She can add it!).
I don't have a YouTube account! How does one communicate with people?
Pinza comes across as formal and more serious, less impulsive---older.
He's the version I grew up on, so he's the most familiar to my ear. He's the most declarative, and I think technically the cleanest; his pianissimo float at the end is just incredible. Szot has a warmer, more legato sound, and he doesn't spring out in full vocal splendor until the recap: he isn't telling so much as discovering. It's a very tender reading of the song, and Szot puts a deep, wondering happiness into it that makes it sort of the male counterpart of "Wonderful Guy." Sanders isn't coming out of an opera career—he's mostly proving that he has the voice for the part—but he does and I'd really like to have heard what he did with it. There's a lot of warmth in his voice, too.
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