Cinderella

DVD cover of Julie Andrews Cinderella

Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella is the name of a musical written for television by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II based upon the fairy tale, Cinderella.

Cinderella was originally written for a live television musical broadcast in 1957, as a vehicle for Julie Andrews, who played the title role. Its popularity caused the creators to adapt the work for the stage, and it was subsequently remade for television twice, in 1965 and 1997, starring Lesley Ann Warren and Brandy, respectively, in the title role.

List of songs

This list is from the original 1957 version; the 1965 and 1997 versions each added one or more songs from other Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals.

Television adaptations

1957 version

The 1957 version was directed by Ralph Nelson and starred Julie Andrews as Cinderella. It also starred Howard Lindsay (The King), Dorothy Stickney (The Queen), Edie Adams (Fairy Godmother), Kaye Ballard (Portia), Alice Ghostley (Joy) [the stepsisters], Ilka Chase (Stepmother), Jon Cypher (The Prince), and Iggie Wolfington (The Steward).

This version appeared as a U.S. live broadcast (except on the west coast) on March 31, 1957. It was written specifically for CBS television. Rodgers and Hammerstein were (as Rodgers wrote in his autobiography) enticed by the opportunity to write for Andrews, who was then starring on Broadway in My Fair Lady. It also included a 28-piece orchestra, 20 dancers, and seven ensemble singers.

It was produced for $376,000 (very expensive for its time) and was heavily promoted by its sponsors, Pepsi-Cola and the Shulton Company (then maker of Old Spice). The promotion and an appearance by Rodgers and Hammerstein on The Ed Sullivan Show the week before helped to give the telecast a reported audience of 107 million people, the largest achieved by that time (and more than any subsequent television series episode as of 2004). It was televised in color, and the entire cast and orchestra made a separate mono and stereo recording of the music for Columbia Records, which was later issued on CD by Sony.

A New York Times review by Jack Gould on April 7, 1957 characterized it as "a pleasant Cinderella that lacked the magic touch." He said that the broadcast received an "extraordinary range of reactions; it was either unreservedly enjoyed, rather angrily rejected or generally approved, subject to significant reservations." He praised Andrews as a "beguiling vision" in "lovely color video." But he complained about the book ("What possessed Mr. Hammerstein to turn the stepsisters into distasteful vaudeville clowns?"); about errors in "the most elementary kind of showmanship;" about costume ("couldn't Cinderella have been dressed in a dreamlike ball gown of fantasy rather than a chic, form-fitting number?"); about the songs ("not top-drawer Rodgers and Hammerstein"); and the staging ("cramped... excellent depth, but limited width marred the ballroom scene.") He judged the songs "reminiscent and derivative of some of their earlier successes" but praised four of them and said "In television, where original music is virtually nonexistent, these add up to quite a treat... some current [Broadway] musicals cannot boast as much melodically."

For many years, the 1957 version was thought to be lost; however, a black-and-white kinescope recording of the color telecast was re-broadcast on PBS in December 2004 as part of its Great Performances series. It was subsequently released on DVD, with a documentary including most of its original players, as well as a tape or kinescope of Rodgers and Hammerstein's appearance on the Ed Sullivan show the preceding Sunday, featuring Hammerstein reciting one of the songs to orchestral accompaniment.

1965 version

The 1965 re-make of the musical, also in color, was recorded on videotape, and is directed by Charles S. Dubin; Richard Rodgers was executive producer (Oscar Hammerstein II had died in 1960). Although she played the title role, Lesley Ann Warren received eighth billing because this was her first television appearance, and she was as yet unknown to the general public. It also starred Ginger Rogers as the queen, Walter Pidgeon as the king, Celeste Holm as the fairy godmother, Jo Van Fleet as the stepmother, Stuart Damon as the prince, Pat Carroll as Prunella, and Barbara Ruick as Esmerelda (the stepsisters).

This version did not use Hammerstein's original script, but instead, a new one commissioned by Rodgers and written by Joseph Schrank. Also produced for CBS, it was regularly rebroadcast well into the 1970s. It included the song Loneliness of Evening, which was written for South Pacific but never actually sung in that musical (some of the lyrics were recited as a love letter poem in the 1958 film version while a portion of the melody is used as underscoring). The "Royal Dressing Room Scene" in the 1957 version was omitted from this production. A cast album LP of the 1965 telecast was also issued by Columbia Masterworks Records.

The Disney Channel aired this version in the early 1990's.

1997 version

Cinderella
Video album by Brandy, Whitney Houston
Released	April 4, 2003
Recorded	1996–1997
Genre	Pop, Classic, Soundtrack, Soul
Length	88:04
Director	Robert Iscove
Brandy chronology
VH1 Divas 1999 (2000) Cinderella (2003)
Whitney Houston chronology
Cinderella (2003)

The 1997 television re-make of the musical, the only one of the three versions shot on film, is directed by Robert Iscove, written by Robert L. Freedman, and produced by Whitney Houston and Debra Martin Chase for Walt Disney Productions. It was one of the first broadcasts in the latest revival of The Wonderful World of Disney, on Disney-owned ABC. This version was notable for boasting a racially diverse cast, with Brandy as Cinderella, Whitney Houston as her fairy godmother, Bernadette Peters as Cinderella's stepmother, Paolo Montalban as the prince, Whoopi Goldberg as the queen, and Victor Garber as the king.

The hit song "Falling in Love With Love", from the Rodgers and Hart musical The Boys from Syracuse, was interpolated into this version, sung by Bernadette Peters as the Stepmother. "The Sweetest Sounds" from Rodgers' No Strings, was also used, sung by Cinderella and the Prince. The production won two awards in 1998: The Art Directors Guild Excellence in Production Design Award and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Art Direction for a Variety or Music Program.

When Whitney Houston signed on to the film, she was put as producer and in the role of Cinderella. However, she later called Brandy and told her she wanted her to audition for the role of Cinderella saying "I'm already 33 years old, and I want you to play Cinderella". Brandy only agreed to do the part if Houston played her fairy godmother, because she was "[her] idol."^[1]

All three of the telecast versions of Cinderella are now available on DVD.

Stage

London 1958

Harold Fielding produced a stage version of Cinderella at the London Coliseum, opening on December 18, 1958 and playing through the holiday season. A young ingenue, Yana, played Cinderella with Tommy Steele in a cameo.

United States

Stage versions appeared in theatres in the U.S. as early as 1961. The New York City Opera produced the musical in 1993 and 1995, with the Fairy Godmother being played by Sally Ann Howes and the Stepmother played by Nancy Marchand and Jean Stapleton and revived the production in 2004, with Eartha Kitt as the Fairy Godmother and Dick Van Patten as the King, among other television stars.

A United States tour played from late 2000 through 2001, and starred Kitt as the Fairy Godmother, with Deborah Gibson and later Jamie-Lynn Sigler as Cinderella, Paolo Montalban as the Prince, and, in a casting twist, a gender-bending Everett Quinton playing the Stepmother. (St. Petersburg Times, November 30, 2000).

The Paper Mill Playhouse (New Jersey) produced Cinderella in late 2005, with Paolo Montalban again as the Prince.

References

External links

• Cinderella (1957) at the Internet Movie Database
• Cinderella (1965) at the Internet Movie Database
• Cinderella (1997) at the Internet Movie Database
• Summary and Background information on the production from The Rodgers & Hammerstein Theatre Library
• Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, from the PBS Great Performances website
• The First "Cinderella" Returns from Playbill
• Curtain Up review, October 2005
• The Celluloid Cinderella
• Flyrope.com page (stage versions)

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