Any favorites of yours?

I was just watching some of Leonard Bernstein's Candide with the New York Philharmonic tonight on the PBS HD channel on Comcast tonight at 9 p.m. EST.

Really nice stuff, surprisingly!

Got this from PBS's website:

Broadway and operetta join hands as the New York Philharmonic presents a semi-staged performance of the satirical, effervescent musical Candide by Leonard Bernstein, the composer and conductor who was so intimately associated with the New York Philharmonic. Bernstein protégé Marin Alsop will lead the production, and Broadway actor-director Lonny Price will stage the musical, much as he did for the Philharmonic's Emmy Award-winning, semi-staged production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd in 2000. The cast, drawn equally from the classical and musical-theater worlds, features soprano Kristin Chenoweth as Cunegonde, tenor Paul Groves as Candide, tenor Stanford Olsen as Governor/Vanderdendur/Ragotski, Patti LuPone as the Old Lady and Sir Thomas Allen as Pangloss/Martin. The Westminster Symphonic Choir, Joseph Flummerfelt, director, will also participate.

Looks like they've spared no expense on this production, the audio is true surround; 5.1, and they really did a tremendous job on it, for all that they had to do with it. It's "Semi-staged" but there's still a ton of activity going on, with the cast & chorus in an around the orchestra, all onstage.

They've updated all the non-essential stuff with current references and visual gags, too.

I'm wondering who did the production; looks like about a dozen cameras, and I've lost track of how many Scheops and head-mounted lav mics I've seen on the cast. They really spent a lot of time on post production, too. even the material in the center channel makes sense vis-a-vie the action onstage. Someone had a LOT of $$$ to spend on this thing! The audio is surprisingly good for god knows how many circuits the audio had to travel to reach my system here at the end of the line.

It's on again tomorrow a.m. (must be a fundraiser week), and I'll try to catch the credits. Comforting to see yet another big budget done without any sonic or visual compromises. (Picture is widescreen 1080 aspect, too...zowieee!)