CD Review: Sondheim Sublime – Melissa Errico

SONDHEIM SUBLIME – Melissa Errico (Ghostlight Records)

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Isn’t it bliss? asks Stephen Sondheim rhetorically in his most famous creation Send In The Clowns and bliss it is when the thrilling Melissa Errico lets loose for one golden hour of the greatest living composer’s work on her new album Sondheim Sublime.

Errico is a well-kept secret in the UK but a big star on Broadway, not just as a Sondheim interpreter where she stands comparison with Bernadette Peters but as a musical theatre all-rounder much admired by Sondheim himself.

Her Sondheim CV started with Dot in Sunday in the Park With George in 2002 and has continued with Clara in Passion in 2013 and, three years later, Leona in Do I Hear a Waltz? Sondheim’s least favourite show because he didn’t get on with his distinguished collaborator Richard Rodgers.

The striking Errico needs to be seen because she’s a visual talent with hypnotic hands, an actress who gets under the skin of her material and as a formidable intellect – she has an honours degree in art history and philosophy from Yale – she can talk the talk.

And she will be seen for three nights (6-8 May 2019) in a return visit to Live at Zédel in London where she made a brilliant cabaret debut in February of last year.

But for the moment we have to settle for Sondheim Sublime, a CD that concentrates on the serious side of the composer’s work, soulful Sondheim, reflective Sondheim, lovelorn Sondheim, bittersweet Sondheim.

Starting with the sexy, smoky, jazz-style ‘Sooner or Later’ from the movie Dick Tracy which won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1991, the unique way Errico extends the notes and uses the pause for dramatic effect is immediately apparent.

The rest of the songs, from Passion’s ‘Loving You’ to ‘The Miller’s Son’ from A Little Night Music and ‘Move On’ from Sunday in the Park With George, in Errico’s radiant hands reach new heights of vocal eloquence.

Sure, Sondheim classics like ‘Clowns’ and ‘Losing My Mind’ are there but also the less familiar ‘Isn’t He Something’ from Road Show, ‘I Remember’ from the made-for-TV Evening Primrose and ‘With So Little to Be Sure Of’ from Anyone Can Whistle, a rare Sondheim flop that lasted only nine performances on Broadway in 1964.

Accompanied only by Tedd Firth on piano, this is late-night Sondheim like you’ve never heard before. As the Wall Street Journal said: “The best all-Sondheim album ever recorded.” I’ll drink to that.

Jeremy Chapman