A SUMMER NIGHT THAT SMILES THREE HUNDRED TIMES
Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s delightful musical A Little Night Music is is an adaptation of the Bergman’s 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night, a droll story of sexual musical chairs among the middle- and lower-classes in provincial Sweden at the turn of the last century. Three generations of characters assemble and reassemble romantic relationships until everyone is reasonably paired up at the end. But along the way there are shouting matches, tears, trysts, and even a game of Russian roulette.
Jin Ha, Marsha Mason and Addie Harrington
Ron Raines and Susan Graham
Sondheim conveys this complex sexual merry-go-round with some of his most brilliant and exquisite lyrics. The only hit to come out of the score is “Send in the Clowns” (whose international popularity mystified the composer), but his graceful quasi-operetta is a continuous flow of comic, wise, dramatic, and romantic songs.
Jason Gotay, Shuler Hensley, Susan Graham, Marsha Mason,
Ruthie Ann Miles, Ron Raines, Kerstin Anderson
Attending A Little Night Music on a hot breezy summer night at yesterday’s opening was already a treat, but this World Premiere concert version from lifelong Sondheim collaborator Jonathan Tunick, re-orchestrating for a large ensemble, was a wonder. Led by Mr. Tunick, the 53 gifted musicians of Orchestra of St. Luke’s (nearly double the players of the original 1973 Broadway version) backed up an all-star cast directed by Marc Bruni. It only plays through Sunday at Lincoln Center‘s David Geffen Hall; if you miss it, you will be missing the very best of musical theater.
Jonathan Tunick
Tunick, at 86, just won his second Tony for the updated Merrily We Roll Along orchestrations. So it was with very high expectations that this production would not disappoint. It didn’t. In fact, it actually raised the bar. Performed by master actors, Sondheim’s lilting waltz-driven score is now heard in all its symphonic glory. I always wished we saw the orchestra more often in theaters because it is so fundamental to the experience (such as Encores! did in its recent revival of Titanic). No scenery or props were employed for this concert, but they weren’t missed; the musicians and the actors filled that void. Josh Prince choreographed, Ken Billington did the lights, and Dan Moses Schreier the sound.
Susan Graham
The story is worldly, charming, and rueful — emotions eloquently displayed by Sondheim’s score, abetted by Wheeler’s underrated book (adapted here by John Doyle). Desiree Armfeldt is a once glamorous actress who is now touring small towns in Sweden. International opera star Susan Graham fit Desiree’s personality to perfection, a woman in early middle-age who has seen much and done much, mirthful and very delightful. Graham was charismatic and comical throughout but induced chills with her yearning and expressive take on “Send in the Clowns” — the woman is a powerhouse.
Andrea Jones-Sojola, Susan Graham, Ellie Fishman
Desiree meets an old boyfriend and rekindles a love affair with Fredrik Egerman, a successful middle-aged lawyer (a mellifluous Ron Raines), who has a very young trophy wife, still a virgin after 11 months of marriage — Kerstin Anderson is brilliant as Anne, her naiveté coupled with a giddy approach that made her truly endearing. Fredrik also has a frustrated son, Henrik, played by glorious tenor Jason Gotay, who excelled in the difficult role of the anguished Henrik, a grouchy young man who is the butt of the older characters around him as he burns with longing. Henrik, just one year older than his stepmother Anne, is secretly in love with her.
Marsha Mason
As if written by a Mason, A Little Night Music makes much use of the number three as a motif: There are supposedly three smiles in a summer’s night (first on the young, second on fools, and third on the old); many of the duets are sung about a third party (love triangles abound); and most of the score is written in waltz time (3/4 or 6/8). One of Sondheim’s greatest pieces is the polyphonous “Now/Later/Soon” — the three parts belong to Fredrik (“Now”), hoping his wife will finally have sex with him, Anne (“Soon”) promising her body in time while finding his touch repulsive; and Henrick (“Later”), who feels ignored by everybody. With all three singers at the same time, Sondheim’s wit and mastery shines bright.
Shuler Hensley
Desiree’s new lover Count Carl-Magnus (booming Shuler Hensley), madly jealous of the lawyer, and his wife Charlotte (Ruthie Ann Miles) decide to join, or rather barge in on, Fredrik and Desiree at the estate of Desiree’s wealthy mother Madame Armfeldt (four time Oscar nominee Marsha Mason conveying the old woman’s imperious nature, cynicism, and urbanity), a former beauty and courtesan who is often accompanied by Desiree’s daughter, her grandniece Fredrika (Addie Harrington). Petra (Cynthia Erivo) is Anne’s maid, a down-to-earth woman who falls in lust with Frid, Armfeldt’s manservant (Jin Ha). This weekend in the country now has the perfect ingredients for a disaster’s recipe.
Ruthie Ann Miles and Kerstin Anderson
Hensley throws himself into the role of the officious Carl-Magnus with lip-smacking relish. Ms. Miles is terrific as the unhappy Charlotte, trying to keep a sarcastic facade to conceal her hurt and anger over Carl-Magnus’s crass conduct. Her rendition of “Every Day a Little Death” with Ms. Anderson says everything that needs saying about loving an inattentive and insensitive husband. There is real bite and intelligence in her performance. Erivo stops the show with her stirring rendition of “The Miller’s Son,” a testament to lust at its most calculating and liberating.
Cynthia Erivo
Musically impeccable, the chorus-commenting Quintet (named “Liebeslieders” in the 1990 New York Opera production) turn their lovely melodies into a merry counterpoint to these Shakespearean mistakes of a summer night, highlighting the darker and humorous sides of romance. Under Rob Berman’s vocal direction, the opulent voices soar: Ellie Fishman is Mrs. Segstrom, Leah Horowitz is Mrs. Nordstrom, Jonathan Christopher is Mr. Erlanson, Andrea Jones-Sojola is Mrs. Anderssen, and Ross Lekites is Mr. Lindquist.
Leah Horowitz, Jonathan Christopher, Andrea Jones-Sojola, Ross Lekites, Ellie Fishman
Hilariously funny, A Little Night Music, originally directed by Harold Prince, has so many lovely well-felt moments. It’s easy, even enthralling, to sense the spell and see the smiles of this special summer night.
Jin Ha and Cynthia Erivo
photos by Joan Marcus
A Little Night Music in Concert
David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center
remaining performances:
June 27 at 8; June 28 at 8:30; June 29 at 1 & 7
ends on June 29, 2024
for tickets, call 212.721.6500 or visit A Little Night Music in Concert
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I was truly looking forward to hearing this score with full orchestra. What a mess — Jonathan Tunick cannot conduct. Everyone on stage attempted to move the piece along with no success. I just couldn’t take it anymore — I left at intermission. Kudos to Ron Raines, Ruthie Ann Miles and Cynthia Erivo miraculously finding ways of landing their lines and vocals despite the turgid Tunick tempi.
Dear Ms. Macher,
I’m truly sorry you didn’t enjoy this production of A Little Night Music, as thousands of others apparently have.I produced this concert with a cast I chose to illuminate Stephen Sondheim’s most beautiful score and lyrics, bitingly funny and devastatingly heartbreaking. This is the Sondheim score that I believed would benefit most from a large orchestra. I’ve represented Jonathan for 40 years, and spent countless hours observing his work with Steve, who maintained a collaboration of more than fifty years, because he considered Jonathan to be one of the great theater talents with whom he worked. I can’t imagine your criticism extends to the new orchestrations. Unfettered by the constraint of budget or real estate which Broadway imposes, Jonathan wrote what I believe are orchestrations that do not suffer in comparison with those of Debussy, Ravel, or Strauss (Richard and Johann).
So before I address your issue about tempi, let me ask why you would call this elegant, well-cast performance a mess? The Orchestra of St. Luke’s (OSL) is one of the finest symphony orchestras I have heard. Just a few weeks earlier, they played Brahms Requiem at their Carnegie Hall series that moved me in a way I have only experienced one other time — Otto Klemperer with the Philharmonia. The OSL performance was noticeably shorter than Klemperer’s, but both were soul stirring. Interpretation is the province of the conductor, and the orchestra is not led by a metronome.
Jonathan studied conducting with the legendary Jean Morel and later with Harold Farberman. Try telling the OSL he can’t conduct. I grew up near my two favorite teams — the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago Symphony. I spent summers between college semesters working at Ravinia, my first year Ozawa’s last, and the first five summers with James Levine as Music Director. Both were world-class musicians, but if I heard them blindfolded. with the same orchestra, I could tell you which one was on the podium 100% of the time.
Scores written by a brilliant composer like Stephen Sondheim lend themselves to interpretation and reveal charming secrets even when you are hearing it for the 100th time, which I have, not including the many recordings of A Little Night Music. Jonathan Tunick has never shown himself to be willful. Do you know what they call an orchestrator who imposes his ideas on the composer’s score? Unemployed. Jonathan was present at the genesis of all Sondheim’s musical theater scores, save two. He has orchestrated many productions of those musicals, mostly reductions. For 37 of those 50 years of Sondheim and Tunick, I never heard Jonathan answer a question from Steve on any subject in a self-serving way. He serves the music, and I believe that, even if Steve had thought Jonathan’s tempi on the slow end of the spectrum, he would have defended Jonathan’s choices as appropriate. Your dismissal of a year’s work by this most impressive company, largely veterans of other Sondheim shows, which took a great deal of my time to produce, deserves a more considerate assessment than yours. Still, you purchased a ticket, and as a manager of actors, I have learned to be diplomatic in my response.
Stephen Sondheim, who I was proud to call a friend, was not one to suffer fools gladly. He was a master of words, but wouldn’t waste them on people who didn’t think before they spoke.
I strongly disagree with your opinion, and responded with more effort and intellect than you deserve. I am certain Stephen Sondheim would have sent you a shorter response. He would have expressed his opinion of your comments in two words, and those two words would not have been Merry Christmas.
Two different approaches, both correct.
Mr. Berger, thank you and Mr. Tunick for making this happen.