It’s Show Time!

*** “WAY BACK TO PARADISE,” Audra McDonald, Nonesuch ($16.97). A triple Tony winner before she’s 30, the classically trained McDonald chose to use her first CD to highlight rich arrangements of 14 songs from such up-and-comers as Jason Robert Brown (“Parade,” opening soon on Broadway), Richard Rodgers’ grandson Adam Guettel and Michael John Chiusa. Although the mood is generally dark and pensive, a few up-tempo numbers vary the pacing, and McDonald is lustrous.

*** “HEY, MR. PRODUCER! The Musical World of Cameron Mackintosh,” Philips, First Night Records ($32.97). This double CD, recorded live at a charity concert, isn’t just a collection of songs from bloated British extravaganzas. In fact Mackintosh has produced a lot of Stephen Sondheim and other American composers, and the selections are remarkably eclectic. Some of the numbers are so short that they almost disappear, but no musical theater fan will want to miss “Duelling Pianos,” a duet played and sung by Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber, making sly fun of the guest of honor, with Sondheim lyrics set to a couple of familiar melodies from both composers.

** “THE ONLY BROADWAY CD YOU’LL EVER NEED,” RCA Victor ($17.98). Compiler Bill Rosenfield disavows the title’s outrageous claim in his liner notes, so ignore it and just enjoy these 20 numbers, mostly classic showstoppers, many from revivals. Only question marks: Colm Wilkinson’s “The Impossible Dream” from one of his own compilations instead of a cast album, and the inclusion of “The Proposal/The Night Was Alive” from “Titanic” as one of the two representatives of new shows. The other new selection, “Wheels of a Dream” from “Ragtime,” is a fitting finale.

*** “A BROADWAY LOVE STORY, Christiane Noll,” Varese Sarabande ($16.98). Producer Bruce Kimmel’s concept of charting the rise and fall of a romance through a selection of songs from various shows could have turned trite, but the selection is imaginative, and Noll (“Jekyll and Hyde”) reveals a knockout talent worthy of a star vehicle.

**** “FOLLIES,” the Paper Mill Playhouse production, TVT ($25.98). Though this recent revival of Sondheim’s great 1971 musical was derailed en route to Broadway, this double CD speaks highly for its cast, led by Donna McKechnie, Laurence Guittard, Tony Roberts and Dee Hoty. This is also the most complete “Follies” recording, with an appendix of eight numbers from other versions of the show. So we hear all three of the character Carlotta’s variations on the theme of a woman’s divided personality, all masterfully sung by Ann Miller.

** DUETS, Emily Skinner and Alice Ripley, Varese Sarabande ($16.98). The actresses who played Siamese twins in Broadway’s “Side Show” deliver a pleasant compendium of songs from 16 shows, but their voices are so much alike that the drama inherent within the duet form isn’t sufficiently realized.