Music from Around the World, the ill-fated Broadway collaboration of Orson Welles and Cole Porter, is hard to find .
The musical — based on the Jules Verne novel Around the World in 80 Days — was a flop and never properly recorded.
A handful of songs were featured in a very abridged performance on The Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air on June 7, 1946.
So, we were delighted to learn from Michael Weber, artistic director at Porchlight Music Theatre of Chicago, of his find on Soundcloud: a complete BBC concert performance from seven years back of “There He Goes, Mr. Phileas Fogg” in its original orchestration.
It can be found online at https://soundcloud.com/stephen-cole-4/there-he-goes-mr-phineas-fogg-from-around-the-world
Listening to the song made us wonder what other songs, recorded by the BBC or featured on an album, might be out there.
Well, a blog entry on forgotten Cole Porter songs pointed us in the right direction.
Here’s a sampling:
Around the World premiered at the Adelphi Theatre on May 31, 1946, but its audience withered in the hot summer months. It closed on August 3, 1946 after 75 performances.
Running about three hours, including 30 minutes of film footage, Around the World featured 38 sets, a three-ring circus on stage, a train running through the American West, and four mechanical elephants. The show required 50 stage hands and a cast of 70.
Welles reportedly lost more than $300,000 on Around the World, which he had planned to bring to England. However, the British trade unions would not let him use the U.S.-built sets and props.
In his later years, Welles — whose stage credits included “Voodoo” Macbeth, the controversial Cradle Will Rock and a modern dress Caesar — boasted that Around the World was the theatrical work he was proudest of.
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