By David Foil

At long last, the celebrated 1958 recording of Marc Blitzstein's Regina will enter the digital era when Masterworks Broadway releases it on July 20, for digital download and disc-on-demand through Arkivmusic.com.

The release of Regina will be the first in a long-range plan to issue a "new" classic Masterworks Broadway title each month, transferred from the original masters in the Sony Music Archives. In most instances, these will be the first authorized releases of these recordings in the digital era, and the first time they have been available directly from the original masters since the LP era.

Each digital release in this series will include a downloadable digital booklet with the original liner notes, cover art and photos from the Sony Music Archives. The same booklet will also be available in physical form for Arkiv's disc-on-demand. Future releases will be announced in the fall.

The next two releases in this series will be the 1959 stereo recording of the Jones Beach Marine Theater revival of the Wright/Forrest operetta Song of Norway with John Reardon and Brenda Lewis, conducted by Lehman Engel (August 17); and the 1951 original Broadway cast recording of Make a Wish (September 14). Make a Wish will also include a rare cover version of a song from Hugh Martin's charming score – Judy Holliday's 1958 recording of "What I Was Warned About," introduced in the show and sung on the original cast recording by Nanette Fabray. Make a Wish has appeared on CD in unauthorized versions created outside the U.S., but never before using the original RCA Victor masters – an essential and irreplaceable step in preserving this recording for the digital era and the future. The releases of Regina and Song of Norway really are CD debuts, in every sense, and both are long overdue.

The recording of Regina captures all the theatrical excitement of the 1958 New York City Opera revival of the work, with a brilliantly effective cast that includes both opera and musical theater singers. Marc Blitzstein himself oversaw the recording (he is photographed with the cast on the original cover) and even secured the assistance in underwriting it through the Koussevitzky Foundation.

Blitzstein's operatic version of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes was meant to straddle the worlds of opera and musical theater. It had premiered on Broadway on Halloween night in 1949 at the 46^th Street Theater (now the Richard Rodgers). Reviews were mixed, Hellman was angry about some conceits Blitzstein added to the play in his libretto (which he also wrote), and Regina closed a month-and-a-half later. A successful 1953 New York City Opera staging featured cuts to the score, and Blitzstein cut even more when the production was revived, again successfully, in 1958. This is the version that inspired the recording and became, at least, a reference point for future performances. Among the cuts were virtually all the inventions Hellman so thoroughly disliked. In fact, she was placated enough to write a (carefully) complimentary short essay for the liner notes of the recording. It has been reproduced in the Masterworks Broadway release, along with glowing words from Leonard Bernstein, to whom Blitzstein was mentor and close friend, and Frank Loesser.

The title role in the recording is sung – and fiercely – by Brenda Lewis, who had created the second (scene-stealing) role of Birdie in the 1949 Broadway premiere. (Jane Pickens was the original Regina.) Lewis sang the title role for the first time in the 1953 City Opera revival. Blitzstein apparently had to be convinced to cast Elisabeth Carron as Birdie in 1958, but it's clear from her performance on the recording that she triumphed in the role, still singing it twenty-two years later when the Houston Grand Opera revived Regina. The role of Ben Hubbard, Regina's affably sinister brother, is unforgettably etched by George S. Irving, a Broadway veteran and Tony winner (in 1973) for Irene. The role of the vicious nephew Leo is taken by operatic tenor Loren Driscoll, who would appear on Broadway the following year in Blitzstein's unsuccessful musical Juno. Contralto Carol Brice brings gravitas to the role of the maid Addie. Conducting the City Opera orchestra and chorus is Samuel Krachmalnik, best known perhaps as the conductor of the 1956 original cast recording of Bernstein and Hellman's musical Candide.

The release of Regina signifies once again Masterworks Broadway's determination to keep our promises. When we launched MasterworksBroadway.com, we said we would make as much of the recorded catalogue available as possible. These monthly releases begin to deliver on that. They follow the 2009 release of eight long-unavailable Broadway (and Off-Broadway) titles – disinHAIRited, Hazel Flagg, Jimmy, The Last Sweet Days of Isaac, Let It Ride!, New Faces of 1952, New Faces of '56 and The Threepenny Opera. The new plan will keep titles such as these coming on a monthly basis, and we will be adding album pages and (where we can find them) photos to the web site to accompany their release.

Of course, we want eventually to make available all the musical theater recordings in the Masterworks Broadway catalogue. That will include Broadway, Off-Broadway, studio and international cast recordings, as well as key "cover" recordings of songs and scores from the musical theater. Please feel free to let us know what you would like to see released in the coming months. Stay tuned, and keep listening.

-DAVID FOIL

David Foil is Senior Director, Product Development, for Sony Masterworks. In that role, he supervises A&R for the Masterworks Broadway catalogue and produces the Masterworks Broadway podcast series. Foil began his career in print and on TV as a film and performing arts critic. In the last two decades, he has compiled and annotated well over 100 Broadway and classical recordings, and has written twelve introductory books on classical music and opera.