An amazing collection of talent ascended upon The Hall for just this One performance + (thank Cthulhu) video recording. I haven't seen the movie(s) or other performances in a long while, but for a 21st Centurion audience -- this non-costumed performance captures the tunes, the story, the pathos just fine. Reba M. shines, as does the baritone-basso Brian Stokes Mitchell. The rest of the cast are no pikers either, IMO.

Captured by/for [link|http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/shows/southpacific/index.html| PBS].

Best Musical of 1950, a mere 5 years after the end of WW II. As has been remarked on these pages before - it feature a song, You've Got to Be Carefully Taught -- which reflected the mondo-racism, xenophobia of those times, as persists in many blotches; SP antedated the birth of the Civil Rights stirrings by at least a decade. As also mentioned, there was a clause in Rodgers & Hammerstein's releases for theatre productions: permission was denied, unless every performance included this song. Surely a reflection of the times as much as of the character of the composers.

"SOUTH PACIFIC" IN CONCERT FROM CARNEGIE HALL premiered on April 26, 2006 on PBS (check local listings).

Based on James Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of short stories TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC, Rodgers & Hammerstein's own Pulitzer Prize-winning blockbuster was a landmark of post-World War II Broadway, a provocative romantic drama that beguiled audiences with a hit parade of instant standards. Last June, "South Pacific" reached new heights when, for one enchanted evening, Carnegie Hall presented a magnificent concert production with a dream cast headed by Reba McEntire, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Jason Danieley, Lillias White, and Alec Baldwin. Directed for the concert stage by Walter Bobbie, with musical director Paul Gemignani conducting the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the performance was acclaimed by THE NEW YORK TIMES as "a state of nearly unconditional rapture," praising the production for locating "the show's real staying power in its operatic respect for love as a force that hurts, teases, destroys and ennobles."

"South Pacific" was among Rodgers and Hammerstein's most successful and critically acclaimed shows, winning nine Tony Awards\ufffd, including Best Musical, in 1950. Although its first Broadway revival will not occur until the 2007-08 season (when it is presented by Lincoln Center Theater), "South Pacific" has lived on in thousands of productions, both professional and amateur, over the years, as well as in two movie versions.

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The prime pair - Reba McEntire, Brian Stokes Mitchell ... make nuclear chemistry, each singing to perfection; Reba especially - funny, charming and tear-producing.. would be enough excuse to catch this performance, whether or not a chapter of US brilliant+sordid history attracts. Then too, the tunes are catchy, singable and infectious - with actually comprehensible lyrics.

Dunno about local replays - see site. Currently they're using the DVD to raise funds, as the Gingrich Who Stole PBS Funds, back in that Contract On America thing.. those mandates continue to kick-in, on their asymptote to 0 public support for 'Public" Tee Vee. (The Repos tried recently to gut it a bit faster; pikers: they could have added a rider to give the funds to Fox, as a Faith-based Entertainment Charity.)