Not about opera per se, Sweeney Todd notwithstanding, but I’m looking forward to reading the poignant and touching ode to Sondheim’s oeuvre by Richard Schoch.
The mixture of romance and realism in Sondheim songs, the revelation that while love could be grand and passionate it could also be mundane or inconvenient or mistimed or just plain embarrassing, was such a relief.
When I think of Stephen Sondheim, so many of my memories are not simply about shows of his I loved and learned from—they are experiences that literally shaped my life.
Plucked from obscurity by Howard Hughes and sold to the public as a buxom, brunette heir apparent to his former protégé, Jean Harlow, Jane Russell became a household name before she ever shot a single reel of film.
Terror and breakdown is hinted at strongly, almost blatantly, but the characters never seem to move an inch past the comfort zone.
Today is Stephen Sondheim’s 90th birthday, and it’s not going as planned.
Now, you would think nothing could please gaycentric La Cieca more than yesterday’s New York Times profile of the Met’s new music director…
“Good God—an adult musical!”
La Cieca is no big believer in omens, but she must say that within a hour of Aprile Millo‘s final curtain call on the Met stage Saturday night, all hell broke loose over New York. Not exactly “stars with trains of fire and dews of blood/Disasters in the sun” but certainly a messy and unseasonable…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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