SINGAPORE – Stephen Sondheim, the composer-lyricist who remodeled the American musical, died on Friday (Nov 26) aged 91.
Sondheim, whose eight lifetime Tony Awards surpassed the overall of every other composer, was famend for his wit and wordplay in addition to his advanced, versatile compositions, which have been usually extremely troublesome to sing.
Listed below are seven of his greatest musicals.
1. West Aspect Story (1957)
Sondheim made his Broadway debut because the lyricist for this musical, which transposed Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to the Higher West Aspect of New York Metropolis, as two star-crossed youngsters are caught between rival road gangs.
A number of of the songs, set to music by Leonard Bernstein, turned Broadway classics, from the love duet Tonight to the rambunctious America, sung by Puerto Rican immigrants.
A 1961 movie adaptation gained 10 Academy Awards, probably the most for any musical movie, whereas one other directed by Steven Spielberg can be out subsequent month.
2. Gypsy (1959)
Based mostly on the memoirs of the striptease artiste Gypsy Rose Lee, this musical honed the archetype of the stage mom in Rose, a domineering matron who pushes her daughters into present enterprise however turns into in the end estranged from them.
Sondheim wrote the lyrics to music by Jule Styne, and the songs right here embody the cheeky You Gotta Get a Gimmick and the showstopper Rose’s Flip.
3. Firm (1970)
Firm revolves round a single man, Robert, whose mates are all married or engaged {couples}. In a collection of vignettes linked by his thirty fifth birthday, his mates attempt to discover him a girlfriend at the same time as they themselves battle with their relationships.
The musical is very recognized for the tune Being Alive, wherein Robert realises that “alone is alone, not alive”. Within the Oscar-nominated divorce movie Marriage Story (2019), the male protagonist, performed by Adam Driver, sings the complete tune in a bar.
A Broadway revival of Firm was slated to open on Sondheim’s ninetieth birthday on final yr, however was suspended because of the Covid-19 pandemic. It should now open subsequent month. Sondheim attended a Nov 15 preview earlier than his demise.
4. A Little Night time Music (1973)
Impressed by the 1955 Ingmar Bergman movie Smiles Of A Summer season Night time, this musical about fraught romance in 1900 Sweden performs with dance time signatures, that includes the waltz, the sarabande, the mazurka and extra.
It incorporates one among Sondheim’s loveliest songs, Ship In The Clowns, a plaintive, wry lament about missed alternatives.
5. Sweeney Todd (1979)
On this macabre masterpiece, a vengeful barber in Victorian London collaborates together with his amoral landlady to show his prospects into meat pies, at the same time as he pursues vengeance in opposition to the decide who robbed him of his spouse and daughter years in the past.
Amid the bloody plot and shrieking rating, Sondheim’s present for wordplay shines via in darkly humorous songs just like the pun-stuffed A Little Priest, wherein pie flavours embody “shepherd’s pie peppered with precise shepherd on high” and “actor”, which “all the time arrives overdone”.
Actor Johnny Depp performed the demon barber in a 2007 Tim Burton movie alongside Helena Bonham Carter.
6. Sunday In The Park With George (1984)
Sondheim and his collaborator James Lapine gained the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for this progressive musical in regards to the French pointillist painter Georges Seurat and his portray, A Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte.
The songs additionally chart the connection between George and his long-time mistress Dot, who fashions for him however grows dissatisfied together with his inattention.
7. Into The Woods (1987)
This darkish, beguiling musical subverts Brothers Grimm fairy tales similar to Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk and Little Crimson Using Hood. Disaffected princesses, impulsive youngsters and a so-called depraved witch wander the woods, their tales intertwining with that of a childless baker and his spouse.
A star-studded Disney movie adaptation, that includes Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, Chris Pine and extra, was launched in 2014.