SHINE THROUGH MY DREAMS.(Review)

NOVELLO

[] "SHINE THROUGH MY DREAMS"

Songs, duets and ensembles from the works of Ivor Novello. With Ellis, Welch, Dickson, Gilbert, Lee, Dare, Jones, Elmes, Martin. (1935-49) Memoir CDMOIR 546 (Qualiton, dist.)

Little-known in America, and now considered quite demode in his native England, Ivor Novello (1893-1951) was for many years one of the brightest lights of the British musical theater. He and his friend and fellow songwriter/playwright/performer Noel Coward were constant rivals for the affection of the English theatergoing public during the 1920s, '30s and '40s. Novello's biggest successes were his musicals: enormous, proto-Andrew Lloyd Webber spectaculars featuring huge casts, outlandish plots and spectacular scenic effects. His audiences could look forward to at least one major disaster setpiece in each show, be it a sinking ocean liner, an earthquake or a train wreck. But what really kept them coming back was Novello himself as the leading man, not to mention his glorious, almost unbearably beautiful music. Novello's scores were far closer to operetta than to musical comedy, allowing for full-blown, refulgent melodies that looked backward toward dying European musical traditions rather than confront the contemporary rhythms of the jazz and swing eras.

Novello's stars, particularly the women, usually had strong, operatically-produced voices able to cope with his soaring style. American soprano Mary Ellis had created Suor Genovieffa in Suor Angelica at the Met and Rose Marie on Broadway before becoming a London star in the West End production of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Music in the Air in 1933; Novello chose her as his prima donna many times throughout the '30s and '40s. Matronly contralto Olive Gilbert was also ...