Aug 13, 2010

"Venus" Sighting


I join Weill nerds everywhere in wishing other theaters would revive his underrated 1943 collaboration with Ogden Nash, One Touch of Venus, as the Shaw Festival is doing now. I've heard an excellent recording of the Encores production from some years ago with Melissa Errico in the lead, and I'd love to hear the score again, live, in a decent-sized house.

Just a thought, producers and programmers.

2 comments:

Chris Caggiano said...

Funny you should mention it, but the Boston Conservatory will be producing OTOV as part of its 2010-2011 school year. If you're in the neighborhood...

Luciferus said...

Even funnier that you should NOT mention it, but I'm pretty sure the better bootleg of OToV is from the 1983 concert reading at New York's Town Hall you omitted, which starred Paige O'Hara. The cast is tighter, the singing and acting better, and best of all it fails to preserve for posterity the clumping, tripping, and thumping so treasured on the Encores! boot. I saw the Encores concert--and Errico was indeed terrific on stage--but the (illegal) recording unfortunately doesn't capture most of what made that evening so special (remembering, of course, that the cast was not making a recording but performing live for a packed house).