1993 Fables: A Musical by Robert Marcelonis. CD. A restoration of the musical highlights taken from the original recordings. Produced by John Simon at J-Dog Music. JDM002. Gift of Miriam Barnett, Director of the musical, together with a videocopied program and personal note.
33 tracks, listed on the back of the CD jewel-case label. Marcelonis died of AIDS in Philadelphia in 1995. This musical was "was a continual work in progress from High School until he was forty. His artist friends came together and performed the play to standing room only audiences, sold out for its run" (Wikipedia). The Wikipedia account of his life is touching. It is not easy to match song and fable just by reading titles and listening to tracks. Some of the more obvious connections are in "The Belly As an Animal"; "Earn Your Keep"; "We Want a King"; "The Heiffer and the Ox"; and "Death."
2009 Fables Performance CDs. Building Fluency through Reader's Theater. Grades 2-3. 3 CDs. Teacher Created Materials. Unknown source.
These three CDs accompany a set of eight booklets also created by Teacher Created Materials. The first disc covers TH, GGE and BW. At the start of this first disc there is a set of good tips to help through young readers their performance. Each story then has an opening track on characters, setting, and script reading. Each story also includes a song and concludes with a poem. I listened to all of TH and enjoyed its excellent voices, music, and sound effects. There are particularly good secondary characters used to echo main characters' viewpoints. Here lazy hare sleeps through the start of the race and takes another deliberate nap along the way. He forgets to tie his shoelaces, and that causes him to lose.
Disc 2 presents GA, LM, and TMCM.
Disc 3 offers FC, SW, and instrumental versions of the songs.
1960? Fables of La Fontaine. Five blotters from Chocolats fins Menier. 5½" x 8¼". DW, "Le Chat, la Belette et le petit Lapin," and OR. Buvard Extra. Imp. Typo Noisiel. $5 each from Mme Denise Debuigne, Rennes, France, Feb., '02, May, '02, and May, '03. Blotter advertisement for Menier vignettes for $7 from Bertrand Cocq, Calonne Ricouart, France, Sept., '18, along with, for $7, an extra copy of "The Robbers and the Ass.". FC added for $10.05 from Olivier Pierres, Vendat, France, through Ebay, Oct., '20. LM a gift of Susan Carlson, Dec., '23.
DW, OR, "Les Voleurs et l'Ane," and "Les Animaux Malades de la Peste" are brown on gold, while "Le Chat, la Belette et le petit Lapin" is red on white. Each blotter announces that this image and many others will be found in Menier's chocolate tablets. "Les plus fins des chocolates fins." The cartoons are simple. The tree and reed have faces. The dog is not only plump but almost round, while the wolf is skin and bones. The third thief is very proud of himself, while the ass looks back in wonderment. In "Le Chat, la Belette et le petit Lapin," only the bunny appears; he is hopping over a fence. "Les Animaux" presents a very sorry-looking group of four. One can find the "vignettes" here among chocolate cards.
1900? Fables of La Fontaine: Doré. 77 black-and white lantern slides. "By permission Cassell, Petter, and Galpin." $170.50 from Bastion Epanning, Victoria, BC, through eBay, Oct., '08.
Here are beautiful magic lantern slides, 3¼" square, with a circular scene within a square frame. Most retain the two paper slips proclaiming "Fables of La Fontaine: Doré" and ""By permission Cassell, Petter, and Galpin." Though the pictures do not scan well, they are very well done. I offer several here merely as samples; they do not do Doré justice! The slides themselves are in various states of poor repair. In many, the two glass plates have separated. In some the framing paper -- square on the outside, circular on the inside -- has become fragmentary. Two slides have cracked. What a wonderful ephemeral find! Click on any image to see it enlarged. Lifted together, these slides are also exceedingly heavy!
1979 Fables of Henry Allard. 30 minutes. Learning Corporation of America. Printed in USA. $9 from Chasemouse through Ebay, Sept., '03.
Still needs to be watched and listened to.
2012 Fables of Aesop 15th Century: Ebook. Pdf and jpg files, apparently of Steinhoewel, though with unusual title-page frame decorations. 227 jpg files. Purchased online from Luis de Blas, Oleiros, La Coruna, Spain.
Detailed photographs of pages in two formats. The pdf is similarly 227 pages long. Good work! I have not been able to identify this apparent later printing of Steinhoewel's work.
2000 Fables Jazz: Jean de la Fontaine. CD. 15 fables embedded in jazz arrangements. Chemin Faisant. Sergent Major Company. Unknown source.
Here is another highly creative development of La Fontaine's fables. I listened to and enjoyed the first three: "La Montagne Qui Accouche"; OR; and "The Coach and the Fly." The last of these was, for me, the most clearly articulated. Because the marriage of jazz and fable is somewhat breathtaking as an endeavor, I think the producer had to make some choices. In that third fable, "The Coach and the Fly," I believe the choice was for articulate rendering of the words of the fable. I believe that that effort succeeded. In a fable like "La Montagne Qui Accouche," I believe his choice was more for the mood set by the jazz. I believe that that effort also succeeded. At the end of OR, there is a clever repetition of "Morts." That word sums up wonderfully the end of the arrogant oak.
