Unfortunately containing the vastly overused "D" word in its title, RCA Victor's
Broadway Divas, one of a series of releases to commemorate the label's 100th anniversary, is a compilation of recordings by musical actresses culled from RCA's vast catalog of show music. It ranges from
Eartha Kitt's performance of Arthur Siegel and June Carroll's "Monotonous" from the Broadwaymusical revue New Faces of 1952 to Julia Murney's performance of
Andrew Lippa's "Raise the Roof" from the off-Broadway musical The Wild Party, which ran at the Manhattan Theatre Club in 2000. But that spread of nearly 48 years is deceptive; actually, the
Kitt recording is the only one that dates from before 1963. Four of the tracks come from the 1960s, two from the '70s, two from the '80s, and five from the '90s. The present-day orientation is further dramatized when you note the absence from the list of anything by
Gwen Verdon or
Chita Rivera, even though they made cast recordings for RCA, and the presence of a ringer like
Sarah Jessica Parker, who has had some Broadway musical experience but hardly ranks with some of the other names here and no doubt is included only because of the television clout of her non-musical television series Sex and the City. This, then, is not the definitive collection of theater songstresses, even though there are some wonderful performances. The late
Madeline Kahn, ably handling the tongue twister "Getting Married Today" (one of five titles by
Stephen Sondheim), provides one of them, and another comes from Barbara Harris' "What Did I Have That I Don't Have?" from the original cast album of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. Just think of the set as a sampler rather than a history, and you'll have a good time with it. ~ William Ruhlmann