Marie Christine opened on December 2, 1999, at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center, NYC.

The booklet contains 2 big and 7 very small B&W pictures of the show, and 3 medium color pictures of the show on the back cover. The place behind the CD in the jewel box holds a big color picture, I don't know if it's from the show, but if it's one of Marie Christine's entrances, it must have been impressing. There is a four pages text by Ira Weitzman and a four pages synopsis and... the libretto. Did I already say that I love such complete booklets? Thank you very much, RCA Victor!

It took me a long time to review that recording. It is not because it was uninteresting, but I had been listening at it at least a dozen of times while working and even if I had noticed it was something unusual, nothing automatically jumped to my ears, as I said even with repeated listenings. This is generally a bad sign... But some factors made me investigate a little more. As you probably know, I'm not a native English speaker, so It's difficult for me to understand the lyrics of a recording without printed lyrics, and even when I understand the global meaning, I often realize later that I had missed some big points, or that I misunderstood something, making my understanding of the story rather blurred. Fortunately, that recording provides the libretto, so it was only requiring some time to stop any other activity and sit down, listening at the recording and reading the libretto at the same time. Fortunately, I recently had time enough for that. Another reason that led me to try a little more is that this recording is of a recent show, which does not happen as often as I would like. Furthermore, it's edited by RCA Victor, and I generally appreciate their recordings of new musicals. I also had the chance to be offered a promotional copy of The Wild Party from the same authors by Decca Broadway promotional services, and I wanted to have fully listened at Marie Christine before reviewing it. At last, as I said at the beginning, even if nothing had jumped to my ears while passively listening at it, I had noticed that there was something more in that recording, which I couldn't put the finger on.

Now I think I can give a full opinion, as I've read the libretto while listening at the recording. Wow. It's incredible how songs that I hadn't noticed 'just for their music' became incredibly emotional when I understood the lyrics. Of course, it is not an easily listenable recording, look in my review of The Wild Party the part about the modern composers. They generally require the ear to be trained to be listened at with pleasure. If not, they usually let the listener with an uncomfortable feeling of wrong notes.

One big criticism I've read about Michael John LaChiusa's music is that it does not contain much hummable songs. I'll agree somehow, but I'll go in the other way too: does a musical need to contain hummable songs to be a good musical ? Furthermore, even if there is no particularly hummable song, one must admit that after listening at this recording he knows how 'Beautiful' is to be sung. Listening carefully, I've noticed that there were some patterns repeated, modified, reused throughout the musical, and that there is finally a very strong musical consistency behind that music 'that does not contain hummable songs'. At moments I had the feeling of a reduced, light Sweeney Todd-like musical structure.

Personally I think that this musical can't be listened at as ambient music. It should be actively be listened at, because its best aspect is in the link between the lyrics and the music. At least the first time, to understand how Michael John constructs his musical sentences. And I think it's one reason why the songs are nearly not hummable: the lyrics rely on musical sentences that are near from normal speaking. At least, they tend to imitate them. Which makes that it's captivating when listening at the lyrics, but disturbing when only listening at the music.

It is difficult to speak of a particular song, because of what makes it particularly interesting and charming: hearing the whole score is very important to really appreciate one part of it. So I won't point out particular moments of the recording, note however that there are some that are really thrilling.

The story is very good. Unfortunately, the recording probably does not contain the whole show, which makes that there are some missing parts. I hope so because there are some moments when I was a little frustrated because things would happen a little too fast (during the second act, mainly). We don't see a transition between the moment Marie Christine and Dante are in love and the moment they are not anymore, and some other little details. I've found the first act quite elaborated and the second a little poor. But the whole is still very enjoyable! Maybe it would have deserved a 2 CD recording? At least, there has been a best effort, because with a running time of 78:55, this is one of the 10 longest recordings I have.

Now one last word for the performers: they are some of the best Broadway performers of the moment on this recording. I'll mention Darius de Haas, which makes it difficult for me to bear myself during my singing lessons, and who's a perfect Paris. Is it really necessary to speak of Audra McDonald? I'll just say that she's fantastic, along with Vivian Reed who I liked very much as Marie Christine's mother. At first I had written that I was not liking Anthony Crivello a lot because of his rough voice, which would sometimes do wrong notes. It was a stupid remark because in fact, I was listening at the end of the recording at the moment I wrote my review, and actually at that moment, Anthony plays Dante that way because he has revealed his very bad nature. But at the beginning, he sounds very nice, maybe a little violent when speaking, but it's an aspect of his role. Contrarily to what I first wanted to write, Anthony's doing a very nice performance, making his voice fit the evolutions of the character he plays.

As a conclusion: a wonderful interesting recording, possibly not for immediate easy listening, but highly rewarding after a few efforts to understand the music.