Oklahoma!

 I was a bit ruff a few days back but here goes.

I had on pre-order a cd box set of the full musical score to Okalhoma!, perhaps you've seen that classic 50's technocolor (tm) movie version as one common thing with musicals is for the scores to be cut down to suit the performance, taking a number out here and there.

The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in farm country outside the town of Claremore, Indian Territory, in 1906, it tells the story of farm girl Laurey Williams and her courtship by two rival suitors, cowboy Curly McLain and the sinister and frightening farmhand Jud Fry. A secondary romance concerns cowboy Will Parker and his flirtatious fiancée, Ado Annie.

The other thing being just how do you go about recording it?

Do you record it in multi-track in a studio, player by player editing and mixing takes or do you "stage" it in a theatre and record that performance where the sound balance is controlled via the orchestra and actors projection between spoken word parts as you if you'd of attended a show?

John Wilson decided to pursue the latter for this two cd - and g*a*s*p* limited edition vinyl set too based upon his experiences conducting it live in 2017 and the enthusiasm of the players comes over strong in this recording as does the live atmosphere.

To my ears it works well complemented with the full libretto in English where you can follow the Prairie dialect and pronunciation "cain't" for can't for instance 

I really enjoyed this modern stereo/surround sound recording on hybrid super audio cd (also playable on regular cd equipment).