Auckland Live and Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra’s cabaret salute to Stephen Sondheim was a sparkling success, complete with a glittering mirror ball over the Civic stage.
This man was a music theatre giant, writing with literary and musical layerings that made his a unique and often challenging voice.
The APO’s selectionof numbers, taking advantage of music director Mark W. Dorrell’s close association with Sondheim, shrewdly mixed the familiar with the less so.
Could one imagine a niftier launch than Instructions to the Audience from The Frogs? Or a more moving encore than the full company reprising Send in the Clowns against Dorrell’s gleaming piano?
Tyran Parke was a winning MC, perfectly balancing information, commentary and anecdote, sneaking in a confession of his boyhood idolisation of fellow cast member Delia Hannah.
Delia Hannah sings 'Losing My Mind'. Photo / Adrian Malloch
As a singer, his Buddy’s Blues was choreographed and characterised to a T; in a moment of playful re-gendering, he hilariously took on the manic patter of the unwilling bride in Getting Married Today. A stunningly detailed Finishing the Hat showed the benefit of working with Sondheim himself.
Baritone Edward Laurenson was the ultimate debonair hero, bantering wittily with Parke in two numbers from Into the Woods and offsetting surges of operatic heft with sensitive underplaying.
Bridget Costello’s bright, clear soprano was nicely tempered with humour in Lovely, although it might have bloomed a little more warmly as West Side Story’s Maria.
(Left to right): Musicians Tyran Parke, Delia Hannah, Bridget Costello, conductor Anthony Hunt, Edward Laurenson and music director Mark W. Dorrell. Photo / Adrian Malloch
I felt sorry for Delia Hannah, making her entrance singing a tricky Sondheim word scramble, but, no fear - from the song’s title line, There Won’t Be Trumpets, it was clear this was a diva assoluta, Broadway-style. Her Could I Leave You? chilled, her Send in the Clowns tore at heartstrings, and Losing My Mind had a lazy lustre worthy of both Sondheim and Gershwin, who had inspired the song.
The APO, under the energetic Anthony Hunt, clearly enjoyed the stylish orchestrations, especially Jonathan Tunick’s for A Little Night Music, the gossamer delicacy of which marvellously matched the magic of the moment.
