FLASH FRIDAY: The Stephen Sondheim DO I HEAR A WALTZ? Lyric Richard Rodgers Rejected

One of the many high points of this weekend's Encores! concert production of Do I Hear a Waltz? is when Claybourne Elder and Sarah Hunt, playing a couple coming to grips with the fact that their marriage needs mending, sing the dryly hilarious "We're Gonna Be All Right."

The cynical undertone of their cheery pep-up makes the number stand out as having the most Sondheim-ish lyric in the show, hinting at the venom to come in musicals like COMPANY and FOLLIES.

But those attending the musical's 1965 Broadway production heard a very different lyric. The working relationship between the rising-star wordsmith and the show's national treasure composer, Richard Rodgers, was not the smoothest and the elder statesman rejected Sondheim's original submission.

Sondheim revised it into something more legitimately upbeat, and notably blander, as can be heard in the rendition by original cast members Stuart Damon and Julienne Marie.

But the original London cast recording of the 1976 revue SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM, which came to Broadway the next year, helped expose more theatre fans to the initial lyric, and subsequent productions of DO I HEAR A WALTZ? began using it.

Here's one of Broadway's favorite couples, Marin Mazzie, who just stepped into the starring role of Anna in THE KING AND I, and Jason Danieley, most recently seen in THE VISIT, having a swell time with the original lyric at Lincoln Center's 2010 birthday concert for Stephen Sondheim.

Photo Credit: Don Hunstein/Masterworks Broadway