Classical music: Do Stephen Sondheim musicals qualify as opera?

IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event.

By Jacob Stockinger

Do Broadway musicals by Stephen Sondheim (below) qualify as opera?

Granted, putting strict boundaries or criteria on certain musical genres only artificially limit their appeal.

But the question matters since this month will see two local opera companies stage two different works by Sondheim, who got his big break back when he collaborated with Leonard Bernstein on “West Wide Story.”

This Friday night at 8 p.m. and Sunday afternoon at 2:30 p.m., on Feb. 8 and 10 respectively, the Madison Opera will stage its production of the popular “A Little Night Music” – a great offering about many varieties of love so close to Valentine’s Day — in the Capitol Theater at the Overture Center.

For more information about the production (photos of it are by James Gill for Madison Opera) and performances, including ticket sales, go to: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/?s=sondheim

(Below are Charles Eaton and Katherine Pracht.)

Then later in the month, for five performances from Feb. 21 through Feb. 24 in Shannon Hall of the Wisconsin Union Theater, University Opera and University Theatre team up to stage Sondheim’s popular “Into the Woods,” based on classic fairy tales.

Find out more information here: https://union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/into-the-woods/

So, do Stephen Sondheim musicals deserve to be included with operas by Mozart and Verdi, Wagner and Puccini?

The Madison Opera’s general director Kathryn Smith (below, in a photo by James Gill) — a Harvard graduate and an opera veteran who worked at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Metropolitan Opera before coming to Madison — agreed to discuss that question as it relates to her company’s production of “A Little Night Music” this weekend.

Smith writes:

A Little Night Music has been performed by opera companies around the world since 1983, so it is a natural part of the repertoire.

Sondheim himself says, “For me, an opera is something that is performed in an opera house in front of an opera audience. The ambience, along with the audience’s expectation, is what flavors the evening.”

A Little Night Music is particularly intriguing because it is a modern operetta; that’s what the New York Times called it when it premiered in 1973.

The costumes and scenery make it look a bit like traditional operettas such as The Merry Widow, but its story and wit are distinctly modern, with a clear-eyed view of the complexities of adult relationships. (Below, from left, are Cassandra Vasta, Benjamin Barlow, Sarah Day, Emily Pulley and Maddie Uphoff.)

Sondheim’s musical sophistication is on brilliant display; the Act I finale (“A Weekend in the Country”) reminds me of the way Mozart or Rossini finales build scene upon scene. (You can hear a concert version of “A Weekend in the Country,” performed at the BBC Proms, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

I find A Little Night Music compelling for its beauty, style and humanity. The book and lyrics are laced with witty lines, but the underlying relationships are very real, as is the way people stumble on the way towards a happy ending.

It manages the trick of being simultaneously moving and entertaining, with glorious music underscoring it all.

---

Posted in Classical music
Tags: #ALittleNightMusic, #AWeekendintheCountry, #BBCProms, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #BroadwayMusical, #CapitolTheater, #ConcertVersion, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FairyTale, #GiacomoPuccini, #GioachinoRossini, #GiuseppeVerdi, #GrandFinale, #HappyEnding, #HarvardUniversity, #IntotheWoods, #JohnDeMain, #LeonardBernstein, #LyricOperaofChicago, #MadisonOpera, #MadisonSymphonyOrchestra, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #MetropolitanOpera, #MusicalGenre, #MusicalTheater, #MusicalTheatre, #NewYorkTimes, #OperaCompanies, #OperaCompany, #OperaHouse, #OperaMusic, #OperaRepertoire, #OvertureCenter, #RichardWagner, #SarahDay, #ShannonHall, #StephenSondheim, #TheMerryWidow, #TheMet, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #UniversityOpera, #UniversityTheatre, #ValentinesDay, #WestSideStory, #WisconsinUnionTheater, #WolfgangAmadeusMozart, #YouTubevideo, A Little Night Music, A Weekend in the Country, adult, ambience, appeal, Arts, audience, BBC, BBC Proms, beauty, blog, Book, boundary, brilliant, Broadway, Capital Theater, choral music, Classical music, composer, concert version, criteria, discuss, display, entertaining, evening, expectation, Facebook, fairy tale, finale, flavor, genre, glorious, graduate, happy ending, Harvard, humanity, Into the Woods, Jacob Stockinger, John DeMain, Leonard Bernstein, Love, Lyric Opera of Chicago, lyrics, Madison, Madison Opera, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mead Witter School of Music, Metropolitan Opera, modern, moving, Mozart, Music, musical, New York City, New York Times, opera, opera companies, opera company, Opera house, Orchestra, Overture Center, performer, photo, popular, production, Puccini, qualify, question, real, relationship, repertoire, Richard Wagner, Rossini, Sarah Day, Shannon Hall, sophistication, Stephen Sondheim, story, style, symphony, The Merry Widow, the Met, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University Opera, University Theatre, Valentine's Day, Verdi, Veteran, video, vocal music, Wagner, weekend, West Side Story, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Union Theater, wit, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, word, world, YouTube