Search - Mark Bennett :: The Coast of Utopia: Music for the Play

Broadway Background Music

John B. Archibald | San Diego, CA | 07/25/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

""The Coast of Utopia" was a mammoth, 3-part, 9-hour epic play, all about expatriate intellectual Russians during the mid-1800's, no less, which had a limited run at Lincoln Center in New York over this past season, 2006-07. What this means is that it takes a certain kind of audience member to be interested in this kind of presentation. I am one of those people, having traveled from San Diego to New York just to see it. Interestingly, I met a lot of other people there, who also traveled quite far to see this show.



What this means is that this CD will also require a specialized audience. There's only a little over 30 minutes of music on it, mostly short cues. But it does have that exhilarating music for that mysterious opening, as well as that sublime ending, as well as the sort of polonaise accompanying the curtain call, and that makes it well worthwhile for me.



As someone who loved this show, I heartily recommend the score. But, if you know very little about it, I doubt the music will be that much more revealing. As one of only a few actual background music scores, released to CD, it enters a rarified category. It will probably be a collector's item very soon...



Still, I'm really glad I have it.

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