Sondheim Sublime: Melissa Errico continues at Live At Zedel, London until 8 May 2019.
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
When Melissa Errico made her London cabaret bow last year, I wrote: “Sometimes five stars are not enough. Such was the case with the hypnotic New York star’s triumphant UK debut at Zedel’s, 90 minutes of pure bliss.”
Fifteen months on, nothing has changed. I remain hypnotised, mesmerised even, by this striking lady who has come back principally to promote Sondheim Sublime, “the best all-Sondheim album ever recorded”, in the words of the Wall Street Journal.
As intelligent a talker as she is a singer and actress, Errico says “this isn’t all Sondheim but it’s my Sondheim – Sondheim at his most philosophical, songs that are highly particular but entirely universal, songs where you have to keep stretching yourself.”
It is a philosophy summed up in the words of ‘Move On’ from Sunday in the Park With George: “Anything you do, let it come from you, then it will be new, give us more to see.”
When she opens the show with the smoky, sexy, jazzy ‘Sooner Or Later’ you do a double-take and think “this can’t be Sondheim” but it surely is, the track he wrote for Madonna in the 1990 movie Dick Tracy that won a Best Original Song Oscar.
It could hardly be more different from the soul-searching 11 o’clock numbers for which he is most renowned, ‘Send in the Clowns’ from A Little Night Music and ‘Losing My Mind’ from Follies, both feature in the show, emphasising the versatility of the man many regard as the world’s greatest living composer.
All 16 songs on the album are in this Zédel set, plus, for light relief, the giddy and delicious ‘Moment in the Woods’, where the Baker’s Wife, after being seduced by the Prince, dizzily reports: “What was that? Was that me? Was that him? Did a prince really kiss me?”
Errico has recently added that role to her Sondheim stage portfolio in a New York concert version of Into the Woods at the Patchogue Theatre on Long Island. It is a love affair which started with Sunday in the Park With George in 2002 and continued with Passion in 2013 and Do I Hear A Waltz? three years later.
It was after seeing her as Leona in ‘Waltz’, his least favourite show because of an unhappy collaboration with Richard Rodgers, that Sondheim congratulated her with “You were wonderful” before (dramatic pause) taking it down a notch with “…most of the time!”
It is that use of the pause, that contradiction, of making a character feel confident, then unsure that informs Sondheim’s best work and which Errico brings into her unique style and her storytelling.
It is this contrast of beauty with horror, duty versus desire, that Errico so meticulously explores, stretching lines and phrases as she stretches herself. She is so visually appealing as well, using facial expressions, hands, arms and body alongside crystal-clear diction and a voice that never, ever strains to put her pictures on his words.
Among her other material ‘The Miller’s Son’ from A Little Night Music, ‘Not While I’m Around’ from Sweeney Todd, ‘Loving You’ from Passion, ‘I Remember Sky’ from Evening Primrose and ‘Children Will Listen’ from Into the Woods stand out.
While ‘Isn’t She Something!’ from Road Show, a song about a dysfunctional mother, echoes Sondheim’s own upbringing with a mother he detested whose cruel letter to the young Steve included: “the greatest regret in my life is giving you birth.”
Lovingly backed by her musical director Tedd Firth with Laurence Ungless on bass and Adam Kovacs on drums, Errico’s 80-minute masterclass is a must-see for every cabaret wannabe as well as more experienced practitioners who think they’ve cracked this art form but haven’t. She is one of a kind.
Jeremy Chapman
Readers may also be interested in:
CD Review: Sondheim Sublime – Melissa Errico (Ghostlight Records)
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