‘Aladdin’ Unleashes Musical Magic

VARIOUS ARTISTS “Aladdin” original soundtrack Walt Disney * * *

When the history books are written on Disney’s animation renaissance of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, composer Alan Menken (“Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast”) may get as much credit as anyone for bringing these big-screen cartoons back closer to the traditions of both theater and live-action film.

Those who remember the more treacly Disney musicals of recent decades can only marvel all the more at the mixture of pure Broadway zest Menken brings to the pop songs, and the serious symphonic excitement he lends the remaining incidental music. With “Aladdin,” he’s basically alternately scoring a musical-comedy and an action movie, and acquits himself heroically on both counts.

Not counting numerous reprises and long orchestral passages, Menken has penned five new vocal numbers, with lyrics split between the late Howard Ashman (the loss of whose wit will long be lamented) and his successor, Tim Rice (whose work is fine, if obviously more on the workmanlike side).

“Friend Like Me” and “Prince Ali,” both sung by Robin Williams as the multiple-personality genie, are showstoppers in the tradition of the last movie’s “Gaston.” But it’s “A Whole New World”--complete with a closing “Beauty and the Beast”-style R&B-duet; reprise by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle--that’s intended to make single-digit-age daughters everywhere swoon.