And the winner is.....

And the winner is.......Kate Baldwin in Berkshire Theatre's production of Bells Are Ringing, the hit show from the 50's that is as fresh and sassy as ever.

I saw the original production at the Schubert Theatre in 1956 which starred Judy Holiday, Jean Stapleton, and Sidney Chaplain. The infectious score is by Jule Styne, and the imaginative lyrics are by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. How can you go wrong with this bunch?

  Kate Baldwin

I never thought that anyone would ever replace my memory of Judy Holiday in this role, but tonight Kate Baldwin made the part her own. She has a wonderful Broadway voice and attitude. She lives the part and brings down the house. She and Judy are equals to my way of thinking. Bravi!!

  Graham Rowat

Graham Rowat, Ms. Baldwin's off-stage husband, played Jeffrey Moss. He too is excellent though I would love to work with him on his singing. It's a good voice but he does strange 'B'way' things with it.

The entire cast was excellent, each playing several parts with clever costume and wig changes. Those were the days when you actually had to be able to SING to be in a Broadway show. This bunch could do it- and did! Big choral endings on show stopping numbers.

This is a show where it's easy to go out humming the tunes. Several people were actually doing that as we left the theatre.

Kate Baldwin and Bells Are Ringing put Man of La Mancha under the bus tonight!

Nighty-night!

Last night David and I saw A Little Night Music at the remarkable Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. The theatre, abandoned and empty for years, behind a super-imposed car dealership and a hardware store, was restored some years ago after a visit from then First Lady Hillary Clinton. It is simply gorgeous.

This was my third trip to Night Music. I saw the original Broadway production in 1973, which starred Glynis Johns, Hermione Gingold, and Len Cariou, then I saw the later 2009 Broadway revival with Beradette Peters and the amazing Elaine Stritch. This production originally starred Catherina Zeta-Jones, who I heard sing a disastrous version of "Send in the Clowns" on the Tony Awards. Bernadette was never a favorite of mine, but Elaine stole the show. A habit of hers!

Last night's production by the Berkshire Theatre Group starred Maureen O'Flynn, Penny Fuller, and Greg Edelman. Over the years, or perhaps, because of the direction by Ethan Heard, the show seemed to lose its magic for me. The dramatic tension of the book seemed watered down. 

Much of the singing was very good vocally, especially Maureen's delivery of "Send in the Clowns", which was a high point of the show, but because of the poor enunciation by many of the cast, the witty lyrics of Stephen Sondheim were lost. I have heard Maureen sing such roles as Violetta in La Traviata, so this involved a very different part of her range, which she handled beautifully.

David and I have been talking about singing diction as he prepares the choral parts of the St. John Passion  of Bach for a week at the Berkshire Choral Festival this month. In his preparation, as in my teaching in general, I find that singers often leave off the final consonant of a word, making it a blur. This was especially true last night in the Sondheim songs which require lightning fast delivery of text.

I remember Madeleine Marshall, my late friend and mentor, going on about the importance of consonants. She related the story of working with a native Italian singer at the Met, who was appearing in an English language opera. He kept singing the word 'home' as 'ome'. After she valiantly struggled to get him to pronounce his aitch, he said to her, 'Madeleine, why can't English be sung like Italian? We have these wonderful vowels, like in the word 'Ah-hamor'. He sang it on an upward sixth.

Case proved.