Ruth Leon recommends…. Barbara Cook – Till There Was You – The Music Man

Ruth Leon recommends…. Barbara Cook – Till There Was You – The Music Man

Ruth Leon recommends

norman lebrecht

December 01, 2024

Barbara Cook

Someone who was definitely flesh and blood was the great Barbara Cook.   Her creamy effortless lyric soprano led the original casts of many musicals of the 1950s and, when she was no longer an ingenue (and when she wasn’t chosen to play the parts she had originated on Broadway in the movie versions) she started a second career as possibly the greatest cabaret performer of them all.

Here’s a look back at Barbara Cook as Marian the Librarian in her 11 o’clock number from The Music Man. Easy to see why she won a Tony for this performance and impossible to understand why Shirley Jones and not Barbara Cook was chosen to play Marian  in the movie.

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