Prêtre a manger
parterre box serves up an amuse-bouche of Natalie Dessay as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd in Strasbourg!
Follies
23 pieces since 2007.
23
pieces
20
years
One more souvenir of bliss
This week, Chris’s Cache offers a performance of Follies from 2007 featuring Lucine Amara as a rarely richly sung Heidi alongside Donna Murphy and Victoria Clark.
Remember, darling?
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.
Return of the Merolini
On June 16, San Francisco Opera concluded their excellent Centennial Season with a heartfelt 100th Anniversary Concert, featuring a starry cast, three conductors (including current and former Music Directors) and the SF Opera Orchestra and Chorus.
They trod a path that many have trod
Sweeney Todd is by any measure a triumphant show, the kind that makes an audience understand why Broadway is American theater’s gold standard
Rebranding the Met
A quick survey of the Met website shows wide swaths of available seats for the upcoming performances of La traviata and L’elisir d’amore. Only new works like The Hours and Fire Shut Up in My Bones have been achieving sold-out houses.
Moving on
The Kennedy Center’s Opera House was a white-hot crucible of theatre kid energy on Friday evening for a luxurious 50 Years of Broadway at the Kennedy Center gala.
Everything new is old again
I see in Kimberly Akimbo an audacious idea, once unthinkable territory for a musical, which is realized through a highly imaginative and often unpredictable use of song and especially open-ended ensemble writing.
A crash course in adult relationships
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.
Anyone can puzzle
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.”
Learning how to laugh
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.
Pie à la mode
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.
‘Spring’ is here
The Day Before Spring , while not exactly experimental, shows a young and adventurous team thinking both traditionally and out-of-the-box.
Sondheim sensibility: postmodernism
In crafting his musicals, Sondheim’s focus, regardless of genre, tends towards the processive.
Sondheim sensibility: camp
The singularity of Stephen Sondheim contributes to the conception of him as a camp figure.
Panglossed over
Celebrating Lenny’s 100th this year has made Candide ubiquitous at opera houses worldwide.
Look at these people: aren’t they eerie?
I’ve always believed that Follies, like life, should be relentless and inescapable.
Z to A
Today’s offering is an electric performance of Verdi’s early potboiler Attila conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli.
Each in her style a Delilah reborn
Forty-five years ago today, Stephen Sondheim’s brilliant, frustrating Follies played its first Broadway preview at the Winter Garden Theatre.
Till there was June
After her marvelous Pat Nixon at the Théâtre du Châtelet two years ago, June Anderson returned there last Wednesday with pianist Jeff Cohen for a recital of French melodies and Broadway songs.
Hats off!
The stunning New Broadway Cast Recording
of Sondheim’s Follies is currently on sale on Amazon for an astonishing $4.99.
yma sumac 1922-2008
Legendary “Queen of Exotica” Yma Sumac has died at the age of 86. Among many credits in a career spanning more than half a century was a screen appearance as (obviously) a Peruvian priestess in the 1954 film Secret of the Incas.
She got through all of last year
Good times and bum times — She saw them all, but my dear,She’s no longer here.The actress everyone is eulogizing as the “definitive Lily Munster” had another, in La Cieca’s opinion far more important credit. In 1971 Yvonne de Carlo created the role of Carlotta Campion in Follies, and introduced the showbiz anthem “I’m Still […]
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
