(executive producer of a special benefit Sondheim: A Musical Tribute (1973), and with Neil Meron one half of Storyline Entertainment)
re. the original motive and metaphor:
"It was something that we always wanted to do. A musical that dealt with love and lovers and mismatched partners . . . love and foolishness, tying it all together with age." (Harold Prince)
re. the move away from the original concept:
"The way all this worked was that Madam Armfeldt, who was like a witch figure, would reshuffle the pack of cards and time would revert and we'd be back at the beginning of the weekend again. The characters would then re-form, waltz again, and start over. It was all to be presented like a court masque with a music-box quality. . . . Hal finally persuaded me that instead of being as dark as Bergman, we should go entirely in reverse. . . . He wanted the darkness to peep through a whipped-cream surface. Whipped cream with knives . . . "
re. the Aronson design:
"For the new musical, Boris Aronson began creating a modern setting of six sliding panels made of transparent plastic painted over with birch trees, and Florence Klotz went to work creating an elegant turn-of-the-century costumes."
re. the adaption by Hugh Wheeler:
". . Basically his book became a straightforward telling of Bergman's story, although Prince and Sondheim planned to treat the show as an operatta instead of a musical comedy."
re. the conceit of the lieder singers:
"When Steve wrote the very first song he said that he brought in a liebeslieder group standing around a piano and I couldn't see why. Then I got the idea for a singing overture and the whole use of the lieder singers, who would represent the people in the show who aren't wasting time." (Harold Prince)
re. the departure from the New York idiom:
" . . Steve said at first, 'I don't know if I can write this . . .what do I know about Sweden at that time?' And I told him - and I always go to the top - 'What did Shakespeare know about ancient Rome? Just do it. You're not writing a documentary. Just write what you're feeling about those people!'"
re. the relationship to the film:
". . . Hal and Steve never said that they going to retell the story of Smiles of a Summer Night. They decided to lyricize the various aspects of love. That was the intention. And there's a point of view to everything that's on that stage from the old lay to the maid in the grass."
re. the voyage as an organizing principle:
" . . . we decided that the one thing all the characters had in common was that they were going off for a weekend in the country. Hal and Hugh outlined a series of events revolving around the invitation and I wrote the number 'A Weekend in the Country'."
re. thoughts from the choreographer, Patricia Birch:
" . . . I was somewhat apprehensive about doing Night Music. I realized that the show was almost anti-choreographic. Here was a musical that was going to be built on all of Steve's beautiful waltzes, and I could hear myself saying that I don't ever want to break into 'The Grand Waltz' because I don't think that is what Bergman is about, nor do I feel that's what's written, nor was it going to be possible to start poking 'numbers' in."
re. the notice by a critic in Boston:
" A Little Night Music was greeted modestly in Boston. 'It suffers,' said Kevin Kelly in the Boston Globe, 'from a kind of complicated simplicity that stirs admiration but not much feeling . . . It's distinctive, charming, pleasurable, and remote. I appreciate all of its qualities, except its over-worked intricacies, and wish it had the power to make an impression on my emotions since it is a musical dedicated to the mystery of emotions . . . I think it is a musical for a very special, very limited audience.'"
re. another critic in Boston:
" It slows down in the end, saunters and dawdles when it should gallop apace, and loses some of its bright edge of irony. Even so, A Little Night Music is a lovely show, a civilized entertainment, elegant and amusing." (Elliot Norton, The Boston Herald American)
re. the quality of the show, and a note to us:
from Flora Roberts: " . . you have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Unfortunately, the show's biggest problem was that the first fifteen minutes were dull. But Hal was right to keep the piece simple and quiet."
and Prince's response?: " . . I said its Chekov in style, let's stick to Chekov and they've got to go with us. The only reason for doing it was we wanted to do this kind of musical. If we gave them a wham-bam opening number so that they felt comfortable, we would, in the long run fail. And we stuck to our guns and we were popular."
re. the notice on the New York opening February 25, 1973:
Clive Barnes in the New York Times: "At last a new operetta. A Little Night Music is heady, civilized, sophisticated, and enchanting. It is Dom Perignon. It is supper at Lassere. And it is more fun than any tango in a Parisian suburb . . . Yet perhaps the real triumph belongs to Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the music and the lyrics. The music is a celebration of 3/4 time, am orgy of plaintively memorable waltzes, all talking of past loves and lost worlds. Then, of course, there are Mr. Sondheim's breathtaking lyrics. They have the kind of sassy, effortless poetry that Cole Porter mastered . . People have long been talking about Mr. Prince's conceptual musicals; now I feel I have actually seen one of the actual concepts . . . Good God! - an adult musical!"
other criticisms included:
" . . exquisite and rather lifeless. It is over-refined operetta, attractive to the intellect but cool to the touch . . . something special, remote elegant and unablet reach the heart." (Douglas Watt, Sunday Daily News)
"I think Steve's score to Night Music is glorious but I found the show too polite. I thought Hugh Wheeler's book was tastefully written and a fine piece of craftsman ship, but it lacks feeing and that's a pity. The abrasivenessthat is part of Steve is what stimulates him most. On the other hand, he was dealing with musical styles that are very dear to him . To have reference to all of those styles was very rewarding for him. But I don't know why the show was as successful as it was . . . and I don't think they did either. . . . The reason that it did so well at the box office was probably because of its neatness and placidity . . . there is nothing disturbing about it. The feelings those people have are very real - at least in my head they're real - but they're not as disturbing or real or foolish or anguishing in the production as I wish they had been." (James Goldman)
(Goldman also makes some interesting remarks about the problem of the double opening and the lieder singers . .)
re. using movie techniques in the final scene:
. . .The last scene in Night Music, which takes place everywhere on the estate, appears to be happening only on the lawn. What no one else realizes is that the young wife and her stepson are running along a hall and down an alley and off to the country. Desiree is having her scene with her lover in her bedroom. The countess and Fredrik are having a conversation on the lawn, and so on . . . it's all over the place. It's actually a situation that can't be done on a stage, but I told Hugh Wheeler not to worry about it, to write it as though it were a movie. What I did was put it all on the landscape and I don't even think the audience quarelled with it . . . or even asked where they were. I think people sense some things. I think people sense that you know where they are so they leave it alone. I think if they ever sense that you're unsure of what you're doing, that insecurity filters through the work." (Harold Prince)
. . . he then invokes the succesful abstraction of movies by Fellini and Antonioni . . .
Craig Zadan
excerpted from ? ,
originally from Sondheim & Co. New York: Nick Hern Books, 1990.
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