Broadway

Sondheim’s “Pacific Overtures”: Five Excerpts From a Kabuki Musical

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Patrons of Broadway were met with a surprise when, on the evening of January 11, 1976, they packed the Winter Garden Theatre for the opening of Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures. Sondheim later called the show “the most bizarre and unusual musical ever to be seen in a commercial setting.” (Finishing the Hat) Directed and produced by Hal Prince, with a book by John Weidman, Pacific Overtures chronicles the 1853 American “gunboat diplomacy” of …

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Clayton Stephenson Plays “Tea for Two”

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Last weekend at the Richmond Symphony we welcomed American pianist Clayton Stephenson. The 25 year old New York native performed Ravel’s glittering and bluesy Piano Concerto in G Major. Two other 20th century masterworks rounded out the program; one depicting the majesty and mystery of the sea (Debussy’s La Mer), and the other rooted firmly in the earth (Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring). A finalist at the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano …

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Sondheim’s “Passion”: Barbara Cook Sings “Happiness,” “Loving You,” and “I Wish I Could Forget You”

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Stephen Sondheim’s 1994 one-act musical, Passion, is a variation on the beauty and the beast story. When the curtain rises, Giorgio, a handsome 19th-century Italian army captain, is making love to his ravishingly beautiful mistress, the married Clara. Their ecstatic reverie is interrupted when he tells her that he is about to be transferred to a remote, provincial military outpost. While separated, they continue to communicate through a stream of letters. At …

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Sondheim’s “Not While I’m Around”: A Chilling Take on the Soaring Ballad

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Today marks the 94th anniversary of the birth of Stephen Sondheim, who passed away in 2021. Sondheim’s multifaceted songs were always conceived with a dramatic situation in mind. Taken as stand-alone works, they become vignettes of character and drama. Not While I’m Around comes from the second act of Sondheim’s 1979 musical thriller, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, in which a vengeful barber gives multiple victims the ultimate close shave, …

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Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me”: From Jazzy Scherzo to Ballad

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Among the timeless and unforgettable melodies of George Gershwin is Someone to Watch Over Me. The song was composed in 1926 for the musical, Oh, Kay!, where it was performed by Gertrude Lawrence, who sang it as a lonely, impassioned soliloquy to a rag doll. Although the lyrics were written primarily by Ira Gershwin, Howard Dietz assisted while the former was hospitalized for six weeks as a result of a ruptured appendix. …

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Remembering Chita Rivera

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Chita Rivera, the dynamic American singer, actress, and dancer, passed away last Tuesday, January 30th. She was 91. In 1957, Rivera was catapulted to stardom when she created the role of Anita in the original Broadway production of West Side Story. Among the musical’s iconic moments was Rivera’s dazzling performance in the first act ensemble dance number, America. Later, she recalled the excitement of “watching Leonard Bernstein setting down notes that would later be …

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“Wouldn’t It Be Loverly”: Julie Andrews in “My Fair Lady” in 1961

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The 20- year-old Julie Andrews was experienced as a British Vaudeville actress, but “young and green” on the Broadway stage, when, in 1955, she was cast in the role of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. After a rocky start during rehearsals, where she interacted with the temperamental Rex Harrison (Henry Higgins), Andrews remembers the experience as “the great learning period” of her life. She recalls an intense, uninterrupted 48-hour period during rehearsals when …

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