Word: sondheims
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Richard Rodgers' grandson, the most provocative and promising of post-Sondheim theatrical songwriters, has taken a sharp turn on the road to Broadway: his latest composition is a song cycle about love, sin, doubt and transcendence. The music is composed in an utterly personal style that blends pop, gospel and classical influences; the lyrics weave together Greek mythology and Christian hymnody to complex, unsettling effect. Persuasively performed on CD by singers such as Audra McDonald, Mandy Patinkin and Guettel, Myths & Hymns is a major event in American popular song...
...Loeb Experimental Theater rarely hosts musicals, since coordinating both choreography and singing presents quite a challenge in the limited space. Yet director Joseph Gfaller '01 has been bold enough to attempt Sondheim in Harvard's little black box, and he manages to put on a great show. The opening scene of A Little Night Music, in which the cast dances a long, impressive waltz, sets the tone for the rest of the show. While the number is far from tragic, the eerie lighting and solemnity suggest the darker side of the play to come...
Thankfully, Sondheim gives audiences a guide to understanding A Little Night Music right from the beginning. The wheelchair-bound matron Leonora Armfeldt (Lucy MacPhail '01) explains to her granddaughter (Kari Gauksheim '01) that people fall into three categories: the young, the fools and the old. MacPhail does a wonderful job with her elderly, jaded character, providing perspective on the play by holding the rest of the characters in brazen contempt. The Leibeslieders, a kind of Greek chorus, add another narrative layer to the work. Each of the singers parallels a character and performs occasional scenes based the plot, though...
...heart attack; in New York City. Though his Broadway version quickly folded, his 1968 screen version of the 12th century battle-of-the-sexes succession fight between Henry II (Peter O'Toole) and Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn) earned him an Oscar. Goldman also wrote the book for the Sondheim musical Follies...
...Senator, and you've got a collection guaranteed to make intelligent theater-music fans prick up their ears. There's only one catch: Way Back to Paradise contains scenes, arias, and even full-blown art songs. But nostalgia-hungry listeners will search in vain among these determinedly theatrical post-Sondheim musical monologues for anything resembling the straightforward, crisply turned lyrics and incisive 32-bar melodies that for decades defined American popular music at its best...