SOUND OFF: Sunday In The West End With Steve

No Place Like London

This week, we are taking a look at Sunday evening's starry West End salute to Stephen Sondheim which was broadcast in the UK on TV and everywhere on the BBC website, BBC PROMS: SONDHEIM AT 80. This unforgettable event stars Dame Judi Dench, Maria Friedman, Bryn Terfel, Caroline O'Conner, Julian Ovenden, Daniel Evans, Jenna Russell and Simon Russell Beale singing selections from Sondheim's entire oeuvre - among them: "Send In The Clowns", "Broadway Baby", "Children Will Listen", "Move On" and "Side By Side". Dame Dench's recreation of her Desiree Armfeldt - a role currently essayed by Bernadette Peters who opened this week in the replacement cast of the Broadway revival of A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, replacing Tony-winner Catherine Zeta-Jones - is merely impossibly elegant decoration on a decadently rich, rewarding, fulfilling and entertaining gateau of celebratory Sondheimian greatness. A piece of birthday cake like few others. Come along and hear it for yourself if you haven‘t already!

Isn't It Bliss?

BBC PROMS: SONDHEIM AT 80

Stephen Sondheim has never had it very easy in the West End. Sure, SWEENEY TODD is a love-letter (well, something approaching affection) to London, but the show has never caught on there despite some truly tremendous productions. He has famously revised INTO THE WOODS, FOLLIES and ASSASSINS for their UK premieres, writing new songs and approving and participating in vastly different productions when compared to their Broadway counterparts (SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE being a glaring example of this, both the original and Menier revival - which made its way to Broadway a few seasons ago with the two leads shown here). Some of the concerts given over the years have had their fare share of excitement and razzmatazz, but none more so than the infamous Andrew Lloyd Webber/Sondheim duet on HEY! MR. PRODUCER where the maestros perform two of their most famous songs, medley-style, sitting and playing at the same piano. It would seem virtually impossible for there to be such a momentous and memorable event occurring at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday for the BBC PROMS SALUTE Stephen Sondheim - but, like Mrs. Mooney's surprises in her meat pies, Judi Dench re-invented and revisited perhaps her most celebrated stage role this side of Lady MacBeth: Desiree Armfeldt in A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC. And what was the result?

"Send In the Clowns" is Sondheim's most famous song by far, having been covered by countless recording artists over the years since the Glynis Johns original on the Original Broadway Cast Recording - a must-own in its own right - but from Johns in 1973 to this season's Tony Award-winning Actress In A Musical Catherine Zeta-Jones to her replacement Bernadette Peters who just opened in the show and was met with rave reviews this week: it's the acting that makes it. The acting can take it from good to great, from great to masterpiece and - in the case of Dame Dench - masterpiece to manna. And, man oh man, what heaven it is to have a performer of Dench's abilities take on a composition by Sondheim - the Master himself - with the conflagration of the combination of the two bringing the sum and whole to a true level of transcendence. If you watch one performer speak a scene, sing a song, do a dance - do anything at all on a stage, really - make it be Judi Dench's performance of "Send In The Clowns", linked below. First things belong first, and foremost is certainly this performance - not only in comparison to the others on this fun frippery and quite luminescent celebration, but when compared to all performances on a stage ever. Hyperbole? You tell me.

Following the discordant but rollicking (a phrase acutely true of oh-so-much Sondheim) choral fanfare from THE FROGS led by the expert musical direction of David Charles Abell - who, by the way, has proven himself quite the authority on conducting Sondheim shows in the West End of late - comes the opening number from that Sondheim/Burt Shevelove/Nathan Lane collaboration based on the Aristophanes play of the same name. Simon Russell Beale is a cut-up like few others and his comedic skills are perfectly matched by the PUTTING IT TOGETHER/THE FROGS revival iteration of this number, complete with hilarious cell-phone interlude. "Invocation and Instructions To The Audience" has so many charms and so much rich - and ribald - comedy in it that it would be doing the song a disservice to parse why exactly it works so well here, but it does. Daniel Evans is an ideal straight man to Beale's brusque buffoonery. Next is the thrilling overture from FOLLIES which has rarely sounded as grand and expansive as it does here in the Royal Albert Hall with the excellent aural fidelity of this BBC concert as recorded for TV/Web. Australian stage superstar Caroline O'Conner - also known as the lead in "Tango: Roxanne" in Baz Luhrmann's MOULIN ROUGE - treats us to a committed "Broadway Baby", though the song seems to work best when sung by the very young or the very old and Ms. O'Conner is certainly neither, but it's a fun diversion. She surely sells it. Hard. The follow-up in the FOLLIES segment is Maria Friedman giving a fully-realized, opening night performance as Sally in "Too Many Mornings". Her emoting, her movements or lack thereof, her hand flutters and vocal ticks, just everything - sublime perfection for Sally. Alongside Julian Ovendon there is no question whatsoever that before our very eyes and ears we have absolutely perfect casting for a West End FOLLIES revival if there ever was one. At least someday soon. Somewhere. Wow. This is how it's done - and done masterfully. 3D.

This Sunday of Sondheim truly embodies its namesake in full once Daniel Evans takes the stage with a sumptuously sung, spellbindingly played series of selections from SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE alongside his co-star from the rapturously-received predominantly-computer-projection revival of the Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece from 1984, the delightful, daffy and appealing Jenna Russell. She does remarkably well with the treacherously tricky title tune from that show, particularly considering she hasn't played the role for a few years now and those lyrics are hard to pick back up no matter how many times you have sung them. "Move On" is one of Sondheim's most, well, moving musical moments and few have done it more convincingly, achingly, believably, empathetically and lovingly as Russell and Evans, then or now. It's the type of performance to elicit shivers and tears if there ever were any, much like Friedman and Ovenden‘s "Too Many Mornings". A perfect match of duet partners and duet - a wondrous trait which actually revealed itself to be the theme of the highlights of the evening. The solos don't seem to fare as well, with some of the performers gobbled up by the huge space at times and some of them, such as in Ms. Friedman's "Children Will Listen", taking a few too many liberties with the material - specifically the melodies. The British can certainly do a lot very well, but I do not see any evidence in this concert at all that these performers should be riffing in Ms. Friedman's manner. Leave that to Idina Menzel and Lea Michele and the ones who can do it right next time, please. "Agony", indeed. Speaking of that INTO THE WOODS duet, Ovenden and Evans do well enough by it, though it always comes across as a bit belabored out of the context of the show, doesn't it? What comes next is the polar opposite of any agony - thus embodying true ecstasy - Dame Judi Dench, who never fails to bring something new and provocative to the table every time she performs something - particularly something as good as Shakespeare or Sondheim - and this warhorse, "Send In The Clowns", is no exception. It's as if no one has ever performed it before. Scarcely few have ever done it better or ever will. Dench's shattering performance is far more than enough to end any act in any show on - even a momentous night of stars like this one - but in a concert this well-done and audience-pleasing we are given a comprehensive and precise "Weekend In The Country" - also from A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC - to blast us into the intermission on a high note in every sense of that term.

The blast of air piercing through the factory whistle shriek signifying the proper start of Act Two after that unsettling organ solo of the opening sequence from SWEENEY TODD sets the scene for the second half of the show. The Ballad itself is next. Shivers, all right - of all kinds. The angels' choir sound and general succulent ambiance of the Royal Albert Hall with this music lurching forth from the note-perfect orchestra is an awesome experience to behold. As is nearly everything Bryn Terfel does in Act Two. He's truly magnificent, and his dulcet tones are absolutely spot-on for the title role of SWEENEY TODD in "Epiphany" - and "A Little Priest" opposite a mischievous and slippery Mrs. Lovett as played by Maria Friedman. Plus, who can deny the entertainment value of the world's most in-demand opera star dancing and singing Sondheim patter songs about cannibalism? Or, better yet, getting Pseudolus-y to A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM's infectious and funny "Everybody Ought To Have A Maid" alongside the rest of the male cast members hamming it up while tearing the rug up. As fun as that moment is, Terfel scores most with the dramatic material he has been given, some of it personally chosen by Sondheim himself explicitly for this concert. Surely you won't soon forget this "Epiphany". Even more to the point: you won't soon forget this concert.

Perhaps the most unexpected of delights of the entire evening comes in the form of an emphatic, more than remotely GLEE-ish rendering of "Our Time" from MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG courtesy of the talented young performers from the BBC Performing Arts Fund. That song always scores when sung extremely optimistically and open-heartedly (and open-throatedly given those rich harmonies and soaring melody line) and shows the more contemporary sound Sondheim has found in his latter-day scores for MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, as well as ASSASSINS - speaking of which (and witch), who could forget the "Witch's Rap" from INTO THE WOODS? On the note of new sounds and new interpretations, Julian Ovenden finds some new shades and coloring in the oft-sung "Being Alive" and makes it fresh and appropriately alive in some alluring and enticing ways. Undoubtedly, he could be a very good Bobby in COMPANY - in addition to a very good Ben in FOLLIES in a few years, as eluded to earlier. He is the real deal and always immediately commands not only our attention in his mere presence but then, soon thereafter, applause. And then, ovations - or is that Oventions? If Simon Russell Beale is sort of like the West End Nathan Lane, then Julian Ovenden must be their answer to Raul Esparza. And that's about the highest praise that can be afforded to him or any male performer by this reviewer, and it‘s well-earned and well-displayed in spades here in everything he does.

This endearingly enchanting celebration of Sondheim on a Sunday ends with the apropos "Sunday" led by Daniel Evans and Maria Friedman bringing the original 1990 West End Dot with the 21st century Broadway and West End George at last. Just as it should be. And talk about an appreciable life-meets-show meta-narrative! Finally, a high-kicking finale of the COMPANY act-two-curtain raiser "Side By Side" ends the show and - just as in the first act - leaves us walking on air and high as a cloud that lines the sky these stars light up here. Sondheim seems truly touched at the evening's conclusion and this being his inaugural visit ever to the Royal Albert Hall it will be a night not soon forgotten by any participants or viewers, to be sure. Additionally, the fascinating 20-minute documentary on the making of this momentous concert event, as well as a live, candid in-person interview with Sondheim himself during intermission rounds out this exquisite entertainment package, rendering the event impossible for any Sondheim fan to resist checking out at their soonest possible convenience. Hopefully a DVD will be forthcoming because this is the sort of unique Sondheim tribute you will want to revisit again and again if only for the alternative shades and newly unearthed sides to the songs thanks to the wonderful work of every single member of this extraordinary company of performers. As a reminder to some performers: next time, just don't riff, ok? Then it will be perfection. It's close enough as is. Delightful.