Loewe: My Fair Lady

Scarlett Strallen and Jamie Parker are Eliza Doolittle and Professor Higgins in this world premiere of the complete recording of “My Fair Lady”. John Wilson conducts the Sinfonia of London. John Wilson comments: “My Fair Lady” is the quintessential American London musical. There is not a single wrong note or misplaced semicolon. Steven Wilkie, one of the violinists in my orchestra, describes it as the “Marriage of Figaro” of the 20th century. And when I asked the great opera conductor Richard Bonynge what the best operas after the Second World War were, he replied: ‘My Fair Lady, Oklahoma! ... Those are the great operas that will live on.’ We have recorded every note, including the underscore, as well as all the musical pieces that were written but cut before the premiere, with exactly the same instrumentation as on opening night. Thanks to more recent research, we also have the restored original orchestrations. The reason I want to record everything that the composer, the lyricist, the librettist, and the orchestrator created is that I believe it is a significant work by people who were masters of their craft. It was not written in an afternoon, but refined over months. They were ruthless in cutting anything they felt was not good enough. We have a duty to preserve their final thoughts on their work as accurately as possible.