Stephen Sondheim and Bernadette Peters are pictured promoting an album together in December of 2011 However as the 1960s wore on he racked up some experience with flops, including Do I Hear A Waltz? with music by Richard Rodgers. He itched to turn his hand to composing and got his shot with the 1961 comedy A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, which became a massive success with Zero Mostel in the lead. West Side Story became his first produced Broadway musical when he was just 27 years old in 1957, and he went on to be praised for having 'reinvented the American musical.'Īlthough he studied to be a composer, he found himself much to his frustration only writing lyrics on West Side Story - a role he repeated two years later on the Ethel Merman vehicle Gypsy, which also garnered a reputation as one of the great Broadway shows of all time. His career spanned more than 60 years, and he was known for co-creating Broadway classics including Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods, which both went on to become hit movies. Sondheim came to regard Hammerstein as a parental figure amid his tortured relationship with his mother Foxy, whom he eventually supported in her later years out of what he described as 'filial duty' rather than love. 'It's a central principle, which is to treat songs like little one-act plays, where you present a situation, and then either resolve it or if you don't resolve it move it forward, so that by the time you finish the song you're at a different point than you are when you - this is in terms of the story of the show, of the play - so that each song has a function,' Sondheim explained on Desert Island Discs.Ĭomposer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim attends the premiere of HBO's 'Six By Sondheim' in 2013 There followed a conversation that has become legendary in theatrical history, where Hammerstein taught the teenage Sondheim the necessary mechanics of writing an effective stage musical. He brought the musical to Hammerstein and solicited the master's straightforward opinion - to which Hammerstein replied that the show was the worst he had ever read. Prior to his death, Sondheim had celebrated Thanksgiving with his friends surrounding him, according to his lawyer.Īfter his parents divorced when he was 10, he took solace in his time with the family of lyricist, producer and librettist Oscar Hammerstein, who won eight Tony Awards and two Oscars for Best Original Song over his career.Īt 15, Sondheim began writing his first musical, By George, which was a satire inspired by his high school in Newtown, Pennsylvania. I will miss him very much, but he left a body of work that has taught us, and will keep teaching us, how hard and how absolutely necessary it is to love.' 'When we spoke, I couldn't wait to listen, awestruck by the originality of his perceptions of art, politics and people - all delivered brilliantly by his mischievous wit and dazzling words. 'Steve and I became friends only recently, but we became good friends and I was surprised to discover that he knew more about movies than almost anyone I'd ever met,' Spielberg said. Spielberg said the two only recently became friends but he was struck by his deep love of art and film. Spielberg told ABC News that Sondheim was 'a gigantic figure in American culture - one of our country's greatest songwriters, a lyricist and composer of real genius, and a creator of some of the most glorious musical dramas ever written.'
Richard Pappas, The New York Times reported. Spielberg had nothing but high praise for the famed American composer and lyricist, who passed away 'suddenly' at his Roxbury, Conn., home on Friday at 91 years old, according to Sondheim's lawyer F.
Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg joined the chorus of luminaries paying tribute to Stephen Sondheim, calling him 'a gigantic figure in American culture' after the Broadway legend died just weeks before Spielberg's film version of Sondheim's classic West Side Story is released.
0 kommentar(er)
