Some Enchanted Evening

"Some Enchanted Evening" is a show tune from the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific.

In the musical, it is sung as a solo by Emile de Becque, the French plantation owner, who falls in love with the American navy nurse Nellie Forbush. In this song he sings of seizing the moment so that it won't slip away. In the original Broadway production, it was sung by the operatic bass Ezio Pinza.

In the film version, the song is sung by Giorgio Tozzi, who dubbed for Rossano Brazzi.

According to the running commentary on the DVD release of South Pacific, this song provides an example of Oscar Hammerstein II's use of verbs in a song. The DVD commentary mentions that Lehman Engel remembered how Hammerstein wanted to write a song based around verbs, but waited ten years to do so before he wrote this song.

The song made former Metropolitan Opera bass Ezio Pinza a favorite with audiences and listeners who normally did not attend or listen to opera.

Selected recorded versions

• Ezio Pinza (recorded April 18, 1949, Original Broadway cast recording of South Pacific)
• Perry Como (1949)
• Frank Sinatra (1949), (1963), (1967)
• Jo Stafford (1949)
• Bing Crosby (1949)
• Al Jolson (1949)
• Eddie Calvert (1951)
• Giorgio Tozzi (1958 for the film soundtrack, 1967 for the Lincoln Center revival cast recording with Florence Henderson)
• Carl Mann (1960)
• Jay and the Americans (1965)
• Jane Olivor, on her debut album, First Night (1976)
• José Carreras (1986) for a studio cast recording of South Pacific with Kiri Te Kanawa, Mandy Patinkin and Sarah Vaughan
• Barbra Streisand (from her 1993 album Back to Broadway)
• The Temptations (1995, For Lovers Only)
• Bryn Terfel - Something Wonderful: Bryn Terfel Sings Rodgers and Hammerstein (1996)
• Philip Quast for the 2002 London revival cast recording of South Pacific
• Paulo Szot - South Pacific (The New Broadway Cast) (2008)
• Harry Connick, Jr. (from his 2009 album Your Songs)
• Alfie Boe, on his 2010 album, Bring Him Home