A Sondheim Letter- Page 2

[John Adams]

Posted: 2/2/19 at 2:41am

GavestonPS said: "* I don't know, John Adams. Sondheim has no trouble writing at length in FINISHING THE HAT (or its sequel) that SUNSET BOULEVARD should never be adapted except as grand opera. Without naming names, that pretty much dismisses several years of work by Andrew Lloyd Webber."

'Ya know, Gaviston - I don't know, either! I wish Sondheim and I were on a similar intellectual, amiable, and creative level, that I could say we were "besties"...  (I wish!)

But you inspired me to dig a bit. I found this @ http://www.sondheim.com/works/sunset_blvd/:

"I never wrote anything for Sunset Boulevard... shortly after Forum, Burt Shevelove and I started to write a version of Sunset Boulevard. We got maybe an outline, I think, and just the beginnings of a first scene, and I happened to meet Billy Wilder at a cocktail party, and shyly said to him that a friend of mine and I were starting to make a musical of his movie, and he said, "Oh you can't do that," and I figured that he was going to say that we couldn't get the rights; but he went on to say, "It can't be a musical - it has to be an opera, because it's about a dethroned queen." And that seemed to me such a shrewd observation that I called Burt and said "Let's forget it, because I certainly don't want to do an opera."

I still feel that Sondheim has historically demonstrated artistic generosity in regards to his own works. I don't think I will ever be reconciled with the paring down of Sweeney Todd's score for the movie version, yet Sondheim appears to be OK with allowing another artist his interpretive freedom. 

I feel like this is a good example of "actions speak louder than words". Although Sondheim has verbally expressed his opinions about Parker's verse, I find it hard to believe that his words were meant as directive, as opposed to respectful observation, and a form of praise for Parker. When a genius like Sondheim allows other artists such unfettered freedom with his own work, why would I think he would attempt to be restrictive of other artists' work?

Updated On: 2/2/19 at 02:41 AM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 2/2/19 at 10:41pm

Um, Jack, you are having some sort of conversation with yourself. Thank you, I guess, for quoting the very Sondheim remark I had referenced in my previous post.

Personally, I think it destroys your notion that the man's "character" would preclude him from saying anything prescriptive about the adaptation of another, 'cause, obviously, that isn't true in all cases.

But is he generally polite in addressing other artists? Seems so to me.

[haterobics]

Posted: 2/2/19 at 11:31pm

Norman M2 said: "I'm asking people to listen to my score and decide for themselves whether Sondheim was right about this."

What is the going rate on how many random people online it takes to overrule Sondheim on matters of musical composition for the theater?

Updated On: 2/2/19 at 11:31 PM

[jv92]

Posted: 2/3/19 at 12:51am

On the contrary, Sondheim knew Fields personally, I'm sure. He surely know her work, which appeared on Broadway up through SWEET CHARITY in the late1960s and SEESAW, in the early 1970s. IIRC, he even mentions her lyrics as one of the models for the pastiche numbers in FOLLIES."

 

According to Sondheim, Herbert Sondheim introduced Dorothy Fields to her husband, and young Steve knew her as "Aunt Dorothy" growing up. I think she was also friendly with the Hammersteins, so no doubt she was around him enough. Plus he tell the very sweet story in the first "Hat Book" about her admiration for a particular section of the song "In the Movies" from SATURDAY NIGHT, which he played for her as a young man trying to get that show on. 

He's cool to her work with Cy Coleman (he prefers Coleman with Carolyn Leigh-- who doesn't?), but I ask you, who else but Dorothy Fields would start a song (as she did in the first song in SWEET CHARITY) with the line "Man, man, oh man..."? Especially in 1966! 

She was super hip. 

 

 

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 2/3/19 at 4:03am

I'm glad we don't have to choose between Leigh and Fields, with or without Coleman.

But the use of slang in SWEET CHARITY delights my ear every time I hear it.

On the other hand, Leigh invents new language ("and the squeal of a real, live girl"--other than serial killers, who ever said that before and how did Leigh make it sound SWEET?) in LITTLE ME.

Both geniuses in their field, if you ask me.

Updated On: 2/3/19 at 04:03 AM

[Owen22]

Posted: 2/3/19 at 4:43am

GavestonPS said: "To take but one example, Sondheim hasbeen saying in articles and in his own books for decades that "intricate rhyming always indicates education and high intelligence", and then he tells the story about Sheldon Harnick knocking Maria's "I Feel Pretty" in WSS.

Well, one can quarrel with some of Maria's vocabulary in that song ("committee"?), but reservingrhymefor uneducated characters ignores the considerable success of LIL ABNER, FINIAN'S RAINBOW and, arguably, HELLO, DOLLY! (except for the title character of the latter).

It may be a perfectly useful convention for Sondheim and Harnick (both masters of the form, IMO), but it is just that: a convention. And one that ignores the use of rhyme in comic pieces, where audience comprehension of every word is key and where even playing with the language may be part of the fun. Yes, it is something Hammerstein eschewed in his attempt to make characters sing their own diction rather than that of the lyricist, but it's still just a convention.

Characters in a play don't know they are singing inrhymes (unless they do, which is yet another convention). Using rhyme as a "representational"scheme is a perfectly good system, but it isn't an edict from God above."

He even breaks his own rules sometime. Petra is uneducated but her rhyming in The Miller's Son seems to betray this.

[John Adams]

Posted: 2/3/19 at 9:59am

GavestonPS said: "Um, Jack, you are having some sort of conversation with yourself. Thank you, I guess, for quoting the very Sondheim remark I had referenced in my previous post."

Except that it wasn't Sondheim who said, "SUNSET BOULEVARD should never be adapted except as grand opera" (as you stated). It was Billy Wilder.

Sondheim accepted Wilder's statement as "a shrewd observation" and ceased his own pursuit of the project because "I certainly don't want to do an opera".

There's no indication from "the very Sondheim remark [you] had referenced in [your] previous post" that Sondheim was issuing an edict regarding Sunset Boulevard.