Word: sondheimer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...There is not on the face of this earth a better composer or lyricist than Stephen Sondheim," with whom Prince hinted he may soon be working again after a 19-year "vacation" from one another...
...fresh beat and a more contemporary, populist appeal. But Rent hasn't exactly spawned a revolution, and rock on Broadway right now consists of little more than 20-year-old Bee Gees songs. On the other side are the artistes, a group of theatrical composers who use Stephen Sondheim as a model, care little about tunes that send you out of the theater humming, and seek a new amalgam of Broadway musical and traditional opera...
Enter Marie Christine, probably the most highly anticipated of this new art-musical genre. Lyrics and music are by Michael John LaChiusa, one of the most acclaimed of the post-Sondheim composers. It has a story of thematic heft and historical color: a retelling of the Medea myth, set in the Creole society of New Orleans in the 1890s. It stars Audra McDonald, the three-time Tony Award winner who showcased the music of LaChiusa and other art composers on her CD Way Back to Paradise. And it has received an extraordinary buildup from the New York Times, the Only...
...first incarnation, this revue, mounted off-Broadway in 1993, suffered from comparison with its predecessor, the plotless Side by Side by Sondheim, which was a joyful feast of the composer's best songs. The successor (with Julie Andrews and a mismatched company of four) seemed to consist of leftovers garnished with Sondheim's less nourishing material and served up thematically as an odd sort of cocktail party. This Broadway revise finds the party device strengthened, but still forced, and the selection of songs improved. The new cast, led by Carol Burnett with great warmth and good humor, is creamy...
Bernstein's brilliant melodies coupled with Stephen Sondheim's moving lyrics tell a story of injustice, poverty, crime and, yes, stereotype. But that story is intentionally told to reveal the assumptions inherent in society, to point them out to the audience in order to combat them, not to perpetuate them, as the Amherst petition's signers would have us believe...