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.
