There are worse ways to start a morning than having Robert Goulet serenade you over the phone. So here it is, 10 in the morning, and Goulet is crooning the haunting ballad "This Nearly Was Mine," his favorite song from "South Pacific."
Goulet, who has been starring in the national tour of the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic since March, brings the show to Los Angeles on Tuesday for a two-week engagement at the Wilshire Theatre.
"As a singer, you can really let go and get involved in the lyrics," Goulet, 68, booms over the phone from Seattle. "So clear and deep are my fancies / Of things I wish were true," he sings in his still-rich baritone. "I'll keep remembering evenings / I wish I had spent with you...."
Though not as well known as such "South Pacific" standards as "Some Enchanted Evening," "A Wonderful Guy," "Happy Talk," "Bali Ha'i" and "Bloody Mary," the song gets to him every performance, Goulet acknowledges. "Every singer likes to sink his teeth into a song like that."
Audiences' response to the tune of love lost has been enthusiastic. "People are whistling and yelling and cheering. I never heard that before," he says. "It's wonderful but it's also embarrassing. I am supposed to be in a lot of pain, but I can't even bow to the audience."
This current tour of "South Pacific" is just one of the many events this year celebrating what would have been Rodgers' 100th birthday. Winner of nine Tony Awards in 1950, "South Pacific" is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of stories by James Michener, "Tales of the South Pacific."
Set on a picturesque Pacific island during World War II, the musical explores prejudice through two love stories. Goulet plays the effervescent Emile de Becque, a handsome French widower who falls in love with a much younger and naive American nurse, Nellie (Amanda Watkins). Although the two want to marry, Nellie, who is from Arkansas, calls off the engagement after she discovers Emile was married to a Polynesian woman and has two children by her.
This production's director, Scott Faris, says that despite initial fears, Goulet was easy to work with. "He never for a minute said, 'I did it this way before,' " Faris says. "He would just take direction, and if he questioned something, like with any actor, if I explained it to him why I wanted him to do it, he'd say, 'OK.' "
