Joan Marcus

The recent discussion here of Licia Albanese mentioned her participation in the legendary New York Philharmonic Follies in Concert done in 1985 when the diva was 76. I was reminded how I’ve always thought its “One More Kiss” track starring Albanese and Erie Mills was just wretched. With maybe my favorite Sondheim on my mind, I pulled out for today’s Chris’s Cache the 2007 Encores Follies which starred, among many others, the recently deceased Met soprano Lucine Amara as Heidi.

Opinions differed in the Albanese discussion about whom might best be cast as Heidi. Used to hearing the song with Albanese and Mills, I was shocked when I finally heard it sung beautifully: it’s one of Sondheim’s most beguiling songs. I have long wondered why the NYP producers didn’t get instead Marta Eggerth, then 73; she would have fit Heidi’s profile perfectly.

The only time James Jorden and I ever went to a movie theater together (because he otherwise never did all the years I collaborated with him here at parterre) was to watch a live stream of the London Follies with Imelda Staunton. We rather enjoyed the show, though not everyone in it. Of course, it trotted out Dame Josephine Barstow for Heidi, a precisely enunciated, achingly slow portrayal James appreciated mostly for its camp value.

I realize that any Follies inevitably arrives freighted with all manner of nostalgia for stars of the past, but I don’t think they are an absolute necessity. I must not be the sentimental sort since I’d actually prefer to hear Heidi’s song sung by someone who still has a decent voice.

While it was “nice” to see Rosalind Elias at the Kennedy Center, as you can hear in this clip, her version isn’t pretty.

Carol Neblett performed it in Los Angeles and still had a decent amount of voice left, but it too has its rocky moments.

No amount of nostalgia makes less painful a rendition featuring Justine Johnson, the original Heidi, recreating her role thirty-one years later!

A favorite parlor-game over the years has been to cast Follies revivals: James delighted in doing it. Experiencing Audra McDonald’s overwhelming Gypsy earlier this month reminded me of her glorious “Too Many Mornings” with Nathan Gunn (which seems to have disappeared from YouTube). Surely she is an ideal Sally but McDonald’s ferocious Rose made me imagine her as Phyllis instead. Perhaps there could be a recording à la Grace Bumbry on which she sings both parts?!

And wouldn’t Renée Fleming now make a perfect Heidi?

I attended this Encores presentation, twice, in fact. I was transported both evenings. I had assumed a pirate of it was posted on YouTube, but to my surprise it wasn’t. So, cue Roscoe: “Here are the Weissman Girls!”

Sondheim: Follies

Sally Durant Plummer: Victoria Clark
Young Sally: Katie Klaus
Phyllis Rogers Stone: Donna Murphy
Young Phyllis: Jenny Powers
Heidi Schiller: Lucine Amara
Young Heidi: Leena Chopra
Stella Deems: JoAnne Worley
Hattie Walker: Mimi Hines
Solange LaFitte: Yvonne Constant
Carlotta Campion: Christine Baranski
Emily Whitman: Anne Rogers
Benjamin Stone: Victor Garber
Young Ben: Colin Connell
Buddy Plummer: Michael McGrath
Young Buddy: Curtis Holbrook
Roscoe: Arthur Rubin
Theodore Whitman: Robert E. Fitch
Dimitri Weismann: Philip Bosco

Conductor: Eric Stern
Encores at City Center
February 2007
In-house recording

This performance of Follies can be downloaded by clicking on the icon of a cloud with an arrow pointing downward on the audio player above and the resulting mp3 file will appear in your download directory.

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