Towering musical theater master Stephen Sondheim dies at 91

NEW YORK – Stephen Sondheim, the songwriter who reshaped the American philharmonic theatre successful the 2nd fractional of the 20th period with his intelligent, intricately rhymed lyrics, his usage of evocative melodies and his willingness to tackle antithetic subjects, has died. He was 91.

Sondheim's decease was announced by Rick Miramontez, president of DKC/O&M. Sondheim's Texas-based attorney, Rick Pappas, told The New York Times the composer died Friday astatine his location successful Roxbury, Connecticut.

Sondheim influenced respective generations of theatre songwriters, peculiarly with specified landmark musicals arsenic “Company,” “Follies” and “Sweeney Todd,” which are considered among his champion work. His astir celebrated ballad, “Send successful the Clowns,” has been recorded hundreds of times, including by Frank Sinatra and Judy Collins.

The creator refused to repetition himself, uncovering inspiration for his shows successful specified divers subjects arsenic an Ingmar Bergman movie (“A Little Night Music”), the opening of Japan to the West (“Pacific Overtures”), French creator Georges Seurat (“Sunday successful the Park With George”), Grimm’s fairy tales (“Into the Woods”) and adjacent the killers of American presidents (“Assassins”), among others.

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Tributes rapidly flooded societal media arsenic performers and writers alike saluted a elephantine of the theater. “We shall beryllium singing your songs forever,” wrote Lea Salonga. Aaron Tveit wrote: "We are truthful fortunate to person what you’ve fixed the world.”

“The theatre has mislaid 1 of its top geniuses and the satellite has mislaid 1 of its top and astir archetypal writers. Sadly, determination is present a elephantine successful the sky," shaper Cameron Mackintosh wrote successful tribute. Music supervisor, arranger and orchestrator Alex Lacamoire tweeted: “For those of america who emotion caller philharmonic theater: we unrecorded successful a satellite that Sondheim built.”

Six of Sondheim’s musicals won Tony Awards for champion score, and helium besides received a Pulitzer Prize (“Sunday successful the Park”), an Academy Award (for the opus “Sooner oregon Later” from the movie “Dick Tracy”), 5 Olivier Awards and the Presidential Medal of Honor. In 2008, helium received a Tony Award for beingness achievement.

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Sondheim’s euphony and lyrics gave his shows a dark, melodramatic edge, whereas earlier him, the ascendant code of musicals was frothy and comic. He was sometimes criticized arsenic a composer of unhummable songs, a badge that didn’t fuss Sondheim. Frank Sinatra, who had a deed with Sondheim’s “Send successful the Clowns,” erstwhile complained: “He could marque maine a batch happier if he’d constitute much songs for saloon singers similar me.”

To theatre fans, Sondheim’s sophistication and brilliance made him an icon. A Broadway theatre was named aft him. A New York mag screen asked “Is Sondheim God?” The Guardian paper erstwhile offered this question: “Is Stephen Sondheim the Shakespeare of philharmonic theatre?”

A ultimate wordsmith — and an avid subordinate of connection games — Sondheim’s joyousness of connection shone through. “The other of near is right/The other of close is wrong/So anyone who’s near is wrong, right?” helium wrote successful “Anyone Can Whistle.” In “Company,” helium penned the lines: “Good things get better/Bad gets worse/Wait — I deliberation I meant that successful reverse.”

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He offered the 3 principles indispensable for a songwriter successful his archetypal measurement of collected lyrics — Content Dictates Form, Less Is More, and God Is successful the Details. All these truisms, helium wrote, were “in the work of Clarity, without which thing other matters.” Together they led to stunning lines like: “It’s a precise abbreviated roadworthy from the pinch and the punch to the paunch and the pouch and the pension.”

Taught by nary little a genius than Oscar Hammerstein, Sondheim pushed the philharmonic into a darker, richer and much intelligence place. “If you deliberation of a theatre lyric arsenic a abbreviated story, arsenic I do, past each enactment has the value of a paragraph,” helium wrote successful his 2010 book, “Finishing the Hat,” the archetypal measurement of his postulation of lyrics and comments.

Early successful his career, Sondheim wrote the lyrics for 2 shows considered to beryllium classics of the American stage, “West Side Story” (1957) and “Gypsy” (1959). “West Side Story,” with euphony by Leonard Bernstein, transplanted Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” to the streets and gangs of modern-day New York. “Gypsy,” with euphony by Jule Styne, told the backstage communicative of the eventual signifier parent and the girl who grew up to beryllium Gypsy Rose Lee.

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It was not until 1962 that Sondheim wrote some euphony and lyrics for a Broadway show, and it turned retired to beryllium a smash — the bawdy “A Funny Thing Happened connected the Way to the Forum,” starring Zero Mostel arsenic a wily enslaved successful past Rome yearning to beryllium free.

Yet his adjacent show, “Anyone Can Whistle” (1964), flopped, moving lone 9 performances but achieving cult presumption aft its formed signaling was released. Sondheim’s 1965 lyric collaboration with composer Richard Rodgers — “Do I Hear a Waltz?” — besides turned retired to beryllium problematic. The musical, based connected the play “The Time of the Cuckoo,” ran for six months but was an unhappy acquisition for some men, who did not get along.

It was “Company,” which opened connected Broadway successful April 1970, that cemented Sondheim’s reputation. The episodic adventures of a bachelor (played by Dean Jones) with an inability to perpetrate to a narration was hailed arsenic capturing the obsessive quality of striving, self-centered New Yorkers. The show, produced and directed by Hal Prince, won Sondheim his archetypal Tony for champion score. “The Ladies Who Lunch” became a modular for Elaine Stritch.

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The pursuing year, Sondheim wrote the people for “Follies,” a look astatine the shattered hopes and disappointed dreams of women who had appeared successful lavish Ziegfeld-style revues. The euphony and lyrics paid homage to large composers of the past specified arsenic Jerome Kern, Cole Porter and the Gershwins.

In 1973, “A Little Night Music,” starring Glynis Johns and Len Cariou, opened. Based connected Bergman’s “Smiles of a Summer Night,” this rueful romance of middle-age lovers contains the opus “Send successful the Clowns,” which gained popularity extracurricular the show. A revival successful 2009 starred Angela Lansbury and Catherine Zeta-Jones was nominated for a champion revival Tony.

“Pacific Overtures,” with a publication by John Weidman, followed successful 1976. The musical, besides produced and directed by Prince, was not a fiscal success, but it demonstrated Sondheim’s committedness to offbeat material, filtering its communicative of the westernization of Japan done a hybrid American-Kabuki style.

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In 1979, Sondheim and Prince collaborated connected what galore judge to beryllium Sondheim’s masterpiece, the bloody yet often darkly comic “Sweeney Todd.” An ambitious work, it starred Cariou successful the rubric relation arsenic a murderous barber whose customers extremity up successful nutrient pies baked by Todd’s consenting accomplice, played by Angela Lansbury.

The Sondheim-Prince concern collapsed 2 years later, aft “Merrily We Roll Along,” a philharmonic that traced a relationship backward from its characters’ compromised mediate property to their idealistic youth. The show, based connected a play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, lone ran 2 weeks connected Broadway. But again, arsenic with “Anyone Can Whistle,” its archetypal formed signaling helped “Merrily We Roll Along” to go a favourite among musical-theater buffs.

“Sunday successful the Park,” written with James Lapine, whitethorn beryllium Sondheim’s astir idiosyncratic show. A communicative of uncompromising creator creation, it told the communicative of creator Georges Seurat, played by Mandy Patinkin. The creator submerges everything successful his life, including his narration with his exemplary (Bernadette Peters), for his art.) It was astir precocious revived connected Broadway successful 2017 with Jake Gyllenhaal.)

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Three years aft “Sunday” debuted, Sondheim collaborated again with Lapine, this clip connected the fairy-tale philharmonic “Into the Woods.” The amusement starred Peters arsenic a glamorous witch and dealt chiefly with the turbulent relationships betwixt parents and children, utilizing specified celebrated fairy-tale characters arsenic Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel. It was astir precocious revived successful the summertime of 2012 successful Central Park by The Public Theater.

“Assassins” opened off-Broadway successful 1991 and it looked astatine the men and women who wanted to termination presidents, from John Wilkes Booth to John Hinckley. The amusement received mostly antagonistic reviews successful its archetypal incarnation, but galore of those critics reversed themselves 13 years aboriginal erstwhile the amusement was done connected Broadway and won a Tony for champion philharmonic revival.

“Passion” was different terrible look astatine obsession, this clip a hopeless woman, played by Donna Murphy, successful emotion with a handsome soldier. Despite winning the best-musical Tony successful 1994, the amusement hardly managed a six-month run.

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A caller mentation of “The Frogs,” with further songs by Sondheim and a revised publication by Nathan Lane (who besides starred successful the production), played Lincoln Center during the summertime of 2004. The show, based connected the Aristophanes comedy, primitively had been done 20 years earlier successful the Yale University swimming pool.

One of his much troubled shows was “Road Show,” which reunited Sondheim and Weidman and spent years being worked on. This communicative of the Mizner brothers, whose get-rich schemes successful the aboriginal portion of the 20th period yet made it to the Public Theater successful 2008 aft going done respective antithetic titles, directors and casts.

He had been moving connected a caller philharmonic with “Venus successful Fur” playwright David Ives, who called his collaborator a genius. “Not lone are his musicals brilliant, but I can’t deliberation of different theatre idiosyncratic who has truthful chronicled a full property truthful eloquently,” Ives said successful 2013. “He is the tone of the property successful a definite way.”

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Sondheim was calved March 22, 1930, into a affluent family, the lone lad of formal shaper Herbert Sondheim and Helen Fox Sondheim. At 10, his parents divorced and Sondheim’s parent bought a location successful Doylestown, Pa., wherever 1 of their Bucks County neighbors was lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, whose son, James, was Sondheim’s roommate astatine boarding school. It was Oscar Hammerstein who became the young man’s nonrecreational mentor and a bully friend.

He had a solitary childhood, 1 that progressive verbal maltreatment from his chilly mother. He received a missive successful his 40s from her telling him that she regretted giving commencement to him. He continued to enactment her financially and to spot her occasionally but didn’t be her funeral.

Sondheim attended Williams College successful Massachusetts, wherever helium majored successful music. After graduation, helium received a two-year fellowship to survey with avant-garde composer Milton Babbitt.

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One of Sondheim’s archetypal jobs was penning scripts for the tv amusement “Topper,” which ran for 2 years (1953-1955). At the aforesaid time, Sondheim wrote his archetypal musical, “Saturday Night,” the communicative of a radical of young radical successful Brooklyn successful 1920s. It was to person opened connected Broadway successful 1955, but its shaper died conscionable arsenic the philharmonic was astir to spell into production, and the amusement was scrapped. “Saturday Night” yet made it to London's Bridewell Theatre successful 1997 and successful New York off-Broadway successful 2000.

Sondheim wrote infrequently for the movies. He collaborated with histrion Anthony Perkins connected the publication for the 1973 execution enigma “The Last of Sheila,” and too his enactment connected “Dick Tracy” (1990), wrote scores for specified movies arsenic Alain Resnais’ “Stavisky” (1974) and Warren Beatty’s “Reds” (1981).

Over the years, determination person been galore Broadway revivals of Sondheim shows, particularly “Gypsy,” which had reincarnations starring Angela Lansbury (1974), Tyne Daly (1989) and Peters (2003). But determination besides were productions of “A Funny Thing,” 1 with Phil Silvers successful 1972 and different starring Nathan Lane successful 1996; “Into the Woods” with Vanessa Williams successful 2002; and adjacent of Sondheim’s little palmy shows specified arsenic “Assassins” and “Pacific Overtures,” some successful 2004. “Sweeney Todd” has been produced successful opera houses astir the world. A reimagined “West Side Story” opened connected Broadway successful 2020 and this twelvemonth an off-Broadway “Assassins” opened off-Broadway astatine Classic Stage Company and a scrambled “Company” opened connected Broadway with the sex of the protagonist switched. A movie mentation of “West Side Story” is to unfastened this December directed by Steven Spielberg.

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Sondheim’s songs person been utilized extensively successful revues, the best-known being “Side by Side by Sondheim” (1976) connected Broadway and “Putting It Together,” off-Broadway with Julie Andrews successful 1992 and connected Broadway with Carol Burnett successful 1999. The New York Philharmonic enactment connected a star-studded “Company” successful 2011 with Neil Patrick Harris and Stephen Colbert. Tunes from his musicals person lately popped up everyplace from “Marriage Story” to “The Morning Show.”

An HBO documentary directed by Lapine, “Six by Sondheim,” aired successful 2013 and revealed that helium liked to constitute lying down and sometimes enjoyed a cocktail to loosen up arsenic helium wrote. He adjacent revealed that helium truly lone fell successful emotion aft reaching 60, archetypal with the dramatist Peter Jones and past successful his past years with Jeff Romley.

“Every truthful often idiosyncratic comes on that fundamentally shifts an full creation form. Stephen Sondheim was 1 of those. As millions mourn his passing I besides privation to explicit my gratitude for each helium has fixed to maine and truthful galore more," vocalist and histrion Hugh Jackman wrote via Twitter.

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Mark Kennedy is astatine http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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