A snippet of The Great Gatsby cast recording (Broadway) was released on the 7th June 2024, featuring songs such as: Roaring On, My Green Light and Past is Catching Up to Me. Let’s get straight into the review!
Review of The Great Gatsby
Rating: 5/10
First up- Roaring on: I believe this is an opening number to the show, either that or The Great Gatsby just adores show-stopping numbers (not that I’m complaining).
The song starts by “Nick” (Noah J. Ricketts) giving the audience a little background to his character. The tone starts with a “calm before the storm” sort of atmosphere, with gentle and harmonious melodies, before your introduced to the world of Gatsby with a simple drumroll.
and then…
Boom, the ensemble comes in.
It would be unfair of me to review a cast recording without praising the ensemble, particularly this ensemble. I always say that ensembles are the backbone to making great musical theatre, and my gosh, this is no exemption. I honestly don’t think I would had liked this cast recording as much as I did without their powerful harmonies. And, although Noah J. Ricketts’ voice and storytelling is great, I found myself waiting for the song to roll back round to the chorus again.
Also, I want to say a special shout out to the ensembles diction- “the great war has been won” and “Manhattan’s come undone” was -chefs kiss-.
Second up is My Green Light: this is a Ballard-lovey-type song, which normally I’m not to fussed about, however, it’s sung by two musical theatre powerhouses- Eva Noblezada (Miss Saigon, Les Misérables) and Jeremy Jordan (Newsies, Bonnie and Clyde), both of which I’m huge fans of- so I was a little more eager to give this a listen.
I honestly found myself a little bored at the start (although that could be down to my attention span, thanks tiktok), but as it progresses and got more emotional and intense, I found myself becoming (unintentionally) more engaged with the song- this is partly down to Noblezada’s and Jordan’s voices, which I already knew are both outstanding.
And, by last but no means least, Past is Catching Up to Me: By now, pretty much everyone who knows about Jeremy Jordan knows that he has a monster of a singing voice (as I’ve said before), but my goodness does this song showcase it -the belt at the end had me holding my breath!
I feel like a such give this album a 10/10 just based solely on singing, but if I’m honest with myself, I found that I didn’t really enjoy the song until the end, and even than it was partly to do this the singing.
Conclusion:
Having said though, although I did research on what The Great Gatsby is about, I don’t fully know the context of each song, and, in my opinion, hearing musical theatre numbers live is SO much better than cast recordings- after all that are made to be sung on a stage, and to compliment what’s occurring on the storyline. So, maybe I’ve I actually saw it live I might obtain a different opinion. I’ll just have to hope that they end up opening in the UK too.
Links:
If you want to check out my theatre reviews, you can do so here: Theatre Reviews | Chorus Box (mybluehost.me)
Learn more here: The Great Gatsby (Broadway, Broadway Theatre, 2024) | Playbill
As always, have a good day!
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