Chess<\/i>, a tragic musical about a love triangle set against the backdrop of the world of international chess competition, is a work that has passionate devotees. It has also suffered from remakes, remixes, dumbing down for the American stage, and so many edits that for years it lacked a definitive vision and focus. True Daily Vault devotees might remember that I reviewed the original 1984 version of Chess<\/i> many years ago, and closed the review with the following sentences: \u201cStraighten out the contracts, find one version of Chess<\/i>, and put it on stage. It is a powerful musical that deserves a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thanks to Josh Groban and the London Philharmonic, it got its chance in 2008 \u2013 and it took it for all it was worth.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Groban was instrumental in getting the musical staged for three nights with the London Philharmonic and an all-star cast, including Idina Menzel as Florence, Adam Pascal as The American, and Marti Pellow as The Arbiter. Groban himself played The Russian. Supporting players included Olivier Award-winning David Bedella as Molokov and Kerry Ellis as Svetlana.<\/p>\n
Production on the two-disc recording is impeccable, with lyricist Tim Rice calling this the \u201cdefinitive version.\u201d Definitive it may be; beautiful it definitely is. Groban is, as usual, technically proficient and expressive, and his work on \u201cAnthem\u201d and \u201cWhere I Want To Be\u201d are highlights here. Menzel handles \u201cNobody\u2019s Side\u201d with power and aplomb but is uncharacteristically delicate and muted on \u201cHeaven Help My Heart.\u201d Pascal handles the difficult \u201cPity The Child\u201d admirably, and manages to sing \u201cOne Night In Bangkok\u201d without sounding like the original. The highlight by far is Ellis\u2019 \u201cSomeone Else\u2019s Story\u201d \u2013 she brings the house down (audibly, since the recording leaves the applause in) with the one song left in from the American revision, a wistful and elegant reflection on love and loss. The sole disappointment is Marti Pellow as the Arbiter: his eponymous \u201cThe Arbiter\u201d lacks the snark and style of the 1984 version, ultimately falling flat.<\/p>\n
An added bonus; if you can find the original release version, it includes a DVD of the performance that was recorded live for PBS.<\/p>\n
Supposedly, there will be a Broadway version of this production in late 2018. Until such time when and if that happens, this is the definitive version of one of the best musicals of the last fifty years. Take the time to seek it out; you won\u2019t be disappointe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":33356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5827],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-45171","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-various-artists","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45171"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}