History of gay culture to peak in July
It’s true, it’s true! Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch are going into A Little Night Music! The iconic pair will open in the show on Broadway on July 13. Note: autoplaying video and after the jump!
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This is brilliance.
The video mash-up I mean, not the casting. The casting I’m still on the fence about.
Absolutely looking forward to this!!! Not so much La Peters but for Stritch! She is a professioanl! An excellent actress (go back and look at her early work) she will be delightful and insightful as the Madame Armfeldt. Loosen up folks, if everyone played it the same what would the purpose be??? Brava Elaine!!!! Do your best, Peters.
At leas Bernadette will be able to sing bring in the clowns on pitch.
I’m not sure either..I worked with Elaine in the Follies in Concert at Lincoln Center (Barbara Cook, Lee Remick, Carol Burnett etc)and she is one hell of a pro..and good for many stories (she annihilated Phyllis Newman, and took a bite out of Licia Albanese)) but..a courtesan ? Can they make it “Liasons – what the f*** happened to them ?”
And please, can Bernadette get rid of that hair ? Get with the new century.
But Hermione Gingold and Margaret Hamilton (to name just two noted past Mme Armfeldts) radiated “courtesan”?
Gingold certainly managed it, I think. Remember, it’s aged, ex-courtesan. Stritch, honestly, is at best aged, ex-call girl. Which isn’t really the same thing, at least outside America, which is where the action takes place.
Bernadette? Meh. Could be worse. But still–not inspired. Someone was on autopilot when that decision was made.
You worked on Follies in Concert? Awesome! What was your position on that. God, I wish I had been there…
There were 4 men and 4 women in the chorus and we had all worked for Sondheim and Paul Gemignani (conductor) before. Since the show is mostly solos we were all rehearsed seperately and then put in one room for a run-through. Every time Barbara Cook opened her mouth to sing the entire room burst into tears. A really special experience
But 13 July marks the silver anniversary of another cultural phenom, the Live Aid concerts. Perhaps the 80s hairdo should be understood in that light?
She might bother to remember its title, too.
I think Strichie will be just fine. They should just let her be herself and she will make Madame Armfeldt into an entirely different character that will work in it’s own way. Bernadette is another story. The girl is 62. Zeta Jones is 42, the approximate age of the character. Not many 62 year olds have a 16 year old daughter.
To me, the song Send in the Clowns works best performed in a spoken/sprechstimme style. Glyinis Johns, Judi Densch, and now Zeta Jones had it down perfectly. Bernadette has a trained singing voice which i think will make it difficult for her to pull off Send in the Clowns. On the other hand, I look forward to hearing what Strich does with Liasons!
You clearly didn’t hear Flicka sing “Send in the Clowns” in Carnegie Hall last month. A “trained singing voice” is not entirely a stigma.
They are both great artists- Strich’s one woman show was breathtakingly wonderful. As for Bernadette…she’s always been unforgettable despite the haystack on her head. I suspect that when they put their individually inimitable stamps onto the roles- we’ll even wonder why we wasted time wondering whether they’d pull it off or not.
Zeta Jones is a trained singer too, and started out in West End musicals- she had a ’42nd Street’ moment in, um, ’42nd Street’ and went on to tear it up as Mae in the ENO ‘Street Scene’ while still a teenager. She certainly doesn’t need to adopt sprechstimme in ‘Send In The Clowns’- is she doing so?
We’re used to hearing the song chopped up and half spoken- of necessity, with the likes of Johns, Simmons and Dench- but my personal take is that it works much better with someone who can actually sing it. There are a few such recordings (Lansbury at a 70s gala, Glenn Close at Carnegie Hall, Howes at NYCO). It’s always particularly rewarding to hear the third line of each verse done in one breath, ie ‘Losing my timing this late in my career’, without the fairly meaningless fermata after ‘late’ which lesser singers have to put in.
In the theater, IMO, the song works better chopped up and half spoken. It’s NOT opera.
Where did I say it was? Unless Angela Lansbury and Glenn Close have some kind of secret operatic career I wasn’t aware of.
Zeta Jones, excerpt from Send in the Clowns:
Well, I see what you mean about sprechstimme, but there’s clearly a musical theatre voice underneath. I don’t see why Peters should have any trouble with that kind of delivery.
That’s the brassiest Desiree I’ve ever seen. Still, at least she’s not decrepit (and she will certainly have better legs than Judi Dench did in the role. Ugh.)
Since it originates from the Nordic Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Smiles of a Summer Night’, the most perfect dream casting (if it had ever been possible) of A Little Night Music ….would be Katia Mattila as Desiree and Birgit Nilsson as Madame.
I always think Regine Crespin would have been fantastic as Madame Armfeldt. Not Swedish, I know.
To put Stritch in that role is like casting Gabourey Sidibe as Scarlett O’Hara in a remake of Gone With the Wind.
Other than perhaps Bruce Vilanch, I can think of nobody less appropriate for that role.
To think, if NR had not died, we would have seen Vaness Redgrave as Madame Armfeldt !
Peters is a somewhat odd choice, but she is a very talented actress and singer, and been effective in a wide variety of roles. I suspect she will surprise the doubters and be excellent in the part. She’s the quickest study in the business, a hard worker, superb colleague, and knows how to work with a director.
One shudders to imagine that Stritch monster in this role. I can just imagine (who couldn’t?) her needy schtick-driven audience-pandering coarse barking: “Ordinary daughters ameliorate their lots — tend each asset — spend it wisely — while it still endures. Mine TOURS.”
Oh God. The horror.
I didn’t realize there were people out there who disliked Elaine Stritch. I guess I’ve lead a sheltered life.
I too must have lived a very sheltered life because I too adore Elaine Stritch in whatever she chooses to do.
It’s not that they dislike Stritch herself. They just want her to make way for a younger generation of Mme Armfeldts. Elaine had her time!
No, I think Mandryka really really dislikes her.
She’s younger than Lansbury, no?
Lansbury has been known to fudge her birthdate in order to appear older, though.
To be fair to mandryka, ANY ex-lover of Bruce Vilanch would be pissed about this casting decision.
Angela Lansbury=84
Elaine Strich=84
Cruz, wiki has her aged 18ish when she made ‘Gaslight’, and I can’t imagine she can have been much younger.
I apologize for not making my joke wild enough to be easily distinguished from reality.
Ha, I did wonder- although in her early career she *did* play many older roles so I thought you might have been serious…
Hmmm. I know too much about Angela Lansbury.
No, I think I really really dislike her. Although in fairness I must admit I enjoyed her performance in Goldilocks. And to a lesser extent Sail Away. But that was a long long time ago. To think of her braying those exquisite Sondheim lyrics, milking everything for cheap wisecrack-laughs. When Mme. A. dies, I can almost see Stritch clutch the pearls, grimace, and throw the deck of cards all over the stage. She may even fart during a fermata in Liaisons. “Forbidden broadway” come back just this once.
AJ, ANY ex-lover of Angela Lansbury would have responded as you did.
The Châtelet / Paris did a splendid production, last February, of “A little night music” with Leslie Caron, who, though with hardly any voice left, or at best somewhat rocky, pulled of an excellent and rather touching Mrs Armfeldt, remindind us very much of Hermione Gingold, surrounded by Greta Schacchi and Lambert Wilson, – so no one really very much into singing on pitch, but excellent actors, and nevertheless quite arresting.
A friend of mine who saw that production came away raving about Rebecca Bottone’s Anne Egerman (the friend in question was French, before anyone comes at me with tedious Vicarisms). Interesting to see an opera singer cast in that part, although someone should get Anne Hathaway to do it before it’s too late.