Stephen Sondheim: A Little Night Music
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Composer: Stephen SondheimPerformer: Catherine Zeta-Jones
Performer: Angela Lansbury
Performer: Alexander Hanson
Performer: Hugh Wheeler
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: Cast Recording
CD Release Date: 2010-04-06
Music Label: Nonesuch
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Overture / Night Waltz
- Prologue: 'The night smiles...'
- Now
- Later
- Soon
- The Glamorous Life
- Remember?
- You Must Meet My Wife
- 'A virgin'
- Liaisons
- In Praise of Women
- Every Day a Little Death
- 'The tour's over for a while...'
- A Weekend in the Country
- The Sun Won't Set
- Night Waltz II
- It Would Have Been Wonderful
- Perpetual Anticipation
- Send in the Clowns
- The Miller's Son
- Soon (reprise) / You Must Meet My Wife (reprise)
- 'A wooden ring'
- A Weekend in the Country (reprise) / Every Day a Little Death (reprise)
- Send in the Clowns (reprise)
- Last Waltz
Music reviews of Stephen Sondheim: A Little Night Music
Music Review: A new take on an old favourite
Rating: 4 Stars
It goes without saying that the packaging of the new A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC recording is another first rate affair from PS Classics (joining with Nonesuch) including a 2-CD set and a well illustrated 96-page libretto housed in a handsome slipcase. The new recording contained within perfectly captures the sound of the performances of the revival, which opened on Broadway in December 2009 to mostly favorable notices.
How favorably you will regard this set will depend largely of how familiar you are with previous NIGHT MUSIC recordings. The recording of the original 1973 Broadway production (Little Night Music) is such an exquisite cast album that subsequent recordings were always found wanting for one reason or another.
The revival, directed by Trevor Nunn and based on his previous stagings in London and at the Menier Chocolate Factory, provides a fresh interpretation of the material with newly etched performances and chamber-sized orchestra. The performances are different from what we have heard on previous recordings, but that is what helps justify a new recording rather than trying to offer a pale imitation of inimitable original cast.
At first the disc sounds like someone has substituted a disc of Gregorian Chants, but soon Tim Murray leads the orchestra into Jason Carr's newly orchestrated opening music and we creep back into more familiar territory.
Top billed as Desiree is Catherine Zeta-Jones. Here is someone who can actually sing the role and act it as is apparent from the amount of dialogue included here. The dialogue scenes also allow us to hear more of Angela Lansbury's acclaimed performances as Madame Armfeldt.
There much more to enjoy including Erin Davie as Charlotte (and allowing to hear some of the character's better barbs) paired with Aaron Lazar as her philandering husband. His "In Praise of Women" is about as well sung as we will ever hear on records, and her duet with Ramona Mallory on one of the score's neglected gems "Ev'ry Day a Little Death" is one of the album's best tracks.
Another segment that is given full singing and acting is the lengthy first act finale "A Weekend in the Country" which again includes the dialogue between the verses giving each section even more dramatic context.
The added dialogue also helps explain the context of the show's most famous hit song, "Send in the Clowns" since the dialogue that precedes the song is recorded as is the brief exchange in the middle that gives the final verse a different point of view. Columbia's original recording was already overstuffed at nearly 60 minutes - about the maximum you could fit onto an Lp - so there was no way they could have recorded these. The added luxury of time on a CD (2 discs in fact) allows us to experience more fully how this crucial sequence plays on stage.
No everything on this new recording comes close to matching the sheer perfection of the original. Ramona Mallory's breathless (at at times very breathy Anne) lacks the quiet sadness that her mother (Victoria) infused into her performance, and is at times too strident when restraint is called for. Leigh Ann Larkin tends to rush the phrasing in "The Miller's Son" and Alexander Hanson channels a bit too much Noel Coward into his performance as lawyer Frederick Egerman.
The extra dialogue stretches the recording onto a second discs but at 86 minutes it seems curious to have some of teh dialogue included while other segments are omitted. Since the label has gone to expanse and expense of a 2 CD set, why not fill the discs out more giving us a slightly abridged version of the entire show. An idea of what could have been is discovered in the final tracks where for the first time we can enjoy all the little reprises that link the many scenes as our story winds to a conclusion. The argument is that recordings are for music not dialogue, but if that is true then why include any of it. Truth is, with a few edits this recording could probably have been squeezed onto a single disc.
Nevertheless, what is presented here has been intelligently laid out act by act on the two Cd's and you can easily enjoy the performances even without consulting your libretto. Those who are new to the show will delight in discovering Stephen Sondheim's dazzling words and music and Hugh Wheeler's smartly done reduction of Ingmar Bergman's screenplay for SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT. Those who are already familiar with the original recording may find some individual moments less satisfactory but overall this is a very fine recording of a very fine show.
Description of Stephen Sondheim: A Little Night Music
'A Little Night Music,' a bittersweet tale of romantic longing and furtive liaisons unfolding over a single midsummer's evening in the Swedish countryside, remains among composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim's most admired and best known works, as well as one of his most commercially successful. The musical, inspired by Ingmar Bergman's classic film 'Smiles of A Summer Night' and featuring a book by Hugh Wheeler, logged in 601 performances during its first Broadway run in 1973.Back then, the New York Times theater critic called the lavish Harold Prince-directed production 'heady, civilized,
sophisticated and enchanting.' The sumptuous score even yielded an enduring adult pop hit in the rueful 'Send in the Clowns,' brought to Top 40 and adult contemporary radio via Judy Collins' elegant, contemplative interpretation on Elektra Records.
New York magazine has called this new, more intimate, chamber-style production, developed at London's Menier Chocolate Factory by acclaimed director Trevor Nunn, 'stunning..., devastatingly good.' Nun himself describes his daringly pared-down approach as 'a good deal more Chekhovian in its intentions.' Oscar-winning actress Catherine Zeta-Jones
(Chicago) makes her long-awaited Broadway debut in the lead role of Desiree, originated in '73 by Glynis
Johns. The Hollywood Reporter called Jones' performance 'captivating' and her rendition of 'Send In the Clowns' a
'revelation... she handles the poignant and comic aspects of her character with equal aplomb.' USA Today concurred: 'Zeta-Jones brings great warmth and vitality to the role and makes it easier to see why Desiree's old lover, Fredrik the
male lead, played with suave brio by Alexander Hanson would vie with a blustering dragoon for her affections.' The New York Times hailed Jones' show-stopping co-star Angela Lansbury, without a doubt the hardest working octogenarian on Broadway, as 'indomitable and invaluable,' calling her performance as a wise and omniscient former courtesan 'quite delicious.'
The Times also praised the intricacy and delicacy of Mr. Sondheim's score, 'which sets a deep-blue wistfulness to
three-quarter time.' Nunn's austere, reconceived staging, says the Hollywood Reporter, 'does a wonderful job of accentuating the emotional complexities and endlessly witty dialogue of Hugh Wheeler's book.' London's Daily Telegraph
gave this Broadway transfer an equally enthusiastic assessment: 'Far from another star vehicle, this thoroughly British affair is good, old-fashioned entertainment at its sparkling best.' Perhaps most importantly, Sondheim himself, who is also represented on Broadway this season with a bilingual staging of 'West Side Story,' reacted positively in a recent New York Times interview: 'You get to concentrate on the piece of work,' he says of the current staging, which features eight
musicians and a five-voice chorus. 'I'm just pleased that somebody wants to do it, and that it gets a chance to be seen again... It's a greater pleasure when these pieces get another outing.'
As theatergoers - and listeners to this newly recorded cast album - will surely attest: the pleasure is decidedly ours. This new Broadway production is scheduled to run at least through June 2010.
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