Stephen Sondheim, an American musical comedy icon, has actually passed away at age 91
A Broadway master has carried on. Author and also lyricist Stephen Sondheim, one of the most reputable figures in American musical theater, passed away earlier today. He was 91. His shows range from the vaudeville-inspired romp "A Funny Thing Occurred Heading To The Discussion forum" ...
( SOUNDBITE OF TUNE, "COMEDY TONIGHT").
- UNIDENTIFIED GROUP # 1: (As personalities, singing) Something for everybody - comedy tonight.
- CORNISH: ... To the principal musical "Sunday In The Park With George" regarding the art of making art.
- ( SOUNDBITE OF TRACK, "PUTTING IT TOGETHER").
MANDY PATINKIN: (As George, singing) Bit by bit, placing it together piece by item - the only method to make a work of art.
CORNISH: It would be tough to overemphasize Stephen Sondheim's impact on Broadway form or on doubter Bob Mondello, that supplies this remembrance.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: At the climax of a lot of musicals, personalities sing their hearts out regarding enchanted evenings or defying gravity or what I did for love. Sondheim personalities sing about uncertainty, about feeling clashed.
( SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BEING ALIVE").
LARRY KERT: (As Bobby, vocal singing) Somebody, hold me too close. Someone, harm me too deeply.
MONDELLO: This is Bobby in "Business," the musical that established the Sondheim theme back in 1970 - not his initial program yet the first big hit in which his characters sing much less to move the activity forward than to supply a kind of emotional profile. Bobby hesitates to commit. He looks at his buddies' marriages and cringes. Still, he wants what they have.
( SOUNDBITE OF TRACK, "BEING ALIVE").
KERT: (As Bobby, vocal singing) Someone, require me too much. Someone, understand me too well. Someone, pull me up brief as well as put me with heck as well as give me sustain.
MONDELLO: This is not the means most musicals cover points up, yet Sondheim shows usually send out audiences out not just vocal singing but thinking about every little thing from the Westernization of Japan in "Pacific Overtures" ...
( SOUNDBITE OF TRACK, "PLEASE HELLO").
PATRICK KINSER-LAU: (As Dutch Admiral, singing) 2 ports, among them not too rough. Exactly how about Nagasaki?
MONDELLO: ... To social justice in "Sweeney Todd" ...
( SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NO LOCATION LIKE LONDON").
LEN CARIOU: (As Sweeney Todd, vocal singing) There's an opening worldwide like a great black pit, and also the vermin of the world inhabit it. And also its morals aren't worth what a pig might spit. And also it goes by the name of London.
MONDELLO: ... To what takes place after happily ever after in "Into The Woods.".
( SOUNDBITE OF TUNE, "ACT II BEGINNING: SO HAPPY").
UNKNOWN STAR # 1: (As the Baker, singing) Into the woods. It's constantly when you assume finally you're with. And after that right into the timbers, you go again to take one more journey.
MONDELLO: The very first act of this fairy tale reveals offers us myths like Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk more or less straight, primarily what you expect of musical comedy. The second act has royal princes that are terrible hubbies, witches who may be nasty but know points.
( SOUNDBITE OF TRACK, "LAST TWELVE O'CLOCK AT NIGHT").
BERNADETTE PETERS: (Singing) You're so great. You're not good. You're not bad. You're just good. I'm not good. I'm not great. I'm just right. I'm the witch. You're the world.
MONDELLO: That's Sondheim puzzling out on stage just how the globe functions. Perplexing is the ideal word. A lover of mind intros and also video games, Sondheim delighted subsequently the Broadway musical into a playground for thinkers. When you hear moon-June-croon lyrics in one of his programs, they're most likely a joke. Difficult indoor rhymes are a lot more his thing - say, we have a lot alike, it's a sensation, a line written for an additional composer's songs early in his career, as were his verses for Leonard Bernstein's semi-symphonic "West Side Tale.".
( SOUNDBITE OF TUNE, "AMERICA").
UNIDENTIFIED TEAM # 2: (As characters, vocal singing) I like to be in America - OK by me in America.
MONDELLO: It was a show that both developed Sondheim as a lyricist and also offered him a pet dog peeve about the means innovative music has a tendency to be obtained on Broadway. He joked about it being the only track he ever called autobiographically. Here from an HBO unique, Sondheim increases the joke by stepping into the role of a producer in "Merrily We Roll Along" and roaring things people maintained telling him when he was beginning.
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STEPHEN SONDHEIM: (Vocal Singing) It isn't every day I hear a score this solid. However, fellas, if I may, there's just one thing incorrect. There's not a tune you can hum. There's not a song you go bump, bump, bump.
MONDELLO: When he ultimately hums what the personality believes is a hummable melody, it's Rodgers as well as Hammerstein's "Some Captivated Night." That's an in-joke because, in the real world, lyricist Oscar Hammerstein Jr. was Sondheim's advisor. In the 1940s, when the budding songwriter was just a youngster, Rodgers as well as Hammerstein were changing Broadway's laid-back song-and-dance shows right into musical plays. Sondheim, later on, took that evolution as an action additionally. His musicals were structured around the idea. The show "Follies," as an example ...
( SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING).
UNKNOWN STAR # 2: (As personality) Roscoe's below, as constantly, to bring out the (unintelligible). Let's go.
MONDELLO: ... Centered on a Ziegfeld-style metaphor for marriage recklessness.
( SOUNDBITE OF TRACK, "COULD I LEAVE YOU?").
UNKNOWN STAR # 3: (As Phyllis, vocal singing) You'll think the lies ill-concealed and also the wounds never ever healed. And also the game's unworthy winning. As well as wait. I'm simply starting.
MONDELLO: In "A Little Evening Music," the principle was to take a three-tiered love ...
( SOUNDBITE OF TRACK, "SEND IN THE CLOWNS").
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR # 4: (As Desiree, singing) Isn't it rich?
MONDELLO: ... As well as have the personalities sing regarding all of it in waltz time.
( SOUNDBITE OF TUNE, "SEND OUT IN THE CLOWNS").
UNKNOWN ACTOR # 4: (As Desiree, vocal singing) Are we a pair?
MONDELLO: And also in what is perhaps Sondheim's masterwork, "Sweeney Todd," he mixed operatic kind as well as musical comedy jokes to tell the tale of a demon barber who slashes his customers' throats and also a baker ...
( SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING).
UNKNOWN STAR # 5: (As Mrs. Lovett) Here we are, warm from the stove.
MONDELLO: ... That bakes them right into meat pies.
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UNKNOWN ACTOR # 6: (As Sweeney Todd) What is that?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR # 5: (As Mrs. Lovett, singing) It's a clergyman. Have a little priest.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR # 6: (As Sweeney Todd) Is it actually excellent?
UNKNOWN ACTOR # 5: (As Mrs. Lovett, vocal singing) Sir, it's too proficient at the very least. However, they do not devote wrongs of the flesh, so it's pretty fresh.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR # 6: (As Sweeney Todd) an Awful lot of fat.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR # 5: (As Mrs. Lovett) Just where it rested.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR # 6: (As Sweeney Todd) Haven't you got a poet or something like that?
UNIDENTIFIED STAR # 5: (As Mrs. Lovett, singing) No. You see; the trouble with the poet is exactly how do you recognize it's deceased? Try the priest.
MONDELLO: Though things Sondheim was doing were hugely influential with various other Broadway composers - Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Hamilton," as an example, couldn't have actually been conceived without the building blocks Sondheim helped develop - target markets really did not constantly obtain his shows. He never had a mega-hit musical, as well as "Send out In The Clowns" was his only hit tune. However, he was revered in the staged establishment for teaching and also mentoring, sharing his smarts, and also making the form he loved smarter. He was loved by several of us outsiders, also. To a large degree, Stephen Sondheim composed the soundtrack to my life.
( SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOT A DAY PASSES").
JIM WALTON: (As Frank, vocal singing) Not a day goes by, not a single day ...
MONDELLO: Not a day passes that I have not felt I was living his verses - for a while, by not getting married; when I was reduced, by drinking to that and one for Mahler; by trying to keep a good idea going; by attempting to never ever do anything two times. Sondheim lived that last lyric. His shows were all different, each one provocative in a brand-new way, never greater than when he looked deep into the imaginative procedure itself.
( SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GO ON").
PATINKIN: (As George, vocal singing) I have absolutely nothing to say.
PETERS: (As Dot) You have lots of points.
PATINKIN: (As George, vocal singing) Well, absolutely nothing that's not been said.
PETERS: (As Dot) Said by you, though.
MONDELLO: "Sunday In The Park With George" shows a battling musician, George Seurat, advised by his muse to do that hardest thing to do when you're stuck, whether in life or in art, the thing Sondheim constantly did which, for greater than 5 decades, kept his art fresh.
( SOUNDBITE OF TUNE, "CARRY ON").
PETERS: (As Dot, vocal singing) Quit stressing where you're going. Proceed. If you can know where you're going, you have actually gone. Simply maintain going on.
MONDELLO: Throughout 18 significant musicals, years of mentoring, Stephen Sondheim complied with that dictate - to become, in the words of one of his lesser-known lyrics, the very best thing that ever has happened to Broadway. He maintained carrying on.
( SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MOVE ON").
PETERS: (As Dot, vocal singing) You need to proceed.
MONDELLO: As well as now the rest people have to.
( SOUNDBITE OF TRACK, "GO ON").
PETERS: (As Dot) Stop stressing if your vision is new.
MONDELLO: I'm Bob Mondello.
( SOUNDBITE OF TUNE, "PROCEED").
PETERS: (As Dot, vocal singing) Allowed others to make that decision. They generally do. You keep carrying on. Look at what you've done ...
PATINKIN: (As George, singing) Something in the light.
PETERS: (As Dot, vocal singing) ... After that at what you desire ...
PATINKIN: (As George, vocal singing) Something in the sky.
PETERS: (As Dot, vocal singing) ... Not at where you are ...
PATINKIN: (As George, vocal singing) In the turf.
PETERS: (As Dot, singing) ... What you'll be.
PATINKIN: (As George, singing) Up behind the trees.
PETERS: (As Dot, vocal singing) Consider all things you offered to me.
PATINKIN: (As George, singing) Points I hadn't taken a look at till now.
PETERS: (As Dot, vocal singing) Let me provide you something in return.
PATINKIN: (As George, singing) Flower in your hat and also your smile.
PETERS: (As Dot, vocal singing) I would certainly be so delighted.
PATINKIN: (As George, singing) And also the shade of your hair. Records provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.