Briones is starring in the East West Players new production of Pacific Overtures. The show also features Gedde Watanabe, Scott Keiji Takeda, Brian Kim McCormick, Adam Kaokept and Kerry K. Carnahan. Tim Dang directs.

Stephen Sondheim said his musical was, “The most bizarre and unusual musical ever to be seen in a commercial setting.” His certainly untraditional show, which opened on Broadway in early 1976, tells the story of Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s arrival in Japan in the mid-19th century and how his efforts to open up the isolationist country are experienced – through the eyes of the Japanese.

Charles McNulty, writing in the Los Angeles Times, raved about East West Players’ revival saying, “The new revival of Pacific Overtures may be the most impressive production I’ve seen anywhere all year.”

The path to get there was one filled with questions for Briones that didn’t always possess easy answers. This was amongst the many things I learned in my interview with Briones. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: We know that many of Sondheim’s musicals were not always well-received when they were originally produced, but that time and audiences have caught up to those shows. Do you think time has caught up with Pacific Overtures? Are audiences maybe more open now to what this show is than they have been at any other point?

I think so. When they mounted this show in 2004 it didn’t last very long on Broadway. I think it’s still hard for the general audience members to to appreciate something that they think they won’t get or won’t relate to because…This might be controversial, but it’s all Asian. The King and I has that really main character that is Caucasian. Pacific Overtures, Sondheim and Weidman, they wrote something that they wanted. I think they thought they were trying to be true to the culture. The music is beautiful, but it’s really something different. Even to me, I go, what is the meaning of this? I understand it better now, but I have questions.

I read in an interview you and Gedde did with Pasadena Weekly that your first reaction was one that a lot of people have; that you didn’t fully understand it and that there were a lot of questions. Having worked on it now for as long as you have prior to opening, have you been able to sort out a lot of those questions? Do you understand more about what this show is doing, what it’s saying and how your character, The Reciter, plays a role in that?

I’ve reached that. In my career if I don’t really understand something, I try to understand it the way I would and believe it and stick to that so that I can I can grab on to my reality. I think that’s what I did right now. My understanding of it is maybe different from the original idea of Sondheim and Weidman. But I’m sticking to that because I think my understanding of it is something beautiful, kind of universal.

I would assume that, like many actors, you’re intrigued by the things that scare you. How much did being part of Pacific Overtures scare you?

Petrified! Especially the way Tim wants to do this. He wanted to be true to the original vision of Sondheim and Hal Prince, which is Kabuki. And I’m not Japanese. And Kabuki, they’ve been studying this since they were children. So it’s something set and there’s truth in how they do it. I told Tim this. I don’t want to do something generic because I might offend people. But he said, you know, just find yourself. Find whatever is true with a hint of that. I think we found a happy medium there. 

You were born in the Philippines. There is a lot of dialog going on about whether people have to have lived-in experiences to play a character. I understand that intellectually, but practically, aren’t we negating what actors do? 

That was one of the things that I been struggling with, especially when opportunities opened up for Asian actors. We kind of limited ourselves after that because they’ve been saying Japanese stories should be told by Japanese people and Chinese stories and Korean stories should be… And I get that because the opportunities are so few and that they wanted it to be done properly. I get that. But if it is in English, I think that should not be the case. We’re not speaking Japanese. We’re not speaking Cantonese or Korean. It’s in English. And we can bring in our own experiences because all experiences are relatable. They happen to everyone in China and in Japan and in Timbuktu. They’re all the same. It’s human experience and we all have that and it should be valued.

What discoveries did you make about this story and your journey to get to opening night and about the character of The Reciter? 

That’s a good question. I’ve discovered about how to tell a story of an experience that happened a long time ago. And making it entertaining. But at the same time valuing the journeys of each character. And telling stories of so many characters. I asked Tim, why am I telling this story? What is the purpose of this? And then he said, Yeah, that’s a good question. Who do you think is telling this story? Are you Japan? Are you the emperor? Because the emperor back then was a one-year-old baby. He goes on to add that this story is about change and how the changes got to certain people. It got violent. It was funny. It was scary. And all of those things are helpful information to get to the finale of the storytelling.

That makes me think of Someone in a Tree, which is different perspectives on the same story being told simultaneously. Sondheim said that was his favorite song he ever composed. What about that song resonates most with you?

I saw an interview or something that Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote that one of the inspirations for In the Room Where it Happens [from Hamilton] was Someone in a Tree. There is always a a bystander looking and observing and they have an opinion of what happening. Which is so interesting because that’s why there are so many versions in history. Who is a witness to your history? Even if they don’t have a firsthand account, it’s going to be out there. It’s going to be told. That’s why I love the power of storytelling.

If we if we look back on the history of East West Players, Stephen Sondheim and Pacific Overtures are inextricably linked throughout its history because East West Players was founded by Mako, who originated the role you’re playing in the original production of Pacific Overtures. I know that Sondheim invested in East West Players and multiple productions of Sondheim’s have been done there. What do you think it means to the company, and what does it mean to you, to be bringing a new production of this musical that is so intricately tied to the history of East West Players? 

That even though Sondheim is not here, he still has a very loud voice. That he is still making things happen from where he is. He wants this because I read that he was not really satisfied with everything. It’s an unfinished symphony. I think maybe he wants us to discover it and make it better. This is what I found out about him. He is not precious with this work. Gedde [who appeared in the original production of Pacific Overtures] had stories he was telling us. He is open to two things. If you want to cut that scene short, cut that scene if you want to. You want more of that? Sure, I’ll write some more of that. He will never be satisfied with his work because nothing is perfect. Art is never perfect and he embodied that.

In the last song in Pacific Overtures, “Next,” the outsider says “There was a time when foreigners were not welcome here, but that was long ago.” In light of the elections this week in America, where anti-immigrant sentiment was a huge part in motivating people to vote for one candidate over another, what power does Next have in the show that may be different than it would have had if the election gone differently?

To me, it’s very hopeful. It came from the people who historically went, No, don’t! We’re fine here. Don’t. Don’t bring that. But because of the forceful and kind of violent interaction from the West, you can’t really stop progress. You can’t stop betterment. You can harness it, you can manipulate it. You can, you know, make it better. But it’s going to come. That is why I think even though a lot of people are heartbroken, it will get better. In Pacific Overtures, they made it Japan. It was given to them. Violently. But they brushed themselves up and started all over again. And they made it better. We can make this better. We can learn something from this. We can overcome this because we are resourceful and we know ourselves. We know what we can do. If only we think a a community, as a country, together as one, we can accomplish anything and we can be better than before.

Pacific Overtures runs at East West Players through December 1st. For tickets and more information, please go here.

To watch the full conversation with Jon Jon Briones, please go here.

Main Photo: Jon Jon Briones on Pacific Overtures (Photo by Teolindo/Courtesy East West Players)

The post Jon Jon Briones Recites His Passion for “Pacific Overtures” appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

This is my interview with Gavin when he was touring in Into the Woods. Thank you Gavin for your time, your artistry and your generosity. You will truly be missed.

Whether that’s intrinsically a part of the characters he’s playing or just who he is as an actor, Ceel is easily one of the most likable people in musicals today. Take his performance as The Wolf and Cinderella’s Prince in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods. Even though The Wolf is menacing (in a dandy sort of way) and the Prince is “raised to be charming, not sincere,” Creel is sincerely charming and, when the role calls for it, charmingly sincere.

Into the Woods is finishing its mini-tour of ten cities with a final stop in Los Angeles at the Ahmanson Theatre. The show runs June 27th – July 30th. Creel, who played the part on Broadway, is joined by many of the production’s Broadway cast including Sebastian Arcelus, Stephanie J. Block, Katy Geraghty, Montego Glover, Kennedy Kanagawa and Nancy Opel.

I recently spoke with Creel who was in San Francisco for the penultimate stop of Into the Woods. In our conversation we talked about Stephen Sondheim, why the cast took this show on the road and about his own show, Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice, which will have its world premiere in November at MCC Theater in New York. Los Angeles audiences can get a preview of that show when Creel performs at The Hotel Cafe in Hollywood on July 24th.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: In 2003 you were in Stephen Sondheim’s Bounce [later renamed Road Show] in Chicago and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. What did you learn from that experience of working on Sondheim’s material that perhaps informs the work you’re now bringing to Into the Woods? 

What comes to mind is that I watched the greatest, at that time, living musical theater composer and arguably the greatest living producer director of our musical theater time: Hal Prince. I watched them in the mud. I got to watch them trying to make the lotus blossom. And if I’m honest, it wasn’t successful. Obviously it wasn’t commercially successful, but it was bumpy. 

I did this very foolish innocently enough thing of deciding that they must come out of the womb formed. These ideas must just be hatched in brilliance. And I was like, Oh yeah, this moment isn’t really that great. Sondheim can write something that’s really not that great. And then Sondheim goes, “This is really not that great. How do I make this great or I can do this here and do this, and then watch it become something that went to the next level.” To see that in front of you is very humbling and an encouraging and freeing experience. 

How would you compare the process of working on a musical with Stephen Sondheim to working on one of his most successful musicals, arguably his most successful musical, without him any longer?

It was sad, I have to say. James Lapine, on the first day of rehearsal, we all circled up and everybody and there was a space next to him. He said, “It’s odd to me that there’s a space. I feel like Steve made a space for himself. This is a bittersweet moment because we’re all here to lift this beautiful piece up and I’m honored that you’re doing this piece that I wrote with Steve, and Steve would be standing next to me.”

This is sounds woo woo, but I think Steve was guiding us from the other side. I still feel a presence. It’s a rock concert response to our show in a way that James is like, I don’t understand what’s happening. It’s crazy. I think that is definitely a testament to the show being so beloved for almost 40 years. But I also think we were guided. I think there was a spirit on the other side. The best spirit of all going, “I’m going to help.” It got into all of our hearts. 

When I saw the show at the St. James in New York in December it looked to me like everybody was having the time of their lives, which is not easy to do as an actor. How much of it is the fact that you are all genuinely having a good time?

It is really hard to fake joy in that way. Even if you’re doing a really good job of it, the audience can sniff it out. I’m personally having the time of my life. I did not expect to be a part of this. I was going to go watch my best friend Sara [Bareilles who was the original Baker’s Wife] in the concert at City Center. And then [director] Lear deBessonet called me and was like, “Hey, would you ever consider coming in?” The first time my ego was like, I don’t want to play that part. I want to be the baker. And then I thought about it. Let’s just do the job. I need the health insurance. I’ll have a good time. I’ll get to hang out with Sara again. We had such a good time doing Waitress for that small amount of time together [in 2019]. Here I am, over a year later, still getting to tell the story across the country. We are literally still having fun and I can’t believe this leg of it is going to be done in six weeks. It’s nuts. We’re very sad to let it go. 

Many of you who appeared in this production on Broadway have come together to continue telling this story. That is very rare these days for so many cast members to take a show on the road. Why do you think the mold was broken for Into the Woods? 

I think the world has changed since what we went through. The pandemic changed me. Certainly I can speak for myself of just really appreciating what you have in a new way. I just don’t think we were ready to let it go. What a gift! This just dropped in my lap. Personally, I could save money. I could work. I could see the country. I could take a breath from everything that we’ve been through. I think that story sort of whispered through the building. Gavin’s going to go and hey, you think about going on? Let me tell you why I’m going. When does this ever happen? We could actually all go together. Our show was definitely closing [in New York] because New York, New York needed a theater. We had to close, but we didn’t feel ready to be finished. 

I think one of the one of the main things that Sondheim wanted to get across with this particular work, and he said so in an interview around the time of the release of the film, was that the message of Into the Woods is about community responsibility. There’s obviously a sense of community within Broadway. There’s a sense of community within this company. Do you think that this musical offers any insight into how we perhaps can better serve ourselves by coming together as a community in our regular lives? 

Yes. I think it’s two parts, to be honest. The whole thing starts with “I wish, more than anything.” If we can acknowledge that everybody wants something for themselves then we can see the shared community in that fact. How wonderful it would be if we could help each other get what each other wants. And this musical lays that out so beautifully.

The other I was going to say is when you said that about community, no one is alone. On the surface it seems like it means I’m with you. But also I’m with you in helping you get what you want. We can work together to help you achieve your dreams. There’s always a force outside of you that’s greater than you, that is against you in some way. The giant isn’t bad. “Witches can be right. Giants can be good. You decide what’s right. You decide what’s good.” The giant is just trying to do what they can to survive. We can see the community in that statement, which is what I think the show really illuminates. It means more than just you’re not alone, as in you don’t have to be sad and lonely. It means you’re not alone in your desires, your dreams, your wishes, your hopes. I’ve got them, too. So let’s both dream together.

You’ve been working on Confessions of a Museum Novice for a while and you’ve been performing it a concert version off and on in different places. How has the work evolved since you first started sharing this with the world? 

It continues to evolve. Originally I was invited to have a meeting with Limor Tomer and Erin Flannery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art who run the Live Art series. They said, would you like to come to the Met? We’ll give you a membership card at the museum. Look around. And when you find a piece of art or pieces, anything that you’re inspired by within the building, let us know and we’ll help you produce a show for one night at the Met. I’d never been there. I was an imposter syndrome times a million. I’m not a huge fine art person. Museums tend to overwhelm me, but I went for it. 

We ended up doing it in October of 2021 with a fully masked audience for two shows and it was electric. I have to turn this into a musical. I have to expand this a bit, too. I still play Gavin Creel. It’s still about a man who’s having a sort of a midlife meltdown who for some reason called the Metropolitan Museum of Art to try to figure his life out by walking through and figuring out what’s going on. It’s about love and life and art and loneliness and ultimately forgiveness and love again.

What we’re going to do in L.A. is we’re going to do the first 45 minutes of the show to give people a taste. And then we’re going to do some covers, theater and pop covers to give people some stuff they know.

Let’s go back 17 years ago to when your album GoodTimeNation came out. You have a song on there about what Might Still Happen. What has you most optimistic about what might still happen to you personally and professionally?

I wrote that as a kid 20 years ago on the roof of my studio apartment; 250 square feet. Some of the hardest and happiest times I’ve had. One of the best lessons of living in New York in 250 square feet is you have everything you need in that much space. Anything past that is icing. I have a two bedroom apartment, thank God now, but I could live in 200 square feet if you made me. I might sell it all and just chill. My buddy Robbie Roth, who I made my first two records with, we would crawl up to the roof illegally because the fire door didn’t shut. We would sit up there, put a blanket down and pick around with melodies. That song is ultimately about heartbreak, but it’s hope.

It was a call to my future self. It makes me emotional to think about the idea of being a young person and feeling really sad but saying there’s good stuff coming, keep going. You can’t know the future, so just sit in the present. Just be. Get yourself a beer, get a friend, get a guitar, get on the roof, look out over the city. There’s possibility everywhere.

Not to bring it back to Into the Woods, but I was really broken before the pandemic, through the pandemic and after. It was just a terrible time in my life. Into the Woods was like this beautiful life raft that not only buoyed me out of storm, but it continued to lift me and set me down on solid ground. I will never forget this time that I’ve had and I just hope that we pack the house at the Ahmanson because I want to go out with a bang.

To see the full interview with Gavin Creel, please go here.

Main Photo: Gavin Creel in the Broadway production of Into the Woods (Photo by Matthew Murphy and Ryan Zimmerman for MurphyMade/Courtesy Center Theatre Group)

The post REST IN PEACE: Gavin Creel: “It’s Really Hard to Fake Joy” appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

My top choice is:

JAZZ:  LIVE AT MEZZROW – Roger Kellaway – Cellar Music Group and SmallsLIVE Foundation

I have an admission to make. I didn’t know about pianist Kellaway until this recording made its way to me. I started the album which opens with Try to Remember from the musical The Fantasticks.

It’s a standard, to be sure, but the delicacy with which Kellaway plays the song makes it feel new again. He follows that with All Blues by Miles Davis (the first of three Davis tunes) and, once again, makes it his own. So I jumped ahead to his own composition All My Life and started the album from the top and listened to this live recording. His compositional skills are prefaced by the incredible arrangements. The album closes with a terrific rendition of Billy Strayhorn’s Take the A Train. 

Joining Kellaway are guitarist Roni Ben-Hur who appears as a special guest, Jay Leonhart on bass and Dennis Mackrel on drums.

Here is the rest of New In Music This Week: May 17^th:

CLASSICAL: J.S. BACH: COMPLETE KEYBOARD WORKS Vols. 1-3 – Evan Shinners – NEW CULL

You can’t say that keyboardist Evan Shinners is unambitious. This first three volumes are just the beginning of a decade-long 24-volume project in which Shinners will perform all of Bach’s keyboard works.

This means he will be playing the clavichord, harpsichord, organ, piano and Yamaha TransAcoustic piano throughout these recordings. He’s also providing commentary throughout the recordings.

Volume 1 features Five Early Suites. Volume 2 is Four Original Compositions for ‘Lute-Keyboard.’ Volume 3 is Misc. Preludes and Fugues Part One.

These first recordings are interesting and I think the best way to consider this project is ultimately going to be at its conclusion. For fans of Bach’s music will no doubt want to take this ten-year journey with Shinners 

CLASSICAL:  ANTON BRUCKNER: SYMPHONY No. 5 in B-Flat Major – Lahav Shani, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra – Warner Classics

Last year conductor Shani and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra released a highly acclaimed recording of Bruckner’s 7^th Symphony. This recording of the composer’s Symphony No. 5 is going to be equally received.

Bruckner is a composer who has proven tricky to perform persuasively. There is no such issue with Shani’s recording. He makes Bruckner feel utterly fresh and compelling from the opening minutes of the first movement through to the symphony’s end over an hour later.

CLASSICAL:  SEASONS INTERRUPTED – Trey Lee, English Chamber Orchestra – Signum Classics

Cellist Lee has written new arrangements of four lieder by Franz Schubert and The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires by Astor Piazzolla.  For the former his cello takes the place of vocals. 

What makes this album stand out is Lee’s performance of Kirmo Lintinen’s four-movement Cello Concerto. His playing is outstanding, but this work, being unfamiliar to most listeners, is the most intriguing part of the album.

CLASSICAL:  SONATAS & MYTHS – Elizabeth Chang, Steven Beck – Bridge Records

If you love early 20^th century music, you won’t want to miss this recording from violinist Chang and her regular collaborator, pianist Beck.

The album features Karol Szymanowski’s Mythes, Op. 30; Ernst von Dohnányi’s Violin Sonata in C-Sharp Minor and Béla Bartók’s Violin Sonata No. 1.

Chang is fiercely invested in this recording and her playing reflects a true understanding of these works. For 66 minutes she and Beck give you music that obviously inspired countless composers who followed these three gentlemen.

CLASSICAL: SCHUBERT: WINTERREISE – André Schuen, Daniel Heide – Deutsche Grammophon

Italian baritone Schuen has recorded a truly stunning performance of Schubert’s song cycle.  When done well, as it is here, this song cycle feels like a dramatic monologue about love lost and unrequited.

Schubert composed these songs, based on 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller, in 1827. He wrote this for a tenor, but Schubert transposed the work for other voices as well. 

Schuen’s warm baritone voice serves these pieces well. Just as he serves them with utmost respect and appreciation. Pianist Heide proves to be a perfect partner for this recording.

CLASSICAL: VIRGIL THOMPSON: A GALLERY OF PORTRAITS FOR PIANO AND OTHER PIANO WORKS – Craig Rutenberg – Everbest Music

Composer Thompson wrote over 150 portraits for the piano. They were compositions that served as his musical portraits of those in his inner circle and countless public figures who inspired him.

Pianist Rutenberg, who recorded over forty of these works on his 1990 album, Portraits and Self-Portraits, returns to these works for a massive recording which runs two hours and 45 minutes and centers on finishing out his goal of recording all of Thompson’s portraits.

Amongst those about whom Thompson composed the works on this superb recording are Paul Bowles, Aaron Copland, Louis Lang and Pablo Picasso..

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL:  CHRISTOPHER CERRONE : BEAUFORT SCALES – Lorelei Ensemble – Cold Blue Music

Readers know how much I admire composer Christopher Cerrone’s work. This album is no exception. 

Cerrone has written a 35-minute work that defies norms (as much of his work does) and explores our world where climate change is arguably the most urgent issue of our time.

He does this by combining music and text. Some of the text is from the Beaufort Wind Force Scale and other text comes from the writings of Anne Carson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Herman Melville and the King James Bible.

Beaufort Scales was written for electronics and treble voices.  The Lorelei Ensemble beautifully performs this work which is certainly not easy, but is essential listening. This is music as advocacy in the best possible way.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: DANNY ELFMAN: PERCUSSION CONCERTO, WUNDERKAMMER – Colin Currie, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Joanna Falleta – Sony Classical

One-time Oingo Boingo front man and film composer Elfman composed this Percussion Concerto for Currie. Listening to this fascinating work makes me want to watch Currie in action. I can only imagine what this concerto requires of him during a performance.

The second work, Wudnerkammer, is a concerto for orchestra.  Both of these works have all the hallmarks of Elfman’s work. Working in the concerto form allows Elfman more time and space to develop his themes than film scores allow. For that reason alone, this is a must-have for Elfman’s fans and more than a curiosity for those who wonder how he fares in the contemporary classical world.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: SOPHIA JANI: SIX PIECES FOR SOLO VIOLIN – Teresa Allgaier – Squama Recordings

I’m always a bit skeptical with solo violin recordings. It takes both incredible compositional skills and performance skills for me to give myself over completely to such a recording.

There was no such issue with these works by Sophia Jani. Prior to listening to this recording I was not familiar with Jani’s work. I think you’ll want to explore more of her compositions just as much as I do once you listen to Allgaier’s performance of these seemingly simple, but deceptively complicated, works.

JAZZ:  LABYRINTH – Temple University Studio Orchestra – BCM+D Records

Billy Childs’ Labyrinth had its world premiere by Temple University Studio Orchestra on March 31, 2023.  Childs was inspired by artist M.C. Escher for this work that serves as a rhythmic puzzle for the musicians and the audience alike. It proves once again how vital Childs is to music today. This recording also proves how talented this orchestra is. (And mart, too. They commissioned Labyrinth.)

Also on the album are Red Braid composed by Banks Sapnar and Bill Cunliffe’s Rainforests.

Joining the orchestra on this excellent recording are Terell Stafford and Dick Oatts who teach at Temple University.

JAZZ:  EPIC COOL – Kirk Whalum – Mack Avenue Music

On his first studio album in over five years, saxophonist Whalum has written or co-written 8 of the 11 tracks on this enjoyable album. The opening track, Bah-De-Yah! launches the album with a funk riff that is impossible to ignore. My favorite track is Film Noir which is near the end of the record.

MF might have you thinking the title references a popular curse word, but I’m guessing it is named after cowriter Marcus Finnie, who might just be a badass MF. Who knows?

MUSICALS: HERE WE ARE – Original Cast Album – Concord Theatricals Recordings

Unless archivists discover something unreleased, this is likely the last new music composed by Stephen Sondheim. Here We Are is a musical inspired by two Luis Buñuel films: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Exterminating Angel.

I saw the show in January and liked it very much. I was also very sad that it wasn’t fully completed as Sondheim had hoped. Nonetheless, this recording is terrifically produced and serves as an opportunity for Sondheim fans to hear this music. If I were guessing, Here We Are is not going to be a show that will get a  lot of productions – not that it doesn’t deserve them.

The cast includes Francois Battiste, Tracie Bennett, Bobby Cannavale, Micaela Diamond, Amber Gray, Jin Ha, Rachel Bay Jones, Denis O’Hare, Steven Pasquale, David Hyde Pierce and Jeremy Shamos.

The vinyl release of Here We Are is scheduled for September 6^th.

MUSICALS: WATER FOR ELEPHANTS – Original Broadway Cast Recording – Ghostlight Records

Last month I saw the musical Water For Elephants and was completely blown away. I wasn’t a big fan of the movie and haven’t read the book, but this musical captured me from the opening song, Anywhere/Another Train and didn’t let me go until the end of the show.

The question when I listened to this recording was would this music by Pigpen Theatre Co. prove to be as entertaining as the show is without director Jessica Stone’s incredible staging.

I’m happy to report that the score holds up very well indeed. This story of a young man looking for a new life who stumbles upon a circus train and joins the circus is clearly laid out by the 19 songs on the album. This includes the love triangle at the center of the story involving the ringmaster/owner and his wife.

The greatest joy for me in both the show and this recording is the ability to see and hear the incredible Gregg Edelman in another musical. He’s long been one of my favorite Broadway performers. Water for Elephants is one of my favorite new scores.

That’s all for New In Music This Week: May 17^th.

Enjoy the music.

Enjoy your weekend.

Main Photo: Part of the album art of Labyrinth by Temple University Studio Orchestra

The post NEW IN MUSIC THIS WEEK: MAY 17th appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

My  top pick is:

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL:  AMERICAN COUNTERPOINTS – Experiential Orchestra/James Blachly/Curtis Stewart – Bright Shiny Things

Compositions by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson and Julia Perry are highlighted in this album. 

Perkins’s Louisiana Blues Strut: A Cakewalk and Sinfonietta No. 1 anchor the first half of this album from the Grammy Award-winning Experiential Orchestra. 

Perry’s very brief Prelude for Strings (a beautiful work) separates those two works by Perkins. She returns with her Symphony in One Movement for Viols and String Basses, Ye, Who Seek the Truth and her Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (a world premiere recording).

Violinist/composer Stewart closes out the album with By Julia Perry and the solo work We Who Seek.

There aren’t too many albums, however good they might be, that make me stop everything all at once to listen to a second time. This is that album.  Founder/conductor Blachly and the Experiential Orchestra could very well find themselves on track for a second Grammy Award for this incredible recording.

For those wanting to explore more of Julia Perry and her work, The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival takes places in New York from March 13th – March 16th.

Here are the rest of my picks of the best of what’s New In Music This Week: March 1^st:

CLASSICAL: DURUFLÉ REQUIEM/POULENC LENTEN MOTETS – The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge/Stephen Layton – Hyperion Records

There’s a funny thing about requiems and other sacred music. I’m an atheist, but I can’t resist the beauty of the music. That beauty can certainly be heard on this album. I’ve been quite familiar with Duruflé’s Requiem for years. The discovery for me is Poulenc’s Lentent Motets which I hadn’t heard before. Poulenc composed these four motets in 1938-1939 with the first performance taking place in 1939.

The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge dates back to the 14th century. Their website says they are “exploring a wide-ranging repertoire drawn from both Catholic and Protestant traditions.” For believers I’m sure there’s much more here for you than I can respond to. But on a purely musical level, this is a beautiful recording.

CLASSICAL: SMETANA/MÁ VLAST – Czech Philharmonic/Semyon Bychkov – Pentatone Music

Vlatava  (The Moldau) from Czech composer Smetana’s Má Vlast (My Homeland)is very well known and instantly recognizable for classical music fans. Though there are quite a few recordings of the whole work, the other five of these six symphonic poems aren’t as often performed, resulting in less familiarity.

This recording celebrates both the composer’s 200^th birthday and the year of Czech Music. Bychkov is the Music Director of the Czech Philharmonic. Worth noting is that the first record from the Czech Philharmonic was a 1929 release of Má Vlast.

Clearly recording techniques have vastly improved in 95 years and the sound on this recording is spot-on. As is the playing. I strongly recommend this recording.

CLASSICAL: TCHAIKOVSKY/KORNGOLD STRING SEXTETS – Nash Ensemble – Hyperion Records

Tchaikovsky only composed one string sextet. It goes by the name Souvenir de Florence. It’s a wickedly complicated piece. So much so that even he said, “It is frightfully difficult.” However difficult it may be, the musicians from Nash Ensemble that perform this work make it sound positively effortless. Even though the work calls for each musician to act like a soloist within a sextet, there is a uniformity of this performance that is remarkable.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s String Sextet in D Major, Op. 10 is performed equally well. Korngold is best known for his film scores. As a result of his work for Hollywood, his classical works aren’t embraced as fully as they should be. Nash Ensemble’s performance on this album removes any doubt about Korngold’s place in formal/classical music. (Not that I think there should have been any doubt in the first place.)

This is an album I will be going back to several times.

JAZZ: BEING HUMAN – Lynne Arriale Trio – Challenge Records

Pianist/composer Arriale has recorded an album that runs the gamut of human emotions. Listening to this terrific album I felt all the worries of the world melt away. For 40 minutes I didn’t think about anything. I could relax, take deep breaths and be completely and wholly emotionally connected to this music. Arriale reminded me what it means to be human again.

Arriale composed all the music. She’s joined by Alon Near on bass and Lukasz Zyta on drums. This is a traditional two configuration, but I challenge you to find more reassuring music played any better than it is on Being Human.

JAZZ:  TEX BOOK TENOR – Booker Ervin – Blue Note Records Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series

The first Friday of the month finds the arrival of two news vinyl reissues from Blue Note. The first of which is this album recorded by saxophonist/composer Ervin that was recorded in 1968 but not released until 2005 – 35 years after his death. (Inquiring minds would love to know why!)

Ervin composed three of the five tracks: Den Tex, Lynn’s Tune and 204.  The opening track, Gichi, was composed by pianist Kenny Barron (who plays on the album) and the middle track is Woody Shaw’s In a Capricornian Way.

Also joining Ervin on Tex Book Tenor are bassist Jan Arnet;, drummer Billy Higgins and trumpeter Woody Shaw.

If, like me, you weren’t familiar with this album, the vinyl release (or streaming service of choice), will make you glad you took the time to check it out.

JAZZ:  LIBRARY CARD – Stephen Philip Harvey

It makes complete sense to open an album called Library Card with I Could Write a Book written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Then to follow it with six original tracks (all paying homage to various writers) makes something sensical seem almost ballsy.

Harvey and his +2 (Max Murray on bass and Jordon Stanley on drums) make a solid case for this novel album. They are proud to be a chord-less trio (no piano or guitar).

Going Places sounds like the perfect music to accompany the works of Dr. Seuss for whom that (and Huevos Verdes) was written. You’ll have to figure out the rest of the references/associations. Which you can only do by checking this Library Card out. 

JAZZ: SPEAK TO ME – Julian Lage – Blue Note Records

In last week’s New in Music This Week, I commented that “guitar trios are not usually my go-to choice.” Along comes another album to make me realize the error of my ways. 

Lage composed all 13 tracks on this album which finds him performing solo, as a duo and in trio. A few tracks are expanded out to include keyboards and woodwinds.

The album begins quietly with Hymnal and immediately gets its groove going with Northern Shuffle which follows. Lage takes listeners on a journey through Speak to Me and it ends with the beautiful Nothing Happens Here. Rest assured a lot happens on this album. 

JAZZ:  ACTION – Jackie McLean – Blue Note Records Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series

Saxophonist McLean’s album was recorded in 1964, but wasn’t released until 1967. It’s a terrific album that takes the novel approach of substituting vibes (Bobby Hutcherson) in place of a piano.

Also performing on this album are Billy Higgins on drums; Cecil McBee on bass and Charles Tolliver on trumpet. Two of Tolliver’s compositions (Plight and Wrong Handle) are on Action.

McClean wrote the opening track, Action and the closing track Hootnan. A wonderful arrangement of the standard I Hear a Rhapsody is the penultimate track on the album.

JAZZ:  DISCORDIA – Jeremy Rose and the Earshift Orchestra – Earshift Music

The perfect word to describe the times we are living through is discordant.  From the opening track of composer/musician Jeremy Rose’s album you know you are listening to music that perfectly captures the chaos, anger, mayhem that we all encounter on a daily basis.  Which is precisely his point.

This nine-track recording perfectly showcases his compositions as performed by Rose (on  soprano saxophone and bass clarinet), drummer Chloe Kim and the 17-piece Earshift Orchestra.

Don’t expect this album to be all dissonance paired with angry chords and propulsive rhythms. In fact, the quieter moments on this album are absolutely sublime and well mixed in throughout the album. An album that feels very much influenced by the work of Gil Evans.

Discordia is a wildly ambitious album that pays of beautifully.

JAZZ:  FERMENT BELOW/HIGH FIRMAMENT – Jacob Shulman – Endectomorph 

In the liner notes for Ferment Below, saxophonist/clarinetist/composer Shulman says, “Every moment in jazz lives on a tightrope.” So, too, does Shulman on these ambitious two new recordings.

Shulman’s stated goal is to capture the impulses that lead to creativity on Ferment Below and the world of a smoke-filled jazz club on High Firmament – where that creativity on the first album becomes a living and breathing thing on the second.

Both recordings find Shluman joined by Kayvon Gordon on drums, Hayoung Lyou on piano and Walter Stinson on bass. Jasper Dutz performs on Hometown Hero on High Firmament.

Shulman and his colleagues offer up a journey  I thoroughly enjoyed going on. 

MUSICALS: MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG/SWEENEY TODD – Masterworks Broadway/Reprise Records

I’ve already covered the digital release of both of these original cast albums. This week both are being released on vinyl. Merrily We Roll Along is a 2-album release. Sweeney Todd is a 3-lp box set. Sondheim fans who collect vinyl (as I do) will want to hear how Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez and Daniel Radcliff sound in Merrily We Roll Along. They will also want to hear Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett. All of them at 33 rpm.

In other words, for Sondheim fans this is a good thing going.

OPERA: PARSIFAL – Jonas Kaufmann, Ludovic Tézler, Elīna Garança/Phillippe Jordan/Vienna State Opera Orchestra and Chorus – Sony Classical

While critics were somewhat underwhelmed by the production itself, they were universal in their praise for the music and the singing.  No wonder with this cast that shines in this live recording from 2021.

I haven’t seen this (or any other) production of Parsifal, but art from this recording and other images on line make it clear this was a modern dress production.

This was not Kaufmann’s first production of Wagner’s opera, but it is his first recording. It was not Garança’s first production either, but from what I can tell this is her first recording of Parsifal.

With these two leading the cast and the incredible musicianship of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and Chorus makes this great new recording so deeply satisfying.

NO CATEGORY:  LUMINESSENCE – Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek – ECM (Vinyl Release)

When Stephen Davis reviewed this album for the New York Times he said it belonged “neither to jazz or modern music.” The three tracks on this fascinating album were composed by Ketih Jarrett (who does not perform on the album).

Numinor, Windsong and Luminessence were composed for string orchestra. Gabarek’s contributions to the recording were all improvised.

How much you like or dislike this album (and there are two camps on this one), the remastering of this for high-grade vinyl will certainly make for great listening. For me, I find some of it incredible and other parts, turgid. But I was always intrigued.

That’s all for New In Music This Week: March 1st.

Enjoy the weekend!

Enjoy the music!

Main Photo: Part of the art for Jacob Schulman’s High Firmament

The post New In Music This Week: March 1st appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

That last song proved to be almost a meditation on our lives during the first year of the COVID crisis. Sondheim’s words perfectly summed up the uncertainty of the time. It was during the pandemic that Errico had the inspiration to do a different album of Sondheim’s songs. One that celebrated the city that she and the composer both lived in: New York City. That album, Sondheim in the City, gets released on Friday and starting today Errico begins a a five-night stand at Birdland Jazz Club in New York in a show entitled A Manhattan Valentine.

Last week I spoke with Errico about her passion for Sondheim’s work, her various collaborations with him over the years and what she learned most from her time with him. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview (which is chockfull of wonderful stories and observations about Sondheim and herself), please go here.

When did the desire to do a second collection of his material start bubbling up within you? 

I think I always knew that I was going to spend much of my life turning to him. I don’t know that I was wanting to record [another album] until the pandemic happened and I turned to him yet again in another crisis. Sondheim Sublime is a very inward record. It’s a lyrical record. I was going through a hard time in my own life. I just keep turning to Sondheim. I think that he is probably the greatest source for me of wisdom and courage. Sondheim worked with me on the creation of that. He had ideas for it. He knew what I was working through. He knew what I was feeling about his work. He was a little embarrassed by the word sublime, because I think he felt it was so spiritual and maybe corny. I think he said it was camp. 

Now the pandemic happened. We lived through that. Maybe we’re coming out of this terrifying time. I was thinking about New York City. I was thinking about how everybody was leaving New York during the pandemic. I was thinking I want to recommit to New York City; it gave me everything. When Sondheim died, the ideas of New York were so rich in my head. When he passed I worried for New York. I thought about his New York. He made New York for me. And for so many of us, he defines it. And he’s a great poet himself of New York. I felt like everything is there again in Sondheim for another chapter of my life. 

There are going to be people who are going to be surprised by some of the material on this album, because I don’t think many people have heard Dawn or Nice Town, But. For those who don’t know, Nice Town, But came from one of his earliest works in the 1950s called Climb High that never got finished. Oddly, he didn’t write about that song in his Collected Lyrics books. What was your process of discovering other songs that maybe the world doesn’t know that would fit the story and the narrative you have in this album? 

Nice Town, But, you’re going to have to wait for the vinyl. That’s not going to come out on the 16th. We’re going to have 14 songs. That is a coda of juvenilia of his youth. That is not going to come out just yet, but I’m thrilled that I’m going to be singing it live at Birdland. It’s a brilliant piece of his youth and it is meant to just be a humorous and energetic finale to all the thoughts that I put into the more classic songs.

But I open with an unusual song which is on the first release, Dawn, which was [for] an unproduced film [Singing Out Loud]. It’s a wonderful song that nobody knows and I’m super excited for people to hear it. I hope that it acts [on the album] as a new beginning of a New York waking up. What is New York at dawn? It’s quiet, but it still hums with life and promise. 

I hope that that means there’s a whole lot of material that we still haven’t heard that we will get to hear, either from you or from other people throughout the years ahead.

There’s more things. I put some cut music on here as well. Music cut from musicals. Jazz fans always love the alternate take. Like Chet Baker did this or Charlie Parker did this one that they didn’t put on the record. I have the same obsession with cut songs and there’s some beautiful cut music from Follies that I included here: Can That Boy Foxtrot? We’ve heard it, but it’s not the most common song. And It Wasn’t Meant to Happen, which I think is a masterpiece.

I think in his Collected Lyrics Sondheim said that was his attempt to do a Cole Porter true pathos song.

I believe he rewrote it in his head when he wrote Send in the Clowns. I believe that it has the same meter, a meditative regret. And it’s about denial. Send in the clowns. I’ll be fine. It wasn’t meant to happen. I’m good. But she’s there. And in the song, just as with Send in the Clowns, don’t bother. They’re here. You can really hear the other person is in the room.

What was the process for you in approaching songs that the world has heard multiple times?

Songs like Being Alive, that’s a young person’s song. I have spent my whole life as an ingenue, singing from a young person’s perspective. And in a way I’ve been gradually beating the ingenue out of myself. So I guess I was thinking about what that song is saying. Maybe when I was younger I was thinking, somebody hold me, I want happiness. I would probably have thought, I want that connection. But I think now I realize she’s not asking for happiness. She’s asking for a kind of pain. Someone to force her to feel alive through the kind of armor of sophistication and familiarity that we put on.

There are a lot of people who have a stereotype of New Yorkers being neurotic. Sondheim himself is quoted as saying, “I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear the rumblings beneath the surface.” You’ve created a New York centric album. Do you think there’s a part of Sondheim in the City that celebrates these neurotic people that Sondheim was talking about?

Oh, yes. I think there’s a kind of jaunty, upbeat quality to my record, because I don’t think it’s a sour and cynical world. Actually, I think if you look closely at Sondheim, there’s a kind of ecstatic pleasure in New York; the rhythm of things. I think Another Hundred People is an ecstatic song. Even Everybody Says Don’t. Sure, all these people are blocking you, but step over them. He’s more than satiric and malicious. I say, ecstatic. I think he was excited by the possibilities.

Once you stop trying to make life makes sense in the literal or linear simple way. Because once you’re allowed to be nuts a lot of problems vanish, a lot of humor and love and complication and emotion and style and laughing and nightlife, so much becomes possible. I guess that’s a middle-aged person speaking justifying ourselves.

Do you think there are reasons, other than the fact that Stephen Sondheim has passed, that his work is being embraced so vociferously and voraciously as it is now?

Because it never gets boring. It’s relentlessly interesting. There’s no bottom. It’s so smart and there’s so much love in it as well. And it’s never dated. There’s so many layers. Maybe we need him more now than we used to. Maybe we understand that his talents and his gifts had some difficulties. At a time that wanted something more cheery or simple or commercial – the British wave and everything that annoyed him – he was looking in the mind. Not everybody wants to do that. And I think now we’re really not afraid.

In the liner notes you talk about going to Sondheim’s house when it was on the market after his death. Was that the first time you’d been there?

Yes. Actually, I feel like I’ve been there because I saw that wonderful interview with [composer] Adam Guettel. When I walked in the room, I was so overwhelmed. Oh, my God, there’s the chair. I was so nervous. I didn’t take pictures. I just stood there like, wow.

What has your process of performing Sondheim taught you about who you are as a person and who you are as an artist?

I felt encouraged by him to be a female kind of intellectual person. He encouraged me over a long period of time. I can’t pretend we were intimately close friends. More like a very dedicated, almost a daughter figure. I’ve honored him. My thinking about him so much and applying his stuff for my own personal survival. I find him funny and sexy. And I love going to the shows, even if I’m not in them.

The emails between us were empowering, funny, educational, challenging. He says he hates self-deprecation. That was my most unpleasant quality, he said. So I don’t do it anymore. I don’t think I’ve been self-deprecating today. I try not to. I used to be throwing myself under the bus here and there and he didn’t like that. He said it’s the least attractive quality in all people. He liked to lift you up. He said, Melissa, you’re a lot of things. You’re an actress and a big band singer or a girl singer, like in that old tradition. Keep exploring that. 

We’re trying to learn about ourselves through a master’s music and be respectful and explore it and honor him at the same time as learn. This is me finding myself mid-life. Just don’t press too much. Just be. 

To watch the full interview with Melissa Errico, please go here.

The post Melissa Errico Has a Valentine For New York City appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Santuzza is a woman who has been Turiddu’s (Todd Wilander) lover, but she has been cast aside in favor of Lola. Santuzza doesn’t take too kindly to the snub and informs Lola’s husband, Alfio (Roberto Perlas Gómez), that his wife is being unfaithful. It’s an Italian verismo opera, so you know where this one is headed.

Babcock has performed at Carnegie Hall and with opera companies across America. She is best-known for her performances as Carmen in Bizet’s beloved opera. She is also regularly found in contemporary works having their premieres including Tobias Ricker’s Thérèse Raquin and Winter’s Tale at the Prototype Festival. Babcock regularly works in musical theater having performed lead roles in productions of five Stephen Sondheim musicals.

Last week I spoke with Babcock about her role debut, working with the Verdi Chorus and about another Italian role – in a Sondheim musical – that remains amongst her favorites. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: What interested you most about making your debut in a concert version of this opera?

It’s the perfect way to make a debut because you really get to focus on the music. It’s a really beautiful way in to just really nail the language, the text and get into the plot points in the melody without having to worry about all the things like props and costumes and direction. To just really dig into the work with the musicians around you.

Does that still require doing the same level of character development? 

Absolutely. And things grow over time. As we grow with the part and continue to perform it, it grows and we get really comfortable. But sometimes those uncomfortable performances are magical, too, because we are on our toes and we are having to think fast, sing fast. Sometimes that’s where the magic is too.

The world premiere of Cavalleria Rusticana took place in 1890. Gemma Bellincioni is the one who who created the role of Santuzza. How do you think your contemporary eyes may be looking at this piece differently than perhaps it was first regarded by the woman who originated this part?

Well, there would be a lot of suppositions coming out of my mouth. Starting now. Considering the time and considering what opera was and what opera has become, I would assume there was a lot more standing and singing, a lot more focus on purely just bel canto and not engaging with your colleagues. This is a traditional sort of park and bark opera, except that it is what started or defined verismo. In verismo we have very real feelings that we’re all trying to heal so that we don’t act like toddlers in public. But these are really unhealed, unhinged humans having visceral reactions in public spaces all about heartbreak and love on such an intense level.

What appeals to you most about who Santuzza is?

What appeals to me most about her is her ability to go directly to the source of her pain. Ask him to stop in a time where that was never done. Women did not have agency. They were told to obey and they accepted a certain level of abuse, physical and otherwise. She fell madly in love with this man and had an out-of-marital affair with him, which she knew was risky. But she believed in their love. Then she got screwed. She just went in and was like, why are you doing this to me? How could you do this to me? She took such a huge risk with her heart and she opened it up for him and she got in trouble. She probably learned a really huge lesson after this and she probably never loved again. But she made some big decisions based on following her heart.

There are varying ways how fans perceive Santuzza in the opera. There are a lot of people who argue that she’s a very simple character or a passive one. There are others who think she’s a far more complex woman than people give her credit for. Do you have an opinion about that and does that opinion influence how you perform the part? 

She’s living in Catholic world and by the rules of the church. She has moved outside of this rule because she believes something true to her heart could not be bad. So she’s a woman who thinks for herself. Now, we don’t always make the best decisions as humans, and this is what we’re discovering with Santuzza. She’s made this decision that did not work out, but she had enough self-actualization to choose something that she was told not to do. So for me, she is a woman beyond her time and who thinks outside the box and who follows her heart. I think she’s got quite the backbone. She’s very strong at the end of the day.

You’re doing this concert with the Verdi Chorus. Does it feel like there’s a learning curve with this, or has their background of performing excerpts from operas given them the ability to just effortlessly go into performing this piece?

I think the Verdi course is a well-oiled machine. They know what to do. This is such a chorus heavy piece, which is why we’re doing it. They’ve learned most of the music prior to this concert. It won’t be the debut of all the pieces within it. So they’ve had a trial run of a lot of it. I think this will be an exciting climax to their time with the Verdi Chorus to actually do an opera, to move around, to memorize the music.

As a soloist, this is what we do all the time. So for us it’s fun too. I’ve sung with Roberto and Todd for years, but we’ve never been able to have full characters fleshed out over an evening together and to emote in the same space over time. So this, for us, is super exciting, and I can imagine for them it’s going to be, too. That space the acoustics are so great, we’re going to surround it with so much sound. We’re going to shake the rafters.

You like to shake the rafters, as you say, about contemporary works as well. What is your opinion of the state of contemporary opera today and what excites you most about it, and what, if anything, concerns you about it?

I love contemporary opera. I love that we’re exploring contemporary issues. I love that things are getting smaller. So we’re having more chamber opera, smaller orchestras, smaller casts, so that it is affordable to produce. What is essential in my mind is that we keep our art from growing. To keep it growing, we need to keep producing it and we need to make it affordable and big. Grand opera is not affordable. But within that it has to be excellent. The composers we’re working with a lot today all know that.

Things are harder to sing now. So we must be better singers and we must figure out how to do this because we are telling really important stories. We are creating new spaces for performing, not just theaters. We’re doing a lot of site specific stuff, which I think is great. Bringing the art form to the people.

You’ve created opportunities for yourself, whether that’s through your shows, Lily or Beyond Carmen. You’re giving yourself an opportunity to be seen apart from opera or on your own terms. How important is it or how necessary is it for you to carve out your own space and not rely just on the opportunities that come to you?

I have this intense drive to create. I didn’t get into opera because of opera. I got into opera because I have a big voice and a lot to say. But it turned out I loved opera. I didn’t know opera before I wound up in one. I’ve always been a theater person and an actor person and a singing person and a musician person. I played the flute forever. It’s absolutely essential for me to create and I love that my career is so varied. I’m doing things that, if you told my eight-year-old self I would get to do, I wouldn’t believe you. It’s so amazing and it makes me feel well-rounded. I’m not one who likes to put all my eggs in one basket. I’m so grateful for all these opportunities.

You’ve done five Stephen Sondheim musicals. One of them is a musical that I hope gets rediscovered at some point the same way Merrily We Roll Along is being rediscovered right now in New York. That’s Passion. What do you think the future might hold for Passion?

I’m a very old soul, I guess. I was born to do these parts that I’m now the right age for. I think people, maybe ten years ago, before Hamilton, went to musical theater to laugh. Sondheim had a mixture of both. But Passion was just drama, straight drama. I think people were disappointed in that. They wanted to go see a musical. If opera companies will take it on, it’ll do well because our audiences are used to seeing sad things where people die all the time.

The composer of Cavalleria Rusticana, Pietro Mascagni, is quoted as having said, “Modern music is as dangerous as narcotics.” What would you tell him about what modern music is today and how his opera is being received in the 21st century?

Well, he gave us a really good gateway drug. There are a million things it could mean, but I see his point. We’re just going further and further away from where we started. We have strayed so far from the rules of counterpoint and harmony, but we still study them. At least in the classical world, we recognize where our traditions come from. I believe, though, as artists it’s our job to push. It’s our job to question. It’s our job to say yes and and move forward. If we stay in the same it’s boring and it’s counter-revolutionary.

We must create more outside the box work and we must create culturally important work so that it matters. If we’re just singing because we like to sing, there’s zero point. If we’re just putting on performances for the actors involved because we want to put on a show, we can’t sustain that. We need to create work that is vital, that is important, that touches people, that has some sort of cultural implication. Then we get to not just do what we love, but have some sort of social and cultural impact that is lasting. I think that’s what fuels new music today. 

To see the full interview with Audrey Babcock, please go here.

Main Photo: Audrey Babcock (Courtesy The Verdi Chorus)

The post Mezzo Soprano Audrey Babcock and a Night of Firsts appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Given that Steingraber has had a long association with Jacques Heim, Founder and Creative Director of Diavolo, it should come as no surprise that he turned to Heim to create a performance piece that celebrates the perseverance required to rebuild the CSUN campus and the surrounding communities in the aftermath of the earthquake.

Joining Diavlo for this world premiere are vocalist Thana Alexander and drummer Antonio Sánchez who have composed the score for Existencia and will be performing it live.

There are two performances: one on January 17th and a second one on January 19th

Recently I spoke with Steingraber about the two very different earthquakes that are front and center in his world right now: the Northridge Earthquake that is the inspiration for Existencia and the seismic shifts in the performing arts that has Steingraber asking how many arts institutions will survive even this year.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: You told me many years ago that the word earthquake was verboten and not to be used on the Cal State University Northridge campus. What has changed that has allowed you the opportunity to explore the arts as a mechanism for acknowledging the 30th anniversary of the Northridge earthquake?

Places are defined by pivotal moments. Sometimes those pivotal moments are extremely positive and memorable. Sometimes those pivotal moments are disasters or catastrophes. I don’t think one will ever think of Tiananmen Square without thinking of 1989. Northridge, for better or worse – some would say for worse – has been defined by an earthquake for three decades. There was a real interest at a certain point after the long and challenging process of rebuilding, which took the better part of a decade, where one wants to be known for other things. However, it doesn’t change the history, right?

Then President Brenda Wilson, against all odds, actually reopened the campus two weeks later for classes. Then it took another decade to rebuild it. So what we’re celebrating, if you will, is that perseverance, that resilience that built back better in the months and years following the earthquake.

At what point did it strike you as the right time to reach out to someone like Jacques Heim to create something and how long ago did that happen?

It was about two years of planning. That’s what it takes to plan a major premiere of a new piece. 30 years is funny. You think of 25 or 50 or something like that, but it’s almost two generations. Many people who survived the earthquake are no longer with us. Any adult, even up to the age of, let’s say, 34, 35 years old, won’t have a memory of it. But there’s still a significant portion of the population of LA in the Valley who do have very vivid memories of it, but they’re now distant enough that maybe an evening of art isn’t painful or triggering for them.

Maybe this is the right amount of time to sort of put it in context with all the other things they know about disasters and about human behavior and human recovery.

Why Jacques? Why Diavolo?

Jacques Heim lived through the Northridge earthquake. He had just established his company here in Northridge, funny enough, on Proscenium Avenue in a warehouse. He lived in Hollywood, and he has very, very clear memories of the Northridge earthquake. He said, in fact, that the Northridge earthquake influenced what Diavolo the company became. Which was about danger, about confronting danger.

They do things that are very physically challenging. Those are the qualities in the work. But it’s so much more than that because he’s also someone who uses structures, he uses architecture, he uses the built environment to both destruct and reconstruct. He created a company influenced by that moment in his life.

I spoke to Jacques in 2020 during the pandemic. He said, “I know we are in the middle of a complete disaster. But behind disaster, eventually we will see the light, but we have a long way ahead of us.” In your role as Executive and Artistic Director at The Soraya, what role does art play in your own life, apart from the venue, in allowing you to get to the other side of a disaster, to find that light that he talked about? 

Whether it’s a performance or, for some people it’s temple or church, people have to be together. And we live in a world where people are not together, at least not in a meaningful, substantive, positive way very often. Any difficult or raw human experience or emotion that a community or disparate peoples experience, I feel like in order to really process it you can’t be alone. I view that as one of the primary functions of a performance venue.

As we announced this performance, people became very emotional about participating in it, coming to it, being in the audience for it. What we’re not doing is recreating an earthquake. This is an artistic response to it. One of the things that’s been really interesting in the last two years working with Jacques on this, is that he has decided that the most interesting thing about challenges or catastrophes or disasters is that they do bring people together in a way that our ordinary lives don’t. That by coming together we have the opportunity to build something better. So that is very much his artistic rendering. It’s filled with, as you would expect from Diavolo, things falling and coming apart and wildly athletic and physical performances by dancers who are top of their form and accomplishing things that become these bigger than life representations of what a human undergoes when the Earth beneath them is no longer reliable, when gravity is no longer reliable.

Maybe there is something that that’s a bigger picture about what we can still learn about how we can be better or how we can respond post-pandemic. It seems like Existencia is not just about 30 years ago. It’s about 30 days ago. 

The pandemic is particularly insidious in this way because it was, first of all, global. No corner of the globe was exempted. We often think of disasters as being very specific to a location. It was kind of insidious because it didn’t destroy the world in an instant. It destroyed the fabric of the human experience in the world, which is a much more subtle thing to both recognize and to repair. So there is definitely that relativity to the current moment. The pandemic is no small part of that for sure. 

One thing the the pandemic did do was create enormous challenges for people who are in your position because the arts have had an incredibly challenging time getting people back into the theater. To paraphrase the last line of Putting It Together from Sunday in the Park with George by Stephen Sondheim, what is, from your perspective, the state of the arts right now?

Perilous. No one in my position ever wants to be honest because there’s no benefit to being honest. You don’t attract ticket buyers by saying the theater’s half empty. You don’t attract donors by saying it’s all on the edge of the cliff. But when we are honest, and I just roll that way, it’s going to take a miracle for the performing arts in Los Angeles to persevere through. I would say during 2020 that we will be able to maintain the illusion through 2023, and in 2024 it will all come unraveled.

What I mean by that is that’s when all the relief dollars would run out. That’s when the reality of whatever the future is for ticket buying, for philanthropy, for all of the things. Even on the artist side, so many artists, artistic organizations, have not reconvened or regrouped. An entire generation of young artists lost a really important formative time of their training and their practice.

This is what I know because I speak to all of my colleagues. There are very few in private who will say that everything is just fine. There are very few. There are some. But for the most part, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Los Angeles or New York or anywhere else. It’s a challenging moment because costs are as much as 30% higher and revenue is as much as 20% lower. It doesn’t take a genius to know that 50% gap has to be filled by something. And for most organizations, for the last to two-and-a-half, maybe three years, it’s been filled by relief dollars which are now gone.

If this is something that you were forecasting a while ago, how do you mitigate that? How do you move beyond it?

I don’t think you do. I think we’re going to see lots of arts organizations simply shut down. Look, there’s no arts section left in the L.A. Times. There are obviously important journalists doing work like you’re doing, but not reaching the same number of doorsteps. We were given arts news every day. And now most Angelenos get none, ever. Zero. Marketing is 2 to 3 times the cost that it used to be, because you’re not just competing with another arts organization on the arts page of the L.A. Times, you’re competing with Nike for digital space.

I do think that certain arts organizations emerge. Certain trends start to favor certain alternatives and hopefully live performance alternatives. Certain things rise to the top. When we say cultural or artistic Darwinism, what we mean is that only some survive and the rest don’t. I think we’re going to be in that moment and we’re going to head into the 2028 Olympics in a city with a field that is a shadow of its former self. It’s too bad because the 1984 Olympics were one of the most important moments, pivotal moments, in the arts in Los Angeles.

We will have 44 years between Olympics and in that 44-year time, we will have seen the arts rise in Los Angeles, and we will see the arts reach some sort of pinnacle and then decline to some degree or another. That’s just the reality right there. Not enough dollars in Los Angeles to fix it.

I hope that that things improve, because I, for one, can’t imagine living life without the arts, whether it’s here or anywhere else.

The things I love most: the performing arts, all the arts, public radio, mom and pop restaurants – these are all things that are imperiled right now. When you put them all into a bucket together, what do they represent? They basically represent all of the things that are not mass market, large conglomerate, call it whatever you may. They’re the very human side of creation that are not driven solely by a profit margin. There are people who say without a profit margin, maybe you deserve to be imperiled. Obviously I can immediately provide a retort, which is any human being may look at the things that they love most and see that they’re not actually attached to a profit.

Hopefully as Northridge did, as CSUN did, you can rise out of a tragedy or circumstances that seem to imperil your very existence and still find a way to to come out of it better and stronger. 

No choice. You have to try.

To see the full interview with Thor Steingraber, please go here.

Main Photo: Diavolo rehearses Existencia: 30 Years after the Northridge Earthquake in their LA Studio (Photo by George Simian/Courtesy The Soraya)

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THIS IS THE THIRD OF OUR BEST OF 23 REVIEW OF INTERVIEWS: On April 19th of this year I spoke with Tony Award-winner Stephanie J. Block about her upcoming show with Seth Rudetsky at The Wallis. She was on tour at that time with Into the Woods. But the show with Rudetsky was postponed. It has since been rescheduled for this Sunday at The Wallis. Instead of just one show there are now two.

I held the interview you are about to read until closer to the rescheduled shows. Which means some of the conversation we had is less timely now that it was in April. Discussions of Into the Woods, Funny Girl and her performance as Norman Desmond in Sunset Boulevard at the Kennedy Center aren’t as topical today as they were then.

But Block is not just a great performer – as her roles in Falsettos, The Boy From Oz and The Cher Show (for which she won her Tony Award) can attest – she’s also a great interview. So though slightly dated, this is one thoroughly entertaining conversation. What follows are excerpts from that interview that have been edited for length and clarity. I strongly encourage you to go to our YouTube channel to see the full interview.

You’ve sung on stage with Cher, you sung with Dolly Parton, and of course, you have your Tony Award. When you were tackling the very intense roles of Fifer, Belle, Ariel and Mary Poppins at Disneyland, is this what you imagined your career would be?

First of all, damn you! Secondly, as the story has it and it is true, my mother forged my birth certificate so that I could audition for the Disneyland Summer Parade. I wasn’t yet 16, so she had to forge my birth certificate. So that already tells you enough of what you need to know about the loving show mother that embraced me and encouraged me. But I was serious even back then.

I went to the Orange County, which was the High School of Performing Arts back then, and everything had that high level of stakes and intensity and discipline. So whether I was Fifer the Pig dancing down the parade route at Disneyland, I took as much pride in that as I did with doing Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods.

You were referred to at your church as the little Ethel Merman when you were seven years old. You have since had the opportunity to play Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes, which is a role that Ethel Merman originated. Are there other Ethel Merman roles that you would like to do?

I think with a lot of the classic musical theater pieces there might have to be some reworking. Would I love to play Annie Get Your Gun? Absolutely. I’d love to play Annie. But I think someone like Larissa FastHorse might have to go in there and change a lot of the lines in the material. But does the music still hold up? Yes. Does the sort of crackle in her performance and the indelible performance that she’s left for us still hold true in my heart? Yes. Because in my heart, I’m an old MGM girl. You put on one of those old movies – anything with Judy Garland, anything with Ann Miller – and it just changes the whole course of my day.

I saw you in Falsettos, and frankly, I think you were robbed for the Tony Award because that performance, that whole show, was one I will never forget. I saw 9 to 5 in Los Angeles. I saw The Boy from Oz and I recently saw Into the Woods before it closed in New York. And the first time I saw you was in Crazy for You at La Mirada. 

Oh, my gosh.

Those shows, absent Crazy for You, are a mix of huge successes and less successful shows. Something Hal Prince said that I thought was really interesting was how much he learned more from the shows that weren’t successful than the ones that were. Is there a difference between the lessons you’ve learned on shows that were successful versus the ones that were not?

I think we just have to say that 75% of most Broadway endeavors would be defined as quote unquote, failures. So right off the bat, three quarters of every show that gets mounted is not going to last [long enough to] get their money back. I can’t speak to the producer end of it. I can only speak to the actor end of it. Yeah, I do learn a lot about myself when things don’t go as I hoped, prayed or wished. I will say I always enter a piece 150% because I think you have to love the project with that much in order to dive in.

When it starts falling apart, I’m also very much aware of that. I like to drink the Kool-Aid, but, all of the flags start going up. Or you go, Oh, this may not be going to Radio City to collect all the Tonys. But somehow I look at these artists that always start from scratch, begin again, are willing to put their vulnerable selves on the line for show after show after show. That, to me, is the biggest statement of most artists I know. That we really are willing to accept three quarters of it as failure and a small one quarter as success, and we keep jumping in headfirst.

Your performance in Falsettos of I’m Breaking Down, strikes me as a three-act play in 4 minutes and 48 seconds. What was the process of creating the ever increasingly intense breakdown over the course of that song?

You’re exactly right. You’ve got to have a beginning, a middle and an end. I find it so interesting that [composer/bookwriter] William Finn wrote essentially an 11:00 number in the first half hour of the play. That, in and of itself, is so out of form that it’s kind of wild. [Director/bookwriter] James Lapine said, I’m going to give you your space. I’m going to give you a couple days by yourself with our choreographer. I’m going to give you a whole host of props that you would find in your kitchen. I’m going to let you play and then I’m going to come in to see what you have created. For James, it’s very much simplicity defines mastery. Believe it or not, that epic song had more crap and props and movement to it than what you saw in its final version on Broadway. But I approached him and he said, How do you see this song? And I said, I think I see this song is like Carol Burnett having her own culinary show. And he goes, okay, well show me what you got.

This is Carol Burnett-slash-Trina trying to put on a very composed culinary show. Little by little, her inner voice, all of her demons, just start taking over. I actually went too far and he had to bring me back. Now we’ve got to find the balance between humor, angst and a conversation with the audience. So that was the balancing act.

Carol Burnett has to be a huge influence for you. While you were doing Sunset Boulevard you posted on your Instagram account a picture of Gloria Swanson side by side with Carol Burnett and said that your performance was going to be a combination of the two. How important is Carol Burnett in your life?

She’s wildly important to me. She, to me, being able to stand up as her and have a conversation with her audience to break that fourth wall and to be secure enough to say this is who I am as Carol, let’s banter and talk, then to embody a character in some of the most dramatic things I’ve ever seen. Then to embody humor and to not be so serious about herself that she could absolutely make fun of herself in the middle of a full skit. She’s a genius. I knew that if I could even do a fraction, if I could do one quarter of what Carol Burnett was doing, then there was a place for me in this world. 

Regarding Into the Woods, you said that was a dream role, 30 years in the making. What inspires you most about this show in general and more specifically about the role of the Baker’s wife?

In the beginning of my career I wanted to wear characters as like a costume and take on their shape, their form, their sound. Now as I get older, the goal is to bring myself to a character. To bring my story, my shape, my sound to these characters. The Baker’s wife is very much that. I am playing opposite my husband [Sebastian Arcelus]. So the baker and the baker’s wife couldn’t be more true than I feel is being portrayed now. My husband and I had quite a journey to get a child. It took us well over five years. As you can imagine, from Chinese herbs to shots to geriatric pregnancies, all of the above. When we tell that story, we are them and they are us.

The themes that are interwoven in this piece: it doesn’t matter if you’re in high school or you’re 80 years old or you’re a middle-aged woman, or you have a child, don’t have a child. Everybody’s journey personifies a different stage in someone’s life, and that’s what you’re going to hear. That’s what the audience is going to be attuned to. So right now, my journey as the baker’s wife and having a child is far different than me wanting to play the baker’s wife, like you said, 30 years ago.

You met Sebastian when you were in Wicked together. You got married before a performance, I think it was six years ago, and then you just went on stage. What do you remember most about that performance, particularly when you were singing As Long As You’re Mine?

Any time a couple, regardless of what stage it is in your relationship, when there’s a secret that just two of you hold, there is that sort of butterflies in the belly. There is sort of the giggle and the unspoken. We know something that nobody else knows. So that excitement certainly carried through. I’m sure we had smiles. [Elphaba] isn’t supposed to smile through the whole show, but internally I’m sure I had an extra sparkle in my eye and a smile that was underneath that green make-up when we did As Long As You’re Mine. It was a defining moment, certainly in my career, because all of those words took on a completely different meaning as husband and wife.

I saw one of the interviews that you did around The Boy From Oz and you said you weren’t doing the Liza Minnelli that we all know and love. This is Liza who was 18. It was before her fame had come to her. If 30 or 40 years from now, somebody wants to do a musical about somebody with whom you collaborated and an actor was going to take on the role of the young Stephanie J. Block, how would you like that character to be portrayed?

I would like her to be hopeful. I would like her to be silly. I would like her to be brassy because I was big and brassy. And I think always kind. Always kind, but ready to play. Those would be the words that I would infuse into the actress. It would be, I think, much like Liza, very difficult to watch that portrayal. Especially if somebody was to play young me but span 35 years of me in 45 minutes. I would feel like there’s a lump in my throat going, Oh, but there’s more. Oh, but you forgot to add that. But I think I would also have an open heart and the grace to accept it and receive it and hopefully lovingly support it.

In a 2006 interview you did with BroadwayWorld, you called the role of Fanny Brice in Funny Girl your “favorite regional theater role.” You went on to say, “It’s time to bring her back to Broadway. What a powerhouse role for any actresses. Producers interested can call 555-Stef!” which I thought was terrific. Fanny is back on Broadway now in a production that has had more rollercoasters than Disneyland. What does this production tell you about the challenges of producing contemporary musical theater and the pitfalls that have to be avoided? 

If I’m going to answer this, my disclaimer is I am taking great liberties because I have no horse in the race as a producer. But what I would like to see happen is that we cast a part based on the merit and the truth and the marriage of an actor and a piece not based on what could possibly sell tickets because of the pedigree of one particular person or one particular thing. It is a collaboration and a marriage and they all have to meet up.

I think we also have to entertain the idea of thinking outside the box. Then step into rehearsal. And then if it doesn’t go as planned, that there is the open-heartedness and the grace that I just spoke about to say, okay, great. You are monstrously talented. Perhaps this is not the vehicle that we all thought it was going to be for you, and that’s not going to service you or the piece. Let’s rethink. How do you feel about that? Let’s re-engage the conversation.

Much like art, live theater, is a living, breathing thing that I wish the creation of a piece can continue to be that without looking at the bottom line. That something is being created for artistry’s sake, and that within that landscape or ecosystem, things change or mistakes were made or gosh, this isn’t working out the way we hoped, or my God, this is working out even better than we hoped, right? But that the conversation can still happen and that grace can surround that. That’s what I feel.

Reviews and audience response to the Kennedy Center production of Sunset Boulevard means you’re giving us all optimism that there might be a Broadway revival. Do you have any new ways to dream, shall we say, about a Broadway production in which you play Norma Desmond?

I have 25% chance, maybe 50% chance, that there will be new ways to dream. The timing is not the timing I would like. There is a project that is in the works for cinema for Sunset Boulevard. That is ALW’s [Andrew Lloyd Webber] focus. That’s The Really Useful Group’s focus. And I can understand that as a business woman. As the artist, I would have loved to have seen a momentum and a transfer.

When I was asked by [Broadway Center Stage] Artistic Director, Jeffrey Finn of the Kennedy Center, what would you like to do in the next year, and I came out with this, I had no idea that this part and I would embrace each other in such a way that it affected me. It affected the audience. It affected the whole piece to be looked at in a completely different way. That was not my goal. But that was one of those times where we were all jumping in headfirst with no expectations, just wanting to create something different. Timely. I am of the school now that if you are going to revive, there needs to be a why. So we shall see what the next couple of years might bring. I’d like to hope that there’s space for it back on Broadway. We’ll see.

There was a Tony Monday last year or the year prior where you posted a video saying to your friends who were or were not nominated, that regardless of that the story continues to be told. What’s the story that’s most important for you to tell through your work today and through these evenings you have with Seth Rudetsky?

For me, right now, the word that is screaming in my head is connection. Absolute connection. If you are putting something out there and it is not being received and then digested and something is being thrown back at you, that’s my ultimate goal. Whether I am playing a part, whether I’m myself, whether I’m beside ridiculous, monstrously talented and smart Seth Rudetsky, for me, the evening was not a win if I did not connect and communicate with my audience. So that’s always the goal.

I certainly think we’ll do that at The Wallis. These intimate nights and spaces, they’re a joy to me. They really fill up my artistic bank. And much like Carol Burnett, it does feel like I’m standing there in my own skin wanting to meet them and wanting them to meet the real me. 

To see the full interview with Stephanie J. Block, please go here.

Main Photo: Stephanie J. Block (Courtesy The Wallis)

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But it didn’t to Mizrahi. Fashion was the surprise, music was the first love.

On Saturday Mizrahi will be making his Los Angeles-area singing debut at The Wallis. So what better time to talk to the perfectly frank Mizrahi to discuss his passion for music, the songs and singers that inspire him and the place where fashion and music overlap.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel. And I recommend you do. Everything he says is even better when you hear his voice!

But before we get started…a little of the musical stylings of Isaac Mizrahi.

I saw an interview that you did before you started performing at the Carlyle and you said that the eighth grade version of you would have been very surprised that you went into fashion and would have assumed that you would have gone into music. What would that eighth grader think of you performing at venues like the Cafe Carlyle, somewhere in Beverly Hills or around the world?

I think that the eighth grader would have been way less surprised, but also extremely, extremely proud and happy. What I love is that I’ve lived this incredible life which kind of informs my stage presence, you know? I mean, even when I’m acting. I just got through on Broadway as Amos Hart in Chicago. When I’m actually playing a character that is really informed by the past like 35 years of my life pursuing something so fervently and doing a lot.

I do a lot, you know, And at the same time that I was making these clothes, I was I was still performing with my band and working with Ben Waltzer and doing these small gigs. Now it’s kind of taking center stage in my life.

There was a time when I thought I had kind of chosen the wrong path. I really mean it. Why did I do that fashion thing when it makes me so happy to be on stage and to be performing? I mean, fashion makes me happy, but in a completely different way. It’s the damage control side of me. I like being this this person who runs after people and re-ties their bows better, you know. So that’s sort of what that’s about. And I still do it. Let’s face it, I do have a really big fashion business and I’m very pleased about that. 

As you’re talking the idea of you playing Amos Hart is rather ironic to me. A man who isn’t visible, who isn’t being seen. That seems like it is exactly the polar opposite of you.

There is a part of that I can so relate to. You know, I don’t care who you are. I don’t care how flamboyant you are, how sort of like beautiful you are. There is a side of you that always feels not seen. That is what I tapped into.

You’re quoted as saying “I don’t like people to feel completely described by the clothes they wear of mine. I want them to feel that they’re describing themselves.” What can we learn about you from the songs you choose to perform and the way you choose to perform them?

The funny thing is this is going to sound like a trite answer to such a smart question. I feel like the songs choose me, you know, the way clothes choose you or the way a pastry chooses you when you walk into a bakery. The thing just calls out and you look at it, you go, I must eat that, you know? It’s the same way.

There are certain things that I feel really comfortable wearing because I feel like they fit well and there are certain songs that are just begging to be done by me. It’s really a very mysterious and emotional process by which you pick songs. At the end of the day, you know, when you’ve rehearsed it and put it together and it’s in the show, it makes a lot of sense.

There’s one thing I love about the press release that came out for the show at the Wallis, because it says you’ll be you’ll be performing soon-to-be classic songs. How do you define what a soon-to-be classic song is?

To me Billie Eilish is a genius, right? So if she writes something, it is soon-to-be classic, you know? You know what else is soon-to-be classic? Well, you’ll see. I don’t want to spoil stuff. 

I just wanted to get a definition of what soon-to-be classic is.

Some songs that may in the past have been considered silly fluff which I absolutely think are not silly fluff and I absolutely adore. Like my opening number, which at the Annenberg will probably be I’ll Plant My Own Tree from Valley of the Dolls. It’s this amazing arrangement that we killed ourselves over. I feel like maybe that’s not considered a classic, but soon-to-be considered classic after you hear my cover of it. And darling, you might hate it, so maybe it won’t be classic. That’s why I say perhaps soon-to-be classic.

Your Instagram account has a couple of photographs of encounters you had with Stephen Sondheim. His music is is apparently going to be part of your show. What do you remember most about your encounters with Steve? 

His is a kind of resonance in our backgrounds. He’s a native New Yorker and so am I, so there’s this kind of similarity in the way we see the world. There’s a similarity in our senses of humor. His wicked, wicked sense of humor. And I look up to him. Of course, everybody looks up to him.

I went to the revival of Merrily We Roll Along and I just cried for the entire two-and-a-half hours. I was just sobbing through the whole thing because there’s a way that he has of looking at the world that I always aspire to. There has never been a greater teacher to me in terms of, not necessarily how I look at musical theater, but just the way I look at life.

I groomed myself to be like a sort of a living, breathing Stephen Sondheim character. I can’t drink as much as all that because I’m allergic to it or something. But that’s the only thing about me that is not like typically Sondheim in, you know, not just in terms of the music that I do or my love of musical theater or something, but as an adult person. 

You don’t just have the perspective as a singer with Stephen Sondheim’s music. You have the perspective of having directed A Little Night Music in 2010 [at The Opera Theatre of St. Louis]. How does the director who had that experience influence the singer who now performs the songs?

Knowing Steve and really knowing this person for a very long time, he didn’t really regard singer’s voices to be the greatest things. He loved a good singer. Let’s face it. He loved Barbara Cook. He loved people who could really sing and produce a sound. But I think he valued more people who could tell stories like Beth Howland [the original “Amy” in Company]. He adored Beth Howland. He adored Barbara Barrie [the original “Sarah” in Company]. These are not necessarily people you would cast for their singing voices. He loved the way [Elaine] Stritch could sing.

I was supposed to have [Stritch] on my show. And they said, if you want to do a pre-interview with her the only time she could do it is 3:00 in the morning because she’s like this big insomniac. So I called her at 3:00 morning because I am, too. 

She said, Oh, I’m such a great raconteur, you know, blah, blah. And I thought, No, darling. I said you are a great musician. Kristin Chenoweth is amazing and she can produce almost an operatic sound. It’s an incredible instrument. And I know Sondheim adored the way she sang. But to me they are equals as musicians. Kristin Chenoweth and Elaine Stritch were the same to me.

What do you see as as what fashion and music have in common?

Clothing is a lot about styling, you know, put juxtaposing things next to each other that are extremely interesting that have not been done before. So I’m really good at arranging the song in the way that I want it to be presented and then perceived. But more than that, darling, don’t bother me if you’re going to do the song in exactly the same way or worse than the way the person who did it. I give it my way of making it something a little to me better, or at least better from my perspective. 

You have your riffs and and your patter that you bring into your concerts. I love the whole idea that you said in one of the clips on your Instagram page that when you get older you do not get better looking. 

It’s just the truth. 

What is your relationship to getting older? 

This is part of what I’m going to be talking about in this particular show. I’ve turned some kind of crazy corner on my whole life. I look at pictures and I’m reading Instagram and there’s like 17 complimentary comments. There’s one hateful thing that somebody says and I’ve started to like them. I started to like the haters almost more than I like the likers. It’s like liking the haters. I love these pictures of myself where I look like a fat old Jew. I love it. I recommend these pictures of me as a fat old queen.

It’s also nice to take the hate away from the haters, too, isn’t it?

By going “Darlings, I never meant for you to like me.” I adore the controversy. Yes.

You’ve directed a production of Peter and the Wolf, you’re singing around the world, you’ve directed opera, you’ve designed clothes for opera. Are you spending the next chapter of your life trying to prove F. Scott Fitzgerald wrong that there are truly second and third acts in American life? 

Yes. The answer is very simple. One of the things that Steve used to say to me all the time, he’s like, “Oh, darling, you’re a polymath.” And I thought he was like Oh, you’re such a polymath, right? That means you suck at everything, whereas he is this great master.

By the way, Stephen Sondheim and Mark Morris, my friends. Go figure that out. They do one unbelievably exquisite thing. That’s all they do, right? Steve just wrote those words and that incredible music and made those shows. Mark just makes those masterful poetic dances. That’s all he does. Here I am doing cooking videos and I can’t not be that person. Now I’m kind of thinking of those words of Steve going, “Oh, you’re such a polymath.” And I think he really meant it as a compliment.

It must be nice to have that gift from Steve now that he’s no longer here.

It is. It really, really is. At least in my fantasy, by the way.

To see the full interview with Isaac Mizrahi, please go here.

Main Photo: Isaac Mizrahi (©David Andrako/Courtesy The Wallis)

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My Top Pick Is:

MUSICAL THEATRE: STEPHEN SONDHEIM’S OLD FRIENDS: A CELEBRATION (Live at the Sondheim Theatre)  – Multiple Artists – First Night Records

On May 3 of last year Cameron Mackintosh assembled an all-star line-up to celebrate his friend, Stephen Sondheim. It was, according to all who were there, a night unlike any other.  A live recording of that concert is this week’s top choice.

What’s most joyous about this album is hearing the audience respond as theater stars in the US and UK took to the stage to sing and perform 41 of Sondheim’s songs. The line-up includes Shan Ako, Christine Allado, Michael Ball, Rob Brydon, Ashley Campbell, Helena Bonham Carter, Anna-Jane Casey, Petula Clark, Rosalie Craig, Janie Dee, Judi Dench, Daniel Evans, Maria Friedman, Josefina Gabrielle, Louis Gaunt, Amy Griffiths, Haydn Gwynne, Rob Houchen, Holly-Anne Hull, Bradley Jaden, Bonnie Langford, Damian Lewis, Julia McKenzie, Ian McLarnon, Julian Ovenden, Bernadette Peters, Sian Phillips, Jon Robyns, Clive Rowe, Jenna Russell, Jeremy Secomb, Imelda Staunton, Charlie Stemp, Matthew White, Gary Wilmot, and Michael D. Xavier, students from Mountview, and The Royal Academy Musical Theatre Company.

While the entire recording yields delight after delight, it has its melancholy moments, particularly when Haydn Gwynne appears to perform two songs from Company: “The Little Things You Do Together” and “The Ladies Who Lunch.” Gwynne who appeared in Billy Elliot the Musical (and was terrific) passed away on October 23^rd.)

I’m firmly of the belief that the best-ever performance of Send in the Clowns by Judi Dench from the 1995 Royal National Theatre production. Her performance here 27 years later is just as good.

This show was so well-received that a revised production of it is currently running in London through January 6, 2024. For tickets and more information, please go here.

Though not extensive, here are the rest of my picks for New In Music This Week: December 8^th:

JAZZ:  NOW’S THE TIME: THE GENIUS OF CHARLIE PARKER #3 – The Quartet of Charlie Parker – Verve Records

Originally released in 1957 after Parker’s death, this is a vinyl re-issue that’s part of the Verve By Request series. It features a dozen tracks and two different quartets comprised of Hank Jones on piano; Teddy Kotich and on bass and Max Roach on drums. This sessions was from late 1952. This quartet was responsible for the first six tracks which make up side one of the record. 

The other six tracks featured Al Haig on piano; Percy Heath on bass and Max Roach on drums.  This session dates back to late July 1953.

There have been multiple releases of this labum with adiditonal songs added and more alternate takes of Chi Chi, but the vinyl re-issues sticks to the original track list.

JAZZ:  A SHADE OF BLUE – Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio – Evolution Media

76-year-old Japanese jazz pianist has been releasing album since 1974. In this very traditional and very enjoyable trio album he is joined by Hiroshi Kagawa on bass and Toshio Osumi on drums.

There are ten tracks that allow the musicians to stretch out over 70 minutes of music. The songs performed include Bye Bye Blackbird, Last Tango in Paris, Misty, Speak Low and The Way We Were. 

I wasn’t too familiar with Yamamoto before listening to this album, but the beauty and simplicity of it has prompted me to explore more and more of his music. You should, too.

OPERA:  OPERETTE – WEIN, BERLIN, PARIS – Diana Damrau – Erato

Clearly the title of this album indicates that the recording will feature music from operettas rather than opera. Along with the two composers you most expect to hear on an album like: Johann Strauss II and Franz Lehár, Damrau has included many other composers who might be as familiar to you:  Paul Abraham, Henri Christiné, Emmerich Kálmán, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Francis Lopez, André Messager, Robert Stolz and Oscar Straus.

It comes as no surprise that Damrau sings with passion to this material which is much lighter than audiences might be expecting. She is joined by tenor Jonas Kaufmann for two tracks.  

Ernest Theis leads the Das Münchner Rundfunkorchester in this thoroughly enjoyable recording.

That’s our short, but compelling, list of New In Music This Week: December 8^th.

Enjoy your weekend. Enjoy the music!

Main Photo: Part of the album cover for Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends

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