Orchestrations by Martin Erskine, Musical Director: Robert Billig, Recorded and Mixed by John Richards, Music Supervisor: Daniel Carlin.

The booklet contains a one page text of introduction by Tom Moore (Director) and one big colour picture of Drew Carey. I would have expected a little more, but as long as the lyrics are present, I won't complain too much! On the back cover of the jewel box, there is a little ID picture of three other main characters (the Blue fairy -- that's how she's named in French, is missing, is it because she's a girl?). In fact I would have expected a short text by Stephen Schwartz and a complete singer cast listing.

This is a very pretty recording, well written and well performed. It's something quite unexpected for me because in France we don't often see such things as non-motion picture films with real people singing. We have some old film musicals of course, and we also have Disney Motion Picture films and their likes, but such things, no. So I expected this to be a recording of some light music, and even if it's not Sondheim, it contains very pretty melodies. I have the strong feeling that listening at the recording only doesn't make the score justice, in that it must be very close to the movie action and take it's full strength in the movie context only. I think the score is very appropriate to such a story as a retake on Pinocchio, and very Disney-like while not falling into the all-sugar melodies. I also have difficulties to judge the score as this is not a recording for me to sing songs from, apart from Bravo, Stromboli!, which is definitively too hard for me to sing yet, and which is closely copied from Le Barbier de Seville in my humble opinion. It is interesting and funny, but not worth the compliment in the introduction as it is not very original. Anyway, there are a number of excellent ensemble songs that generally move the focus on the story more than stressing the vocal performance. That's maybe why this recording is difficult to evaluate without its visual counterpart. Maybe it's also due to the singing style that is generally 'light', thus closer to the characters feelings and weaknesses, but - I come back again on that point - farther from the pure vocal performance. At last, this is a very good recording, which I have pleasure to listen to, but in which I can't find my entire satisfaction as a singer.

Quick notes: repeated listenings do good to the overall appreciation. This is clearly some Stephen Schwartz music. The total running time is ridiculous.

Finally, just a big rant, as I've not seen mentioned anywhere the source from this story, which is Carlo Collodi's novel. It's incredible Disney refuses to acknowledge they were not the original authors of such stories. Furthermore, this is illegal, but as nobody has money to spend in defending public domain famous works, Disney goes on making theirs the original ideas, acting as if they had invented it from the beginning. Not respecting original authors is narrowing the vision people can have on their culture, and this is the very behaviour of dictators.