UPDATE: Stephen Sondheim Discusses New Musical Based on Bunuel, Premiering in 2017

As reported yesterday by BroadwayWorld, composer/lyricist confirm that his new musical, a collaboration with bookwriter David Ives based on two films by 1930s Spanish surrealist Luis Buñuel, will premiere Off-Broadway in 2017 at The Public Theater.

This occurred during Saturday, July 30th's Glimmerglass Festival event, "Stephen Sondheim in Conversation With Jamie Bernstein."

The Public Theater states, "We are happily developing the Buñuel project with Stephen Sondheim and hope to present it in the near future but no set date has been confirmed."

Below is a transcript of Sondheim and Bernstein discussing the project, supplied by the Glimmerglass Festival.

Jamie Bernstein: Rumor has it that you're working on something now. Anything you want to tell us about that?

Stephen Sondheim: This could not be a more appropriate day for that question, especially if you read the New York Times, and the reason is this: the show I'm writing, with a playwright named David Ives, author of VENUS IN FUR for those of you who care about recent theater, is something I've always wanted to do. It's based on two Luis Buñuel films: "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" and "The Exterminating Angel." Both movies are about people trying to find a place to have dinner - that's literally what it's about. Meanwhile, one of the best and most well-known young composers in England today, Thomas Adès, has written an opera of "The Exterminating Angel," which opened in Salzburg a couple of nights ago and was reviewed in the Times today.

JB: Today! And you didn't know he was writing this?

SS: I did know and he and I talked about it, because we each had to clear the rights, with the Buñuel estate. What we did was arrange for Adès to have the rights to do it as an opera, and for David and me to have the rights to do it as a commercial musical theater piece. I called Adès and we talked about it, and I said "You know, for the five people in the world who really care about this sort of thing, it'll be really interesting if the musical and the opera are done in the same year," which they are going to be. Tom's piece will be done at the Met next year and if I can finish the score in time, our show will be done simultaneously at The Public Theater. And for people who are interested in the difference between operas and musicals; it ought to be an enlightening and provocative study. Because Adès's opera, which is like two and a half hours, is based on only the one movie and has a different set of characters and, I presume, with the greater length of time, will explore the story in more detail and will of course employ a much larger orchestra, whereas our version is only half of our piece, the first half being "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie." It should be interesting to see two entirely different ways to treat a story, geared for two entirely different kinds of audience.

JB: I think treat is the operative word here because I can't wait to make this comparison. We'll all have so much to talk about.

SS: Me, too. I can't wait to see how he treats it. I'm not going to listen to one note, and except for the Times report today, I'm not going to read or listen to anything about it until we do ours.

JB: So now that you're working on this new thing, what musical languages are you using compared to the languages you've used thus far?

SS: Musically, it's just my own general language, which is a combination of, you know, various composers. Content dictates form and style, and the two movies are complete opposites in tone: both are satires, but one is comic, the other grim.

JB: Well, everyone of, course, is on tenterhooks.

SS: Including me. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Sondheim's last musical, ROAD SHOW, with a book by John Weidman and direction by John Doyle, played at The Public in 2008. It was based on the true story of brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner who gained and lost fortunes during the Alaska Gold Rush and the Florida Land Boom.

A previous version of that musical, titled BOUNCE and directed by Harold Prince, played at Chicago's Goodman Theatre and Washington DC's Kennedy Center in 2003.