Today it may sound like an unlikely pairing, but Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett joined musical and comedic forces on the New York stage for a few glorious nights during the golden age of prime time television. Masterworks Broadway releases Julie & Carol: Live at Carnegie Hall and Julie & Carol: Live at Lincoln Center in a new, specially priced 2-CD set, with the Lincoln Center recording available for the first time in the digital era.
It will be available for purchase on CD and digital download exclusively via www.MasterworksBroadway.com April 3, 2012. The double set will be available from all retailers and digital service providers on May 8, 2012.
By the time the first "Julie & Carol Live" show was taped — in March 1962, for broadcast three months later on the CBS network — both performers had already sparkled on Broadway (Andrews in The Boy Friend, My Fair Lady, and Camelot, Burnett in Once Upon a Mattress), but neither was yet a household name; Burnett's classic TV variety show lay in the future, and Andrews' triumph in the movie The Sound of Music wouldn't come for three years.
Yet once a reluctant CBS had greenlighted the Carnegie Hall project it turned out to be an enormous success. Andrews' exquisite soprano and delicate comic timing, Burnett's full-throated musicality and no-holds-barred humor, and Mike Nichols' witty script combined to thoroughly charm the crowd, with a big boost from music director Irwin Kostal (whose fruitful collaboration with Andrews continued with the movie Mary Poppins and then The Sound of Music for which he won an Oscar).
Along with the back-and-forth comedy duet "You're So London," a gorgeous rendition by Andrews of "Oh Dear What Can the Matter Be," Burnett's sweetly powerful performance of "Meantime," and several big production numbers, that first show included a brash medley illustrating the history of musical theater in America since the early 20th century, from Madame Sherry to West Side Story.
Nearly a decade later in December of 1971, CBS staged a reunion at Lincoln Center's Philharmonic (now Avery Fisher) Hall for live broadcast, including an even more ambitious and astonishing medley. "Medley of the 60's" packs into a mere 13 minutes 46 songs from the eventful era that had come and gone since the 1962 Carnegie Hall show, from The Beatles, Sonny and Cher, and Glen Campbell to Joni Mitchell, The Fifth Dimension, and Petula Clark. This virtuoso number caps off a night that also featured a hilarious musical-jealousy number ("Girls in the Band"), and Andrews' beautiful rendition of "He's Gone Away."
Track listing:
CD1
1 No Mozart Tonight
2 You're So London
3 Oh Dear What Can The Matter Be
4 From Russia: The Nausiev Ballet
5 Meantime
6 From Switzerland: The Pratt Family
7 History Of Musical Comedy (Medley)
8 From Texas: Big "D"
CD2
1 Opening
2 Our Classy, Classical Show
3 Girls In The Band
4 Madame Abernall's / I Could Have Danced All Night
5 He's Gone Away
6 Medley Of The 60's
7 Wait Till The Sun Shines Nellie
8 Finale
