Not out of the woods yet: Union Avenue Opera makes the best of James Lapine's uneven book for "Into the Woods"

I’m not sure exactly when opera companies began folding musicals into their seasons. Lyric Opera of Chicago has doing so since around 2013, as have some European companies, but the trend has only recently made its way to St. Louis.

Union Avenue Opera (UAO) has been at the vanguard of that trend. Their current production of Sondheim’s “Into the Woods,” their fifth foray into Broadway territory since 2013, has a lot going for it, including strong performances in the leading roles. But compared with the rest of the company’s current season it felt like a bit of a letdown.

The company
Photo: Dan Donovan

Blame James Lapine’s book for most of that. The basic concept is cleverly subversive, combing the plots of multiple fairy tales (mostly the Brothers Grimm versions), in a way that explores the consequences of the characters' wishes and quests. That should have been an ideal project for Sondheim and Lapine, but I have yet to see it work in practice. The change in tone from the mostly light first act to the increasingly dark second is shaky, and the story line loses its way in the woods along with the characters. They all make bad choices (often for no discernable reason), some of them get killed, and then everyone comes back on stage for “Children Will Listen”—a beautifully ambiguous song that feels only tangentially connected to the narrative.

For those of you who have never seen “Into the Woods,” the capsule version goes like this.

L-R: Leann Schuering, Brandon Bell
Photo: Dan Donovan

The main characters are Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (of beanstalk fame), Rapunzel, and Cinderella. There’s also a pair of handsome princes and the usual fairy tale villains—a hungry wolf, a wicked stepmother, ugly stepsisters, and of course a witch. Linking them all is the quest of a childless baker and his wife to have a child and their conflict with a witch who has placed a curse on them. They all have to go “into the woods” (always a risky place in fairy tales) to get what they want, after which they live happily ever after. Until the second act, when they learn that they’re not “out of the woods” quite yet.

Ultimately, Sondheim and Lapine’s “Into the Woods” is a collection of remarkable set pieces, ingenious lyrics that are sometimes too clever for their own good, and thought-provoking ideas that never fully coalesce into a coherent whole.

Brooklyn Snow
Photo: Dan Donovan

The Union Avenue production comes as close to making sense of it all as is humanly possible, for which many thanks.

Vocally and dramatically the large cast ranges from good to outstanding. Baritone Brandon Bell makes a propitious UAO debut in the emotionally demanding role of The Baker. Soprano Leann Schuering, a sparkling Charlotte in UAOs “A Little Night Music,” brings a nice combination of vocal clarity and emotional warmth to the part of The Baker’s Wife.

Soprano Brooklyn Snow, who has been impressing UAO audiences since her debut in “Candide” in 2019, once again nails it as Cinderella. Soprano Laura Corina Sanders is an irresistibly bratty Little Red Ridinghood [sic]. And bass-baritone Eric McConnell turns in yet another (ahem) killer performance as the Wolf. His “Hello, Little Girl” is the ne plus ultra in creepy carnality.

Alexis Taylor-
Dupont
Photo: Dan Donovan

The role of the Witch has always been this show’s Star Turn (Bernadette Peters was the Broadway original) and gets an appropriately stellar performance from mezzo Taylor-Alexis Dupont. I would have welcomed a bit more punch in her big “eleven o’clock number” “Last Midnight,” but that’s just a “quibble quaint,” as W. S. Gilbert wrote.

Christopher Hickey is bemused and amusing as the Narrator and the Mysterious Man (who, in a typical fairytale coincidence, is also Jack’s father), and does well by the transition from ironic narrator to rueful participant. Tenors Matthew Greenblatt and James Stevens are in excellent vocal form and are wonderfully clueless as the two princes.

The rest of the cast fills in multiple roles quite handily. My apologies for all of those I haven’t mentioned. All of you are doing a splendid job with challenging material.

L-R: Laura Corina Sanders, Eric McConnell
Photo: Dan Donovan

Hannah Browning’s choreography is simple but effective. Jennifer Wintzer’s stage direction keeps everything moving and she creates decent stage pictures, but relies a bit too much on physical comedy, particularly with the two princes. That’s the kind of heavy-handed approach I associate with student productions rather than with a professional company like UAO.

The orchestra sounds excellent as usual under the reliable baton of UAO Founding Artistic Director Scott Schoonover. Jonathan Tunick’s orchestration of Sondheim’s score is something of a sonic kaleidoscope that demands the kind of precision it gets here.

Laura Skroska’s sets and Teresa Doggett’s costumes give the show a fanciful and ominous look (lots of dark colors in those woods) that serves the music and book well, as do Philip Touchette’s supertitles. Indeed, they are downright essential since Sondheim’s rather over-complex lyrics move at a fast pace and the Union Avenue acoustics make them difficult to hear.

Unlike “A Little Night Music,” Union Avenue’s previous venture into Sondheim territory, “Into the Woods” is a piece that impresses more often than it entertains. I have always admired it but have yet to see anyone make it work on the stage. UAO gives it their best, though, and that’s always worth seeing.

Concluding performances of Union Avenue Opera’s “Into the Woods” are Friday and Saturday, August 23 and 24, at the Union Avenue Christian Church in the Central West End. For more information: unionavenueopera.org.

Cabaret Review: Melissa Errico happens to like Stephen Sondheim

Melissa Errico 

“I happen to like New York,” wrote Cole Porter in 1930. “I like the sight and the sound and even the stink of it / I happen to like New York.” The late musical theatre legend Stephen Sondheim (a great admirer of Porter) apparently agreed, for while he owned a home in Connecticut, he essentially lived his entire life within a 20-block radius of his New York City home.

[Check out my interview with Melissa Errico on YouTube.]

At The Blue Strawberry last week (April 26 and 27) Melissa Errico (another musical theatre legend) peppered her new showcase of the songs of Stephen Sondheim with that and other fascinating biographical bits.   Along with the equally legendary Tedd Firth (her music director), she gave the audience a heaping helping of Sondheim, with (by my count) eighteen songs spanning most of the composer’s long and productive career. That included a nicely balanced set of tunes from Errico and Firth’s latest CD, “Sondheim in the City” which was released back in February.

The evening opened with the earliest all-Sondheim song in the set: the rousing “Everybody Says Don’t” from “Anyone Can Whistle” (1964). It was a perfect way to introduce us to Errico’s big, expressive voice. Her dynamic range and vocal control were impressive, allowing her to move from a purr to a roar as needed. Her sparkling blue dress—chosen to honor her first appearance at The Blue Strawberry—was the ideal visual equivalent to her effervescent stage persona.

Her long-time collaborator Firth supported her every inch of the way, with imaginative arrangements that encompassed a wide range of styles from classical to jazz, all delivered with the impressive virtuosity I have come to expect from him over the years.

 Next was a quietly confident version of “Not While I’m Around” from “Sweeney Todd” (1979). It its original context, the song is about the Mrs. Lovett and the slow-witted Toby making promises to each other they don’t fully understand and won’t be able to keep. In Errico’s hands, it became a less ambiguous and more openly moving declaration of familial love. Either way, it’s all there in the music and lyrics; one just needs to shift perspective a bit.

The contrast of moods set the stage admirably for a show that was all about Sondheim’s masterful use of ambiguity and contradiction. “Small World” (from “Gypsy,” 1959, music by Jule Styne), in this context, is all about Rose’s affection for and manipulation of the long-suffering Herbie, while the following number—“Loving You” (from “Passion,” 1994)—shows how easily romantic love can coexist with creepy obsession.

Errico’s interpretation leaned towards the “romantic love” end of the spectrum, but the subtext of creepiness was there as well. Firth’s arrangement included a volcanically Romantic solo break (Rachmaninoff would have approved of it) that could also be taken either way. It was, again, a matter of perspective.

And so it went for around 90 minutes, with anecdotes drawn from both Errico’s and Sondheim’s lives segueing neatly from one great song to another. It was a musical biography of both Errico and Sondheim as well as an entertaining night of cabaret guaranteed to gladden the hearts of musical theatre lovers in general and Sondheim fanatics (“Sondheimaniacs”?) in particular—a group in which I would unapologetically include myself.

That said, the between-song patter, well-chosen and informative as it was, sometimes became a bit discursive. In a few cases, it all became a bit of “inside baseball,” dwelling at length on technical aspects of lyric construction and performance practice that would have been a better fit for a master class. I found this stuff fascinating, mind you, but I’m not sure that this was a majority view.

Still, that’s a minor quibble, which is why it’s here at the end of the review. Errico and Firth are masters of their craft just as Sondheim was of his. The combination was a match made in musical theatre heaven. This might have been their first appearance on a local cabaret stage, but I hope many more will follow.

Meanwhile, you can listen to most of her extensive discography on Spotify and check out her videos (including her enlightening “Sixty-Second Sondhiem” series) on YouTube. Information about upcoming shows at The Blue Strawberry can be found on their web site.

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Cabaret Review: Liz Callaway and Alex Rybeck celebrate Sondheim at the Blue Strawberry

On Tuesday and Wednesday, January 24th and 25th, Liz Callaway and Alex Rybeck brought “To Steve With Love: Liz Callaway Celebrates Sondheim” to The Blue Strawberry in St. Louis. And there was much rejoicing.  End of review.

Just kidding. But the reality is that the combination of Callaway, Rybeck, and Sondheim is, like “Tinker to Evers to Chance,” a classic triple play. You can’t go wrong. And they didn’t.

Alex Rybeck and Liz Callaway
Photo courtesy of Liz Callaway

Full disclosure: I have been an unabashed admirer of Callaway and Rybeck for many years now, both as performers and as teachers. I’ve had a chance to see both their performances and their processes. So I’ll have to admit to not being entirely objective.

That said, the rest of the audience and the other members of our party at the Blue Strawberry on the 25th were just as enthusiastic as I was, so I think I’m on safe ground saying that “To Steve With Love: Liz Callaway Celebrates Sondheim” was pretty darn fine cabaret regardless of any pre-existing conditions on my part.

One of the things that stood out about the show was the seamless way in which Callaway’s anecdotes about her long association with Sondheim and his music were woven in with the songs. The standard cabaret format of alternating songs and patter works just fine most of the time. But “To Steve With Love” created a more theatrically satisfying experience  by combining music and musings into a single coherent story. I have always felt that cabaret can be seen as a form of musical theatre. “To Steve With Love” is an excellent demonstration of why that’s the case.

This was apparent within the first ten minutes, starting with an unlikely medley of the title tune from “Company,” “Rich and Happy” (from “Merrily We Roll Along”), “I Know Things Now” (from “Into the Woods”), and “Someone in a Tree” (from “Pacific Overtures”). With a little lyrical tweaking here and there, it became all about Callaway’s discovery of the greatness of Sondheim’s music and its importance in her life both on stage and off.

It’s a point driven home by the next number, in which “Broadway Baby” (from “Follies”) is woven into the story of her first job in a Sondheim musical—the legendary but ill-fated “Merrily We Roll Along.” It ran for a total of two weeks in 1981, despite a Sondheim score, a book by George Furth (based on the play of the same name by Kaufman and Hart), and direction by Hal Prince. It was a flop, but for Callaway it marked the start of a personal and professional relationship with one of the giants of American musical theatre.

The remaining 90 minutes roll along merrily in that same vein, mixing familiar favorites like “The Miller’s Son” (“A Little Night Music”), “Not While I’m Around” (“Sweeney Todd”), and of course, “Send in the Clowns” with more obscure gems. Two examples of the latter are “What Do We Do? We Fly!” (from “Do I Hear a Waltz?”, an ill-advised 1965 collaboration between Sondheim and Richard Rodgers)  and “What More Do I Need?” (from “Saturday Night,” written in 1955 for Broadway but not performed until over forty years later in London).

The acidic lyrics of  “What Do We Do? We Fly!“ need only minor adjustments to make them relevant over fifty years later, while “What More Do I Need?” ironically juxtaposes of the woes of New York apartment life with the joy of first love:

My windowpane may not give much light,
But I see you, so the view is bright.
If I can love you, I'll pay the dirt no heed!
With your love, what more do I need?

Liz Callaway and Jeff Wright
Photo: Chuck Lavazzi

There are many more choice moments in this show, but rather than list them all here I’m going to direct you to Spotify for the live recording of the June 2022 performances at New York’s 54 Below, where “To Steve With Love” had its premiere in March of that year.

A great cabaret show (which this certainly was) is nearly always a team effort. The success of this show’s integration of song and story must be credited not only to Callaway’s strength as a singer and actress, but also to the contributions of her co-writer and husband of nearly forty years, theatre producer and director Dan Foster. Rybeck’s impeccable arrangements, played with his usual finesse, insured a solid musical foundation.

For the Blue Strawberry engagement of “To Steve With Love,” Team Callaway included a performer no doubt familiar to local theatre audiences: Jeff Wright. He sang the George role in the duet “Move On” (from “Sunday in the Park With George”), a part taken by Callaway’s son Nicholas in the original 54 Below production of the show. If you have seen Wright on stage, you know he’s a consummate actor who combines “leading man” charisma with a classic crooner’s voice. Both served him very well in this song’s emotional journey from self-doubt to affirmation.

And, yes, full disclosure: I have appeared on stage with Wright more than once. But that is one of the reasons I hold his professionalism in such high regard.

Liz Callaway’s St. Louis gig is over, but her upcoming performances include appearances in New York City, Fort Lauderdale, and Philadelphia, among many others. Check out her web site for details. Meanwhile, music and comedy continue at The Blue Strawberry; visit that site for a complete performance calendar.

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Symphony Review: The SLSO and the Muny collaborate on a Sondheim celebration

In a 2008 New York Times interview, the late Stephen Sondheim was asked what he’d like his legacy to be. His answer: “I would just like the shows to keep getting done. Whether on Broadway or in regional theatres or schools or communities, I would just like the stuff to be done… You know, that would be the fun.”

Clockwise from top left: Ken Page, Emily Skinner,
Ben Davis, Bryonha Marie, Matthew Scott,
and Elizabeth Stanley. Photo courtesy of the SLSO.

If Sondheim looked down on the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra’s “A Little Sondheim Music” program yesterday (Sunday, October 2), I think he would have found this co-production with The Muny to be a great deal of fun indeed. I certainly did, and the large audience seemed to concur.

With Muny veteran Ben Whiteley at the podium and a killer cast of musical theatre stars, all of whom have Muny appearances in their resumes, “A Little Sondheim Music” was a Golden Ticket for musical theatre lovers in general and fans of Sondheim in particular. With over two dozen numbers culled from ten different Sondheim shows spanning over three decades of the composer’s career, it was a good representation of what I’m going to call the “PG-rated” aspects of his output.

That means darker or complex shows like “Passion,” “Sunday in the Park with George,” and “Assassins” were left out. “Sweeney Todd” was represented only by “My Friends” which, while not one of the strongest numbers in the score, is one of the less creepy. That’s not a complaint so much as an observation. When you’re preparing an openly celebratory show, you probably don’t want to hit folks with (say) “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” or “The Gun Song.”

“But I digress.” – Tom Lehrer

The important point is that we got some of Sondheim’s best stuff performed, either singly or in ensembles, by a first-rate cast. There were so many highlights I can’t possibly list them all, but here are a few that will also allow me to say something about each one of those fine singers.

The title number from Sondheim’s first show, “Saturday Night” (1957) was a great showcase for the five principal singers: Ben Davis, Bryonha Marie, Matthew Scott, Emily Skinner, and Elizabeth Stanley. Each one played a different character, so they all got a chance to shine individually, and the canonical final moments demonstrated how well they blended as an ensemble. They didn’t perform as a quintet again until the very end, when their powerful rendition of “Our Time” (from “Merrily We Roll Along,” 1981) sent everyone out on an inspired musical high.

Stand-out solo turns included (but were absolutely not limited to) Marie’s warmly compassionate “Children Will Listen” (“Into the Woods,” 1987), Stanley’s “In Buddy’s Eyes” (“Follies,” 1971) with its unspoken tragic subtext, Skinner’s big, bold “I’m Still Here” (also “Follies”), Davis’s crystal-clear delivery of “Everyone Says Don’t” (“Anyone Can Whistle,” 1964), and Scott’s wide-eyed “Giants in the Sky” (“Into the Woods”).

And let’s not neglect St. Louis’s own Ken Page, one of the few actors to whom Sondheim actually wrote a fan letter. In his special guest appearance, he delivered a deeply felt and intensely personal performance of the title song from “Anyone Can Whistle.” Accompanied only by Nicholas Valdez on piano, it was a true cabaret moment. Nicely done, Mr. Page.

Whiteley and the orchestra got a few opportunities to strut their stuff, as well, with the overtures to “Merrily We Roll Along” and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962),” but for me their best moment was the “Night Waltz” from “A Little Night Music (1971).” Individual members of the orchestra had some spotlight time as well, including Associate Concertmaster Celeste Golden’s duet with Marie in “Broadway Baby,” Tzuying Huang’s limpid bass clarinet solo in “Send in the Clowns,” and Andrea Kaplan’s flutes (standard concert and alto) in “Too Many Mornings.”

Michael Baxter’s staging of the musical numbers often made good use of the limited space available in front on the orchestra. An example that stands out in my mind was “It Takes Two” (“Into the Woods”) in which Davis and Stanley, as the baker and his wife, respectively, start out singing different melodies on opposite sides of the stage. As they begin to come together musically, they do so physically as well, until they’re in a clinch center stage in a happy duet.

As he did in the last SLSO/Muny collaboration in 2018, Muny Artistic Director Mike Isaacson acted as narrator, introducing each set of songs with interesting and sometimes surprising historical tidbits on both Sondheim and his connections with St. Louis and The Muny. There were just enough of these, and they were of just the right length, to provide context without getting in the way of the music.

Were there aspects of the program that didn’t work so well for me? Absolutely. How important were they overall? Well, I left them until the end of this review, so that should give you some idea. Most of the issues were technical, involving popping wireless body mics and the difficulty of balancing amplified sound (the singers and some of the softer instruments like the celesta) with an acoustic orchestra. Some of Sondheim’s rapid-fire lyrics got swamped by the band at times, but not often enough to be truly annoying.

Mostly, though, “Sing a Song of Sondheim” was a delightful afternoon’s entertainment and a fitting tribute to perhaps the greatest musical theatre composer of the 20th century. Thanks to the SLSO and The Muny for the experience. I hope there are more of these collaborations in the future.

Next at Powell Hall: Guest conductor Jonathon Heyward leads the orchestra and violinist Hannah Ji in a program of Kaija Saariaho's "Ciel d'hiver" ("Winter Sky"), Joseph Bologne's Violin Concerto No 2 (both local premieres), and Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition." Performances are Friday at 10:30 am and Saturday at 8 pm, October 7 and 8. The Saturday concert will be broadcast live, as usual, on St. Louis Public Radio and Classic 107.3.

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Opera Review: Swedish Rhapsody: "A Little Night Music" at Union Avenue Opera

In a 2016 interview at the Glimmerglass Festival, Stephen Sondheim said that he had always viewed his 1973 musical “A Little Night Music” as having “an operetta attitude.” It’s not surprising, then, that many opera companies have embraced it.

L-R: James Stevens, Leann Schuering,
Eric McConnell, Jordan Wolk, Teresa Doggett
Photo: Dan Donovan

Union Avenue Opera’s production doesn’t just embrace the show; it makes love to it with a combination of sensuality and skill that even the curmudgeonly Madame Armfeldt (played with sardonic wit by Teresa Doggett) would appreciate. With a simple but highly functional set (C. Otis Sweezey), beautiful costumes (the multi-talented Doggett), skilled dramatic and musical direction (Annamaria Pileggi and Scott Schoonover, respectively) and, above all a splendid cast, this is the best “Night Music” I have seen in quite a while.

For those of you unfamiliar with the show, know that “A Little Night Music” is “suggested by” famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 comedy “Smiles of a Summer Night.” The story centers on a collection of romantically confused couples whose foolishness is sorted out by the “smiles” of a single midsummer night, when the sun never sets and there’s both magic and pheromones in the air. Hugh Wheeler’s book adds a few complications and a bit more romance (“sex presented pastorally,” to quote Stephen Schwartz), but otherwise it sticks fairly closely to Bergman’s original.

L-R: Debby Lennon,
Peter Kendall Clark
Photo: Dan Donovan

Presenting a successful “Little Night Music” can be a tricky proposition. Sondheim’s lyrics mix low comedy and high art in a way rarely seen on the musical stage, and his music is filled with intricate rhythms and layers of polyphony that are uncommon even in the regular operatic repertoire. That musical complexity is true as well for the roles of Frederik, Desiree, and Madame Armfeldt—originally written for singing actors rather than classically trained singers—which can be challenging.

What you need, in short, is a cast that can act as well as it sings, and vice versa.

Union Avenue has assembled just such a cast. Debby Lennon, a familiar presence on the operatic, theatre, and cabaret stages locally, is a wry and  insightful Desiree Armfeldt, the actress who realizes that ending her earlier relationship with lawyer Fredrik Egerman might not have been a wise decision. Lennon is the kind of singer who sounds entirely at home in just about any musical genre, a fact she demonstrates here with a performance of “Send in the Clowns” that is simply the most heartfelt and musically solid I have ever heard.

Baritone Peter Kendall Clark’s Fredrik is funny and wistful, as he tries to negotiate a mid-life crisis of which he seems blissfully unaware. The role has generally been the province of big theatrical baritones like Len Cariou and Ron Raines, and Clark could not be a better fit. He’s got projection and tonal warmth to spare.

L-R: Leann Schuering, Peter Kendall Clark
Poto: Dan Donovan

Speaking of projection, bass-baritone Eric J. McConnell has ample vocal power as the “pea-brained” Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm, whose toxic masculinity is exceeded only by his lack of insight. He comes close to making the character’s vapid bluster a little too silly, but better to error in that direction than to let us see what a truly awful person Carl-Magnus is.  

Soprano Leann Schuering, whose crystalline voice so brightened Union Avenue’s “HMS Pinafore” in 2018, sparkles again as Countess Charlotte Malcolm, painfully aware of just how much she is under her husband’s sadistic thumb but unable to find her way out.

I have, perhaps, exhausted my store of encomiums for soprano Brooklyn Snow from her previous UAO appearances. Here, as Fredrik’s very young and deeply shallow bride Anne (“unfortunately still a virgin” after nearly a year of marriage), she is once again vocally stunning and utterly convincing in her portrayal.

L-R: Amy Maude Helfer,
Brooklyn Snow
Photo: Dan Donovan

Tenor James Stevens is Henrik, Fredrik’s son from his first marriage, who finds himself in the untenable position of studying for the priesthood while lusting after his stepmother who, after all, is around the same age as him. Steven’s performance is a perfect mix of pain and comedy, delivered with a clear-as-a-bell voice that fills the stage. Together with Snow and Clark, he makes the complex Act I trio “Now / Later / Soon” one of many memorable moments.

One sign of a solid show is the presence of first-rate performers in even the smallest roles. As the free-spirited and flirtatious maid Petra, mezzo Amy Maude Helfer brings an unusual touch of sadness to the final line of “I Shall Marry the Miller’s Son.” It’s there in the music, but I don’t recall hearing it before.

Arielle Pedersen, a finalist in last year’s Fox Performing Arts High School Talent competition, makes an auspicious UAO debut in the mostly non-singing role of Desiree’s daughter Fredrika, radiating warmth and wisdom beyond her years. Perhaps that’s the result of her tutelage at the feet (literally) of the wheelchair-bound Madame Armfeldt, continually disappointed by her daughter Desiree’s refusal to recognize the importance of the profit motive in her romances. She gives voice to it in the ruefully witty “Liaisons,” which Doggett, in one of her regrettably rare stage appearances, sings with impressive clarity, even though it’s at the bottom of her range.

L-R: Joel Rogier, Sarah Price, Phil Touchette,
Gina Malone, Grade Yukiko Fisher
Photo: Dan Donovan

Finally, let us not forget the fine work by the vocal quintet that Sondheim employs as a kind of Greek chorus, commenting on the action and sometimes letting us hear the thoughts of the characters. Their presence is essential throughout the work and their music is often complex, as in the fugal “Perpetual Anticipation,” sung by the three women of the ensemble in Act II. The quintet consists of Joel Rogier, Gina Malone, Grace Yukiko Fisher, Philip Touchette, and Sarah Price.

That said, there are the usual issues with UAO’s overly resonant acoustics blurring overlapping vocal lines, especially in the Mozartian complexity of the Act I finale “A Weekend in the Country.” Schoonover’s tempos are also a bit too brisk in places for Sondheim’s lyrically lavish music, but the projected English text helps.

L-R: Arielle Pedersen,
Teresa Doggett
Photo: Dan Donovan

Set changes were also longer than they should have been due to the necessity of hauling large pieces of furniture on and off stage. But this, again, is a function of the fact that the performance space has no backstage or wing space; there’s only so much you can expect a designer to do. “Falstaff” suffered from the same issue but at least this time Schoonover used bits of the score as change music, which made them feel shorter.

For me the bottom line is that it has been over a decade since I have seen a professional production of “A Little Night Music” and longer than that since I have seen one that was so completely right in so many ways. This is a “must see” for anyone who loves musical theatre of any kind.

There are two more performances this Friday and Saturday (August 26 and 27) at 8 pm at the Union Avenue Christian Church, 733 Union at Enright. Tickets are available at the UAO web site.

Glimmerglass Festival, 2016, Day 2: Words and music by Stephen Sondheim

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The highlight of day two of my visit to the Glimmerglass Festival as part of a team from the Music Critics Association of North America wasn't a performance at all, but rather an on-stage interview by Jamie Bernstein—writer, broadcaster, and daughter of famed Leonard Bernstein—of Stephen Sondheim, whose musical-cum-opera Sweeny Todd was the main event that night.

Casually attired in a blue polo shirt and chinos, Mr. Sondheim was wonderfully charming and unassuming. He shared some interesting insights what he sees as the differences between musical theatre and opera and had some great anecdotes about the creation of West Side Story, Gypsy, and (of course) Sweeney Todd.

Although he was addressing an opera audience, Mr. Sondheim confessed that he was not a fan of opera because he didn't personally care for "constant singing." The contrast between spoken dialog and song is, for him, far more interesting. He singled out Carmen as an opera that he enjoyed for that very reason.

He acknowledged that some musicals, such as Frank Loesser's Most Happy Fella, are rather like operas in that they are entirely sung, but they're not "through-composed". That is, they're not large musical structures like (to pick an extreme example) the operas of Wagner. So while Most Happy Fella and Sweeney Todd use repeating musical motifs, they're not really operas in his view.

Emily Pogorelc as Johanna
Photo: Karli Cakel

That said, he noted that when Sweeney Todd performed by opera companies, it's viewed as an opera. Otherwise it's viewed as a musical. Audiences adapt their expectations to the venue.

"When I was writing Sweeney," he noted, "I was writing a movie." He was attracted to the big, exaggerated emotions of actor Christopher Bond's adaptation of the original mid-19th-centrury "penny dreadful" The String of Pearls. A stage adaptation of the original, awful though it was, became a moneymaker for actor Tod Slaughter (!), who filmed it in 1936. Mr. Sondheim, though, felt that Bond had taken the original and given it real characters with real depth-something he was careful to honor in his adaptation. He observed that sometimes inferior plays make the best operas because the music "ennobles" them. Puccini did this on a regular basis, he reminded us.

Mr. Sondheim recalled that he spent an entire month working on one song: "Epiphany", the dramatic number in which Todd, convinced that he will never have his vengeance on Judge Turpin, goes truly mad and swears bloody retribution on the entire world. The song sets up the entire second half of the show, and so was critical to its success.

Nicholas Nestorak (left) as Tobias Ragg
and members of the ensemble
Photo: Karli Cadel

Asked what he was working on now, Mr. Sondheim revealed that he's working with playwright David Ives (Venus in Fur, All in the Timing), on a stage version of two Luis Buñuel films: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and Exterminating Angel. By sheer coincidence, composer Thomas Adès has just completed work on an opera version of the latter film, so audiences will have a chance to compare the two when they play in New York next year.

Asked about A Little Night Music, he said that he has always thought of it as an operetta. It's lighter in tone than an opera and has "an operetta attitude." He then went on to recall his meeting with Ingmar Bergman-whose film Smiles of a Summer Night served as the basis for the show-in New York City just after he had been granted the rights for the adaptation. Bergman was so pleased by Sondheim's work that he asked the composer to work with him on a film version of The Merry Widow—a project that never came to fruition. Bergman liked the Broadway production, and remarked to Sondheim that Hermione Gingold "really f**ks the audience."

And he meant it in the best way possible.

Towards the end, Ms. Bernstein and Mr. Sondheim took a few questions from the audience that had been submitted in advance. One was a rather ponderous query about how the social and political background of the 1970s had influenced the composition of Sweeney Todd. He laughed and said "I just wrote Sweeney Todd to scare people."

He also had a couple of great Ethel Merman stories.

Greer Grimsley (left) in the title role and
Peter Volpe as Judge Turpin
Photo: Karli Cadel

The Sondheim interview left me primed for a great production of Sweeney Todd. Alas, that's not what I got. The many problems with director Christopher Alden's gimmicky and distracting direction are described fairly well by my colleague Barbara Jepson in her review for Classical Voice North America, so I won't repeat them here. Suffice it to say that Sweeney Todd is now apparently an Established Classic that can be subjected to bizarre directorial concepts that contradict the text and undermine the drama. Direction that constantly calls attention to itself raises barriers between the material and the audience, which is certainly what happened here.

The Glimmerglass cast has great voices, though, and Young Artists member Molly Jane Hill, a last minute substitute for an ailing Luretta Bybee, did herself proud as Mrs. Lovett. They did not, however, sound entirely comfortable with Mr. Sondheim's rapid-fire, literate lyrics-which made the projected English text very welcome.

Equally welcome was the chance to hear Sondheim's score played by a full orchestra. Conductor John DeMain gave an excellent account of it. Indeed, if you closed your eyes this was a pretty respectable production.

Review: KT Sullivan and Jeff Harnar pay tribute to Sondheim at the Gaslight Cabaret Festival, March 11 and 12, 2016

Written by Steve Callahan

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KT Sullivan and Jeff Harnar

It was just over thirteen years ago that I was first enchanted by KT Sullivan in cabaret at the Grandel.  Now she’s back in a splendid evening at the Gaslight, a featured star in that theater’s cabaret festival.  This time she brings with her a most talented and charming partner, Jeff Harnar, in an evening of pure Stephen Sondheim.

Ms. Sullivan has long been a luminary in the world of cabaret, but she also has an impressive resume in musical theatre—on Broadway and elsewhere.  The lady retains her glamour and wit, and vocally though her vibrato is a tiny bit broader she’s certainly still in top form.  She can be warm and lush or bright and exciting.  She retains a purity of tone even when she sings in what seems to be a whisper (though it’s perfectly audible.) Her early training in opera has given her the technical skills that make her performance seem so effortless, but this—cabaret—is definitely her mètier.  She knows these songs, she loves them, and she makes that love contagious.

Jeff Harnar is a trim, dapper, personable youngish man.  His baritone voice is as smooth as supple chamois leather.  He makes a near-ideal partner for Ms. Sullivan as they lead us through a vast tapestry of Stephen Sondheim songs.

The tiny Gaslight Theater provides a wonderful intimacy.  Every syllable, every tiny graceful turn of Sondheim’s lyrics is clearly heard and understood;  this is so important with Sondheim, who showers us with wit and intellect and vocabulary, surprising little internal rhymes, and subtle, almost subliminal references. To cite just two examples: the lyric “Nature fashioned you,” occurring in a song from “Follies,” refers to “You Were Meant for Me” (1929). And “Every day a little death,” from “A Little Night Music” is perhaps only an unconscious reference to the French term for “orgasm”:  “la petite mort”.

Sullivan and Harnar treat us to some forty songs from fifteen different “pure Sondheim” shows—that is, shows in which he created both music and lyrics.  These range from the vastly popular “A Funny Thing Happened”, “Into the Woods”, “Company”, “Night Music”, “Sunday in the Park”, “Sweeney Todd” and “Follies” to far more obscure works.  Mr. Harnar does lovely work with “Live Alone and Like It” and “More” from the movie “Dick Tracy” and he introduces us to the gorgeous “Sand”, where love is ever-shifting;  it’s from the never-produced 1992 show “Singing Out Loud”.

Sullivan and Harnar give a lively vaudeville sense to “On My Left” and “Bounce” from “Road Show” which never made it to Broadway.  There’s a beautiful “Take Me to the World” from the 1966 TV film, “Evening Primrose” (based on the John Collier story story).  “The Girls of Summer” is a true gem, though it was only incidental music in a straight play.  We even get “So Many People” from 1954’s “Saturday Night”, which never opened because it’s lead died.  And as a final encore we get “How Do I Know?” which Sondheim wrote when he was fifteen!

Harnar shows himself a past master of the lightning-fast patter song, and Ms. Sullivan is a grand delight in a number from “Follies” where in portraying some Bronxy chorus girls she’s almost a ventriloquist to herself.  Together they finish “Who Wants to Live in New York” (from “Merrily We Roll Along”) by blending their voices into a most convincing train whistle.  And, tipsily sipping cocktails, they make “The Ladies Who Lunch” both funny and intensely poignant.

Throughout the evening Ms. Sullivan uses her beautiful large features—and her perceptive phrasing—to reveal the real drama in many songs.  “Send in the Clowns” was gorgeous.

Mr. Harnar gives us a skillful “Ballad of Sweeney Todd”, and “Careful the Things You Say” (from “Into the Woods);  with these I felt that a touch more rubato—placing certain words just a fraction off the beat as is commonly done—would have given more menace.

Several songs are sung by the not-expected gender:  for example Harnar sings Little Red’s “I Know Things Now” from “Into the Woods” and “Getting Married Today” from “Company”, and Sullivan sings “Pretty Women” from “Sweeney Todd”.  I know that everything is fair game in today’s gender-fluid world, but let’s face it:  a nervous groom is simply different from the cliché nervous bride, and male lustful musings are peculiarly male.

Sondheim is a very lyric-heavy songwriter.  He rarely gives us songs with what in more conventional works is called “the chorus”, where the familiar tune and words are repeated.  In this evening we utterly bathe in Sondheim—and it’s a little like an evening of beautiful, cleverly rhymed recitative.  This intimate venue and these articulate singers allow Sondheim’s lyrics to be every bit as important as his music.

As advertised it’s an evening of “pure” Sondheim—just his songs, not even the usual banter from the performers—just Sondheim.  The rule of the evening was:  “No talk!”  How refreshing!  Unlike so many cabaret singers these masters of the craft realize that the evening is not about them, it’s about the songs.