In a hotel room later, Gabriel is devastated to discover that he has misunderstood Gretta's feelings she has been moved by the memory of a young lover named Michael Furey who preceded Gabriel, and who died for the love of Gretta. As the party is breaking up, Gabriel witnesses his wife, Gretta, listening to a song sung by the renowned tenor Bartell D'Arcy, and the intensity of her focus on the music causes him to feel both sentimental and lustful. "I was perfect," the witch sings, "I had everything but beauty, I had power, and a daughter like a flower in a tower.A professor and part-time book reviewer named Gabriel Conroy attends a Christmastime party thrown by his aunts ( Kate and Julia Morkin, grand dames in the world of Dublin music) at which he dances with a fellow teacher and delivers a brief speech. But what I love about it is partly that Sondheim had a way of writing these absolutely devilish, almost tossed-off melodies that I think of as Bernadettes - as in, "I'm pretty sure only Bernadette Peters can sing that exactly right." And "Ever After" has a bunch of them, mixed with playful rhyming that came to mind when I first saw Hamilton. Unfortunately, you begin to sense that something is not quite right. In fact, it is explicit on this point: "Journey over, all is mended, and it's not just for today/but tomorrow and extended, ever after." "Ever After" is the bridge between these sections, coming right at the end of the first act, and if you don't pay too much attention to it, it really does seem to be a conclusion of sorts. The genius of Into The Woods is that the first act is like a regular fairy tale with happy endings, and the second act complicates them all: people become unfaithful and get killed and stop loving each other in the same way. Along the way, it delivers little stunners like "someone to crowd you with love." And about that bridge? "Make me confused/mock me with praise/let me be used/vary my days"? It's an especially effective combination of a big, big moment in a song and a superficially mundane sentiment like "vary my days." "Someone to need you too much/someone to know you too well/someone to pull you up short/to put you through hell." Although it does have a bridge, this song mostly repeats and builds as Bobby is urged on by his friends - unlike a lot of Sondheim songs that weave and change. The story of Bobby, a man surrounded by couples and terribly skeptical about marriage, ends with this climactic admission that what is terrifying about intimacy is the same thing that is precious about it.
I am, more than anything, a Company person.
I invite you to hear mine, but to love yours, however you first heard them.Ī lot of the Sondheim faithful see themselves as devotees of one show above all others: they are a Sweeney Todd person, a Sunday person, a Follies person.
#Everyone has a story passion song professional#
I sent another friend a clip from Sunday In The Park With George after he had a professional disappointment. I watched a VHS tape of Into The Woods when I was babysitting in high school, and I never stopped loving it. I wasn't so much a Sweeney Todd person - it freaked me out. I can offer only the fact that, almost always, on some level, there is Sondheim music in my head it takes almost nothing to nudge it from sleep and get it tripping across my lips as I do the dishes or drive my car. Sondheim died at 91, and I encourage you to read every obit, every snippet of historical context.
On the day of Stephen Sondheim's death, creating a list of his songs you will never stop playing is to invite an argument - and I do. Bernadette Peters leans forward to discuss the recording of the "Sunday in the Park with George" album with Stephen Sondheim and producer Thomas Z.
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