Baritone John Brancy smoothly traverses the American songbook at Carnegie Hall.
During the 1970s, Stephen Sondheim composed Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures and Sweeney Todd–five richly varied masterpieces of musical theater in a nearly miraculous burst of creativity.
The New York City Opera has become an elusive “now you see it, now you don’t” presence in the New York opera scene since the departure of main sponsor and chairman of the board Roy G. Niederhoffer in 2019.
The smile for the fools is especially broad this summer in the Berkshires, where a charming revival of A Little Night Music opened recently at Barrington Stage Company.
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.
Steve adored puzzles, solving them and creating them, so it makes you wonder that this one continued to fester—was that so few of his songs attained the rank of “standard.”
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.
Stephen Sondheim turns 90 on Sunday, prompting Trove Thursday to present his most “operatic” work, Sweeney Todd, in a rare 2002 performance with Christine Baranski and Brian Stokes Mitchell as the murderous duo.
The career of our beloved Renée Fleming deserves to continue… by whatever means necessary.
The Lamplighters Music Theatre opened their 66th season in SF last Saturday with triumphant performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance.
How on Earth will these fictitious luminaries of turn-of-the-century Swedish society keep their clothes clean?
“Good God—an adult musical!”
Forty-five years ago today, Stephen Sondheim’s brilliant, frustrating Follies played its first Broadway preview at the Winter Garden Theatre.
A Little Night Music at the Walter Kerr last night left me longing for a little more than we were given. Yes, there are some wonderful things about this revival of Stephen Sondheim’s most unabashedly romantic musical – and I’ll get to those in a minute – but the sets and costumes by David Farley…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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