My Favorite Things: The Rodgers & Hammerstein 80th Anniversary Concert Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.5

My Favorite Things: The Rodgers & Hammerstein 80th Anniversary Concert Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 20, 2024

It's maybe just a little ironic that this celebration of one of the most vaunted collaborations in the history of American Musical Theatre took place in the United Kingdom, something that may be especially ironic given the fact that two of Rodgers and Hammerstein's lesser known works, Allegro and Pipe Dream, never received West End productions at all after their Broadway outings were less than spectacularly received. Mentioning Allegro and Pipe Dream may point out the perhaps under appreciated fact that in terms of total output, Rodgers and Hammerstein, while relatively protean by theater standards, certainly never approached the monumental achievements of classical composers like J.S. Bach (whose opuses number well over one thousand), but with classics like Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music in their quiver, quantity may matter less than quality.

While there are brief biographical tidbits offered by the starry cast, the allure here is some wonderful singing, if perhaps it's not always traditionally "legit" sounding, which is probably reasonable for songs like The Gentleman is a Dope, but which may be slightly less felicitous elsewhere. In that regard, though, I can't remember if this was vis a vis Julie Andrews or Florence Henderson, or maybe even Diahann Carroll in No Strings, the "music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers" show, where one of them relayed an anecdote about singing for Rodgers and injecting a little grace note of flourish, which was instantly met with a distinct negativity from the composer, who wanted his material delivered exactly as he wrote it, no additions needed. With that in mind, there's a commendable lack of ornate melisma here from the vocalists, and several of the performances are at least reasonably close to what you might hear in any given show. However, for those of us who pay attention to things like bands in the pit (and/or on stage in this particular instance), all of the singing is accompanied by one of the unabashed pluses of the concert, an actual, honest to goodness, live orchestra, and not simply a battery of keyboards (and I say this as a keyboard player regularly engaged to either conduct or play for musicals, including several R&H evergreens). The back cover touts "original arrangements", but they're not significantly different from some of the original orchestrations that graced the stage productions.

The concert's set list includes (note that the disc menu omits several numbers):

1. Overture from Oklahoma!– Rodgers & Hammerstein Orchestra
2. Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’ – Patrick Wilson
3. My Favorite Things – Audra McDonald
4. The Surrey with the Fringe on Top – Patrick Wilson
5. I Cain’t Say No – Marsha Wallace
6. Out of My Dreams – Lily Kerhoas
7. Mister Snow – Audra McDonald
8. June is Bustin’ Out All Over – Anna-Jane Casey and Ensemble
9. What’s the Use of Wond’rin’? – Lily Kerhoas
10. Soliloquy – Aaron Tveit
11. It Might as Well Be Spring – Lucy St. Louis
12. Love, Look Away – Joanna Ampil
13. The Gentleman is a Dope – Marisha Wallace
14. No Other Love – Jordan Shaw
15. Something Wonderful – Joanna Ampil
16. You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught – Aaron Tveit*
17. Younger Than Springtime – Aaron Tveit
18. I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair – Marisha Wallace and Ensemble
19. A Wonderful Guy – Lucy St. Louis
20. This Nearly Was Mine – Julian Ovenden
21. You’ll Never Walk Alone – Michael Ball
22. Entr’acte from South Pacific– Rodgers & Hammerstein Orchestra
23. There Is Nothin’ Like A Dame – Jordan Shaw and Ensemble
24. I Have Dreamed / We Kiss In A Shadow – Joanna Ampil
25. A Puzzlement – Daniel Dae Kim
26. Hello, Young Lovers – Maria Friedman
27. Shall We Dance? – Maria Friedman and Daniel Dae Kim
28. If I Loved You – Lily Kerhoas and Patrick Wilson
29. In My Own Little Corner – Joanna Ampil
30. Ten Minutes Ago – Aaron Tveit
31. Impossible / It’s Possible – Anna-Jane Casey and Marisha Wallace
32. All At Once You Love Her – Julien Ovenden
33. Kansas City – Jonny Labey and Ensemble
34. Some Enchanted Evening – Michael Ball
35. The Sound of Music – Lucy St. Louis
36. Do-Re-Mi – Ensemble
37. The Lonely Goatherd – Anna-Jane Casey
38. Something Good – Maria Friedman
39. Edelweiss – Ensemble
40. Climb Ev’ry Mountain – Audra McDonald
41. Oklahoma – Rodgers & Hammerstein Orchestra
42. Carousel Waltz – Rodgers & Hammerstein Orchestra

*Someone didn't proofread the menu listing very well, with the song being hilariously listed as You've Got to Be Carefully Aught.

My Favorite Things: The Rodgers & Hammerstein 80th Anniversary Concert Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

My Favorite Things: The Rodgers & Hammerstein 80th Anniversary Concert is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Liberator Film Studios with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Some of you may have seen this special either broadcast or streamed, and so are already acquainted with the basic but enjoyable production values offered here. The orchestra lines the upstage area, with a piano down right and plenty of apron space available for singers and in some cases dancers. Coverage is excellent, tending to ping pong between midrange shots and close-ups, with some passing wide shots from a variety of angles offering more context on the look of the hall and size of the audience. The palette is nicely suffused, and the women's outfits in particular really pop well, with excellent detail levels.

My Favorite Things: The Rodgers & Hammerstein 80th Anniversary Concert Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

My Favorite Things: The Rodgers & Hammerstein 80th Anniversary Concert features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 options. I've been reviewing a lot of audio Blu-rays lately, and in some ways, the surround track here reminded me of some supposed "Atmos upgrades", where there may not be that much difference between an Atmos mix and a "traditional" 5.1 mix. Now, there are some noticeable differences between the stereo and surround tracks here, including a much fuller midrange and low end in the 5.1 mix, but that said, "surround activity" tends to be ambient most of the time, with some of the orchestral spill and especially audience reactions being some of the most prominent elements emanating from the side and rear channels. All of this said, fidelity is superb throughout, delivering a flawless rendering of both vocals and instrumental forces. Optional English subtitles are available.

My Favorite Things: The Rodgers & Hammerstein 80th Anniversary Concert Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (HD; 1:00)

My Favorite Things: The Rodgers & Hammerstein 80th Anniversary Concert Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The ebullient, joyful nature of this concert perhaps gives me leave to end this review with a couple of hopefully humorous Rodgers and Hammerstein adjacent anecdotes, the first of which involves my wife's former career as a news anchor. She worked for a station in Chicago that was big enough that she didn't write her own copy, and she got handed a "breaking news" alert while she was on air one evening that dealt with the finale of that year's Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. The news writer made an unfortunate but hilarious mistake with the following statement: "Jerry closed the show with an emotional rendition of You'll Never Walk Again." Suffice it to say my wife, whose tastes may run more toward, say, The Go Gos and/or Madonna than classic musical theater, at least recognized the error and did not read the copy as written, but the mistake became legendary at the station and the actual copy was hung on the wall of the newsroom for years. Also, since Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber makes a cameo appearance here, I feel somewhat justified in sharing this joking story from my own misspent adulthood. As some fans may know, Sir Andrew had his own less than successful attempt at adapting Cinderella recently, an adaptation that had the misfortune to include "bad" in its title, which pretty much guaranteed pre-written reviews, but whose failure at least makes the following joke a little more understandable. A neighbor of ours had a cousin who was an executive with the Rodgers and Hammerstein organization, and when a somewhat public fracas broke out vis a vis a relatively recent remounting of Oklahoma! , one which evidently caused some umbrage with the Hammerstein heirs and assigns, I asked my neighbor to ask his relative what was up. My neighbor answered by saying his relative had just left Rodgers and Hammerstein and was now working for Cameron Mackintosh. I must confess that due to a completely out of control sense of humor that has been my downfall more than once, I immediately responded by saying, "Okay, then ask him what happened to Andrew Lloyd Webber after Jesus Christ Superstar ." Joking aside, this is a wonderfully produced homage to one of the most storied collaborations in the annals of theater, let alone American Musical Theater. Technical merits are solid, and My Favorite Things: The Rodgers & Hammerstein 80th Anniversary Concert comes Highly recommended.