Some Enchanted Evening is a show tune from the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. The song was published in 1949. In the show it is a three-verse solo for Emile de Becque, a middle-aged French expatriate plantation owner on a South Pacific island during World War II. He sings it in Act I after meeting Ensign Nellie Forbush at an officers' club dance. It returns several times as the couple's relationship faces setbacks and reconciliations, and Emile later proposes.
Ezio Pinza sang it in the original Broadway production and won the 1950 Tony Award for Best Actor in the role. His recording reached No. 7 on Billboard and was made for the original cast album. The song is described as the single biggest popular hit to come out of any Rodgers and Hammerstein show, and Andrew Lloyd Webber called it the greatest song ever written for a musical. Perry Como's 1949 recording reached No. 1, and Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand and Andy Williams also recorded it. In the 1958 film, Giorgio Tozzi dubbed the singing for Rossano Brazzi. The song ranked No. 28 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs, and Paulo Szot won a Tony for the role in the 2008 New York revival.
