Victor And Victoria

Victoria de los Angeles was one of the finest lyric sopranos in the decades after World War II. She was born Victoria Gómez Cima. She learned to sing and play piano and guitar while still in school. She entered the Conservatorio de Liceo in Barcelona to study piano and singing, completing the six-year program in three, and graduating with full honors at the age of 18. Her membership in the Conservatory's Ars Musicae gave her wide exposure to the art song repertory and Baroque and Renaissance music.

The reissue game continues. All of this material has been available more or less continuously in recent years, with the exception of Frühbeck's Three-Cornered Hat, which only resurfaced quite recently on an EMI twofer accompanied by Atlántida. The reason it reappears here, evidently, stems from the fact that this two-disc set contains all of Victoria de Los Angeles' stereo Falla recordings; and despite the fact that she sings for about 60 seconds in total in "Hat", it's always a pleasure to hear Frühbeck's big-hearted, expansively Romantic but always exciting way with the music.

While it would be ridiculous to say that Henry Mancini produced no better score than this one, it's certainly true that his collaborations with writer/director Blake Edwards generated some of Mancini's greatest compositions. Victor/Victoria is merely a wonderful score, with fun performances from Julie Andrews and Robert Preston. [An expanded edition by GNP/Crescendo offered some newly released material, mostly sweetly jazzy instrumental material, although there's one very real gem as well – Robert Preston's show-stopping performance of "The Shady Dame from Seville," the peak point of the movie itself, and now certainly the peak point of this charming and delightful reissue.]