![]() On the strength of MFL, and of the names Julie Andrews and Richard Burton (who was best known to film audiences as the hero of such costume epics as The Robe and Alexander The Great), Camelot’s advance sale topped three million dollars. Still, every show should have such problems. well, Brigadoon, actually, an earlier L&L work. “If Ever I Would Leave You” echoes “On The Street Where You Live.” “Camelot” echoes. Robert Coote reprises his affable-sidekick role. Burton talk-sings much as Rex Harrison had done. Camelot had to follow My Fair Lady, the Lerner-Loewe-Hart (and Andrews) mega-hit that was still playing, and playing, a few blocks away. Critics and ticket-buyers came away dazzled but confused. Act I is satirical, Act II somber and preachy. White’s popular retelling of the Arthur stories, then more or less ignored it. They bought the rights to The Once And Future King T.H. Indeed, the creative team – composer Frederick Loewe, author lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, and director Moss Hart – appears never to have quite decided how to handle this material. Gone, too, less sadly, is the ton and a half of “book” (no-music) scenes, that stretched Camelot out to more than three hours and left many in the audience craving a large flagon of mead. ![]() Gone, sadly, are the costumes and sets that made this the most expensive production Broadway had seen, and carried the day with a lot of the critics. You can savor Richard Burton, one of the era’s most memorable Hollywood leading men, in his only Broadway musical turn – and his final project before Liz got him. ![]() You can hear the original of the song that made Robert Goulet a star. Listening to this original cast CD, you can enjoy Julie Andrews in her biggest (and last, for three decades) Broadway starring role. Ultimately it’s the music, though, not the Kennedy connection and not the spectacle, that has kept Camelot alive. Idealism brought down by human weakness: truly a story for the Ages, Middle and Modern alike. Even as the Kennedy legend crumbles – most recently in a bestselling book called, of course, The Dark Side Of Camelot – the King Arthur comparisons seem to resonate more and more. What other music has defined its time? In 1998 – 35 years after Camelot ended its first Broadway run – as in 1963, this last of the Lerner & Loewe spectaculars endures as our public shorthand for the early sixties in America and the brief, doomed administration of President John F. Oops, looks like your browser doesn't support HTML 5 audio. ![]()
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