BEST MUSICALS

Five of the best musicals to test your hi-fi kit

In these trying times, we realise just how much we miss the light, love and live music that normally gushes nightly from London’s West End, New York’s Broadway, Paris’s glorious cabaret scene and countless other theatres across the globe. Yes, The Masked Singer made a brief appearance back on our screens, but that’s no substitute for a proper night of live entertainment at the theatre, is it?

So, until the hard-working stars of our stages can get back out there, chuck a leg, belt out a solo and knock the live crowds for six again, we’ve collated our list of the best musicals to test your speakers. Now, let’s face the music, and dance!

CAROUSEL RICHARD RODGERS AND OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN (1945)

This musical was the second-born of the magical partnership between Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, after Oklahoma!.

The very first track, The Carousel Waltz, does away with the traditional concept of an overture comprising a medley of the best songs from the show. Instead, you get an original barn-stormer – a jewel of a piece in its own right. A solo flute plays a pensive melody. It is joined by another, and soon we’re we’re thrust into a dream-like sequence of action – and a complete orchestra playing at full pelt.

Come for this, and stay for baritone-solo Billy’s Soliloquy, the ballet sequence and, of course, You’ll Never Walk Alone.

THE WHO’S TOMMY PETE TOWNSHEND (1992)

This one is a rock opera based on The Who’s 1969 concept album Tommy and is a musical that’s considered one of the tougher pieces for sound engineers to stage, ranging as it does from the densely populated soundstage of Amazing Journey to the gently plaintive See Me, Feel Me. That’s in no small part down to the captivating energy of the band’s original 1969 recording. Pinball Wizard alone (who doesn’t know Elton John’s explosive 1973 version?) would all-but justify the ticket price here.

The Who’s gigs were also notoriously loud, and this musical is no exception. Do your speakers have the scale and authority to cope?

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER AND TIM RICE (1970)

It wouldn’t be a musicals round-up if Andrew Lloyd Webber didn’t feature, would it?

It’s not considered the cleanest recording, this, so it’s a grand test of the transparency of your system. You’ve got the baying crowds at Jesus’s trial, plus Judas’s shocking and astronomical tenor vocal as he takes his own life. (Oh, it is hardly a spoiler – we all know the story.) But if you want to test the agility of your speakers, Gethsemane is the track. The time signatures are all over the shop – and that’s to say nothing of the incredible vocal range on show. True lovers of musical theatre will tell you which Jesus sang the high notes the best, in their opinion.

CABARET JOHN KANDER AND FRED EBB (1966)

Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome to this deliciously dark musical set in 1930s Berlin, at the Kit Kat Club, where anything goes and everyone is beautiful – even the orchestra. Although Liza Minnelli made the lead role of Sally Bowles famous in the 1972 feature film, Judi Dench had actually performed the role four years earlier, at London’s Palace Theatre.

From the racy Mein Herr, to the devilish Money and the poignant yet defiant Maybe This Time, these songs aren’t afraid to get down into some outrageous bass registers. Sally isn’t meant to be an incredibly gifted singer and, as such, some extremely talented singers have had to ‘dirty up’ their vocal to play the role. See if your system reveals it.

WEST SIDE STORY LEONARD BERNSTEIN AND STEPHEN SONDHEIM (1961)

Anyone who’s ever watched the 1991 movie Sleeping With The Enemy will remember Kevin Anderson’s great al fresco performance of Jet Song as Ben – complete with his own personal jet and a sprinkler.

With spritely timing to test the snap of your drivers, the brilliant West Side Story score is perky, expansive and varied, requiring a full orchestra and one of the larger casts of triple-threat singer/dancer/actors.

From the staccato I Feel Pretty, to the spicy, Vaudevillian Dance At The Gym, to the moving ballad Maria, this timeless work was a shoo-in for this list.