catalog no: ZDM-0777-7-64 764-2-1
This is the compact disc reissue of the Broadway musical soundtrack recording. Originally released in 1951 as a 6 disk 78 rpm set and a 4 disk boxed EP set with the 12" LP following around 1955. It disappeared until a 1977 LP reissue and disappeared again until 1993 when this compact disc, paired with a cassette version were released.
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Angel-Broadway-Classics - Monophonic - 1993 United States Compact Disc
- This is the first compact disc reissue
- This release is a reissue
- Recording History has more reissue details
- Show opened on Broadway May 14th, 1951
- Originally released as a 78rpm set and as a 7" boxed set
- Later reissued on CD and cassette
- Soundtrack recorded at the Broadhurst Theatre on May 27, 1951
By 1951, Yma Sumac, born in a village in the Andes Mountains of Peru, had parlayed her voice, which was said to rise from low contralto to A above high C, into appearances on radio and in concert, as well as fast-selling Capitol Records novelty LP called "Voice of the Xtabay." With no previous acting experience, she was hired to play an Arabian princess in Flahooley, but it was her husband-coach-accompanist Moisés Vivanco rather than Harburg and Fain who created the numbers (they can hardly be called "songs") that she performed in the show. Sumac's Playbill biography stated that "the Peruvian government attesting to her direct descendency from the last of the Inca Kings. By the time she was eight, she was the favorite ritual singer on the sun-worshipping mountain Indians." Yet rumors persisted that she was actually Brooklyn-born Amy Camus (Yma Sumac spelled backwards).
Sumac got most of the publicity, but the show's actual leading lady was a young singer [Barbara Cook] making her first stage appearance. . . .
Barbara Cook on Yma Sumac
"I remember standing in the wings every night waiting to make an entrance during one of her numbers. While there was a vamp underneath, she did this slide up, went as high as she could go, then did a glissando down. Maurice [Musical Director Maurice Levine] and I couldn't believe how she actually worked in two notes an octave apart. We thought, 'What has she got in there instead of vocal cords?'"
- Najala's Lament (Moisés Vivanco, Sammy Fain) - 3:25
- Najala's Song of Joy (Moisés Vivanco) - 1:17
- Birds (Moisés Vivanco) - 2:58
total play time (approx): 7:40