So, I turned 40 in 2011! I wasn’t alone in this, among the luminaries who joined me were Ewan McGregor, Mark Wahlberg, Winona Ryder, Mariah Carey and Sacha Baron Cohen, not that I gave many much consolation heading into middle age! ! Still, as Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim’s lavish 80th birthday party revealed, a decade of his best work began when he turned 40, beginning with the groundbreaking musical concept Company in 1970, which stunned audiences seeking escapism by sustaining a mirror facing them in a series of vignettes about Bobby, a single New Yorker unable to commit to a stable relationship.
Company was followed by Follies in 1971 about a fading Broadway theater slated for demolition, allowing the resident company to look back on their lives. Then came A Little Night Music in 1973, the show, which features Sondheim’s most recognizable song Send in the Clowns, is partially based on Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik and Ingmar Bergman’s film Smiles of a Summer Night and explores the lives romances of various couples throughout the course. of a weekend. The aloof and esoteric Pacific Overtures opened in 1976, focusing on Japan’s gradual westernization, seemed like a dark subject for a Broadway show, presented in Kabuki style, closed in fewer than 200 performances.
Sondheim ended the 1970s on a high note with what many consider his masterpiece Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a macabre musical thriller in the Grand Guignol tradition, the initial Broadway production ran for nearly 600 performances and counted with Len Cariou as Sweeney Todd. and Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett. The show has had numerous reruns and has benefited from the authentic Tim Burton film adaptation starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Productions of this challenging but inspiring decade were directed by Harold Prince and his work with Sondheim generally produced a marmitous response, audiences split between those who loved the unabashed deconstructionism of cozy Broadway and those who balked and preferred one less night. haunting in the theatre.
I was exposed to the world of musical theater and classical composition one Christmas in my teens when the BBC screened Leonard Bernstein’s Harvard Lectures; A natural communicator and infectious teacher, Bernstein covered the history of Western music theory at lightning speeds and had me instantly hooked. I wanted to hear anything with his name on it and this led me to West Side Story and consequently to Stephen Sondheim, who got his start as a lyricist on that show in 1957. I read about Sondheim and tried to get into Sweeney Todd. but my ears weren’t ready, for me at the time it seemed too dissonant, which I find surprising now that tunes like My Friends, Johanna and Pretty Women sound totally irresistible to me and I wonder how my teenage self couldn’t have been wooed by them . ; Is this a symptom of turning 40?
A host of Broadway stars, including Elaine Stritch, Patti LuPone, Bernadette Peters, Mandy Patinkin and Joanna Gleason, gathered to celebrate her 80th birthday at New York’s Lincoln Center. The evening was recorded for the Public Broadcasting Service network and released on region-free Blu-ray by Image Entertainment. As far as I know this has yet to be shown on UK TV so this home release is very welcome. The evening’s emcee is Frasier’s Niles, David Hyde Pierce, and he not only provides witty repartee and nuggets of notes from Sondheim’s illustrious career, but also manages to sing Beautiful Girls from Follies in a dozen different languages. All of the Hal Prince shows are well represented here; including Sweeney Todd, which features two of Broadway’s Sweeneys training each other beautifully.
An unforgettable highlight of the show is a song cycle that features several of Sondheim’s leading ladies in stunning red gowns, plus Elaine Stritch, who dons red pants and a peaked cap, this allows for a bit of biting banter from Patti LuPone when sing Ladies. Who Lunch, the song Stritch originated from Company, LuPone emphasizes the line “Does anyone still wear a hat?” and gives Stritch a sly look, but the 85-year-old cop is unfazed and delivers a marvelous rendition of I’m Still Here, a Follies song he’s made his own since his Tony Award-winning one-man show At Liberty. The show ends with the entire cast singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Sondheim and he takes the stage, unfortunately not making a speech, but clearly overwhelmed by the occasion.
The Blu-ray release is pretty basic, there are no extras to speak of, but picture quality is impeccable at 1080p and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by longtime Sondheim collaborator Paul Gemignani really shines. in the crisp DTS-HD soundtrack. . I highly recommend this release for any musical theater aficionado, even those unfamiliar with the shows will be amazed by the accessibility of the songs selected here; they are all eclectic gems performed outstandingly by artists at the top of their game who clearly owe Stephen Sondheim a debt of gratitude.