Bravo Giovanni (1962 Original Broadway Cast)

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Classical bass Cesare Siepi made his Broadway debut with this 1962 show. Haven't heard of it? No wonder; it closed after 76 performances. Set in Rome, the show has a convoluted plot that involves the rivalry between two restaurants, one a mom-and-pop trattoria, the other a chainlike establishment. Siepi doesn't do so well with the farcical show tunes ("Breachy's Law"), but he lets it rip on such songs as "If I Were the Man" and the vivacious "We Won't Discuss It." (One can only dream of what might have happened to him had he been cast in, say, South Pacific.) As is so often true in musicals, the women steal the show. As Giovanni's brassy love interest, Michele Lee belts out "I'm All I've Got" and "Steady, Steady," a song so good that it could have been written by Jule Styne (a swinging version from Lee's 1966 solo album is a bonus track here). Those who don't care much for mock Italianate shenanigans should go straight for Maria Kornilova's "The Kangaroo," a delirious number in which she goes over various dances ("You hop! You hop! You wiggle and then you hop!") with a gusto that's Broadway at its best: it's over the top, it knows it, and it doesn't care. --Elisabeth Vincentelli