MGM 39460
Producer Arnold Maxin
Opening—Direct from Vienna / Mire (Can You Imagine That?) / Sword, Rose and Cape /A Very Nice Man / I’ve Got to Find a Reason Heart / Yes, My Heart / Humming / Theme from Carnival! (Love Makes the World Go ‘Round / Grand Imperial Cirque de Paris / Her Face / Yum, Ticky, Ticky, Tum, Tum / The Rich / Beautiful Candy / Everybody Likes You / I Have Him / Her Face / It Was Always You / It Was Always You (Reprise) / She’s My Love / Theme from Carnival!
July 17, 1961
1 week mono
Washington Post drama critic Richard L. Coe ended his March 11, 1961, review of the new musical Carnival! With these words: “Carnival! definitely you must see. I can’t wait until the LP comes along.” Coe was not alone, so MGM Records ushered the cast of the musical into a New York recording studio only days after the show opened it Broadway engagement on April 13 at the Imperial Theater.
The show, based on Michael Stewart’s book, featured the words and music of Bob Merrill. It told that tale of a shy woman, Lili, who hooks up with a carnival where she falls for a lowly puppeteer rather than a magnificent magician.
Carnival!, inspired by the 1953 film Lili, initially went into rehearsals on February 6, 1961. Prior to its Broadway bow, the musical played 20 performances at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., and 16 dates at the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia.
The musical starred Anna Maria Alberghetti as Lili, with Jerry Orbach, was was featured in the off-Broadway production The Fantasticks, as the puppeteer. Other cast members included Kaye Ballard as the Incomparable Rosalie, and James Mitchell as Marco The Magnificent.
The material in the musical ranged from Mitchell and Ballard’s “It Was Always You,” which Coe called “probably the maddest love song ever staged, to “Mira,” performed by Alberghetti. “That was the song that stopped the show everything night,” says Alberghetti. “It was a simple song, but I managed to carve out some things out of it that made it quite unique. Alberghetti says she cut the song for the album in one or two takes.
Alberghetti attributes the success of Carnival! to its strong characters. “Although it was a musical, it was really a play, figuratively,” she says. “You got a really close-up feeling of Lili’s character.” The magic of the show was also apparent on the album, Alberghetti says, because “the characters were very alive and very real.”
The fact that the album was recorded on a Sunday, which was usually reserved as a day off for the cast, caused a bit of concern. “I thought that vocally, after having done eight shows, that our voices wouldn’t be as clean, because we were tired,” Alberghetti says. “But all of our energy was so up that the recording went flawlessly. There were no problems.”
Carnival! hit the top of the 150 Best Selling Monaural LP’s chart in its eighth week on the chart, dislodging another great musical, Camelot, from the pole position.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of July 17, 1961
1. Carnival!, Original Cast
2. Camelot, Original Cast
3. Stars for a Summer Night, Various artists
4. Exodus, Soundtrack
5. Never on Sunday, Soundtrack