- The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies
- Dedication
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction
- Sondheim’s Genius
- Sondheim and Postmodernism
- “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught”: Oscar Hammerstein’s Influence on Sondheim
- “Old Situations, New Complications”: Tradition and Experiment in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
- <i>Anyone Can Whistle</i> as Experimental Theater
- The Prince–Sondheim Legacy
- “Growing Pains”: Revising Merrily We Roll Along
- “Give Us More to See”: The Visual World of Stephen Sondheim’s Musicals
- Orchestrators in their Own Words: The Sound of Sondheim in the Twenty-first Century
- “Nothing More than Just a Game”: The American Dream Goes Bust in Road Show
- “It Takes Two”: The Doubling of Actors and Roles in Sunday in the Park with George
- “Something Just Broke”: Assassins after the Iraq War—A Production and its Reception
- Sondheim on the London Stage
- “And One for Mahler”: An Opera Director’s Reflections on Sondheim in the Subsidized Theater
- Evening Primrose: Sondheim and Goldman’s Television Musical
- From Screen to Stage: A Little Night Music and Passion
- More Sondheim: Original Music for Movies
- Attending the Tale of Sweeney Todd: The Stage Musical and Tim Burton’s Film Version
- A Little Night Music: The Cynical Operetta
- Croaks into Song: Sondheim Tackles Greek Frogs
- Sweeney Todd: From Melodrama to Musical Tragedy
- “Careful the Spell You Cast”: Into the Woods and the Uses of Disenchantment
- Keeping Company with Sondheim’s Women
- Follies: Musical Pastiche and Cultural Archaeology
- Narratives of Progress and Tragedy in <i>Pacific Overtures</i>
- Queer Sondheim
- Sondheim’s America; America’s Sondheim
- Bibliography
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
In its aristocratic plot, exotic setting, and musical topoi, A Little Night Music would appear to be Sondheim’s answer to late-Romantic operetta. What makes the piece completely modern, however, is its cynical rejection of fidelity in love, the unquestionable social norm against which the romantic comedy of an operetta plays off. The chapter reveals three sources of this cynicism: the significant alterations to the plot of Ingmar Bergman’s comic Smiles of Summer Night; specific techniques of stagecraft, in particular the use of a commentator ensemble; and the syntax of Sondheim’s music. But how can music, which in opera and musical theater is always the voice of truth belying what characters may do or say, be composed to be cynical?
Keywords: A Little Night Music, Ingmar Bergman, Smiles of a Summer Night, cynicism, musical syntax, operetta
Joseph P. Swain is author of The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey (1990; expanded ed., 2002), which wonASCAP's Deems Taylor Award in 1991. Other books include Musical Languages (1997), Harmonic Rhythm: Analysis and Interpretation (2002), and Sacred Treasure: Understanding Catholic Liturgical Music (Liturgical Press, 2012).
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- The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies
- Dedication
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction
- Sondheim’s Genius
- Sondheim and Postmodernism
- “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught”: Oscar Hammerstein’s Influence on Sondheim
- “Old Situations, New Complications”: Tradition and Experiment in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
- <i>Anyone Can Whistle</i> as Experimental Theater
- The Prince–Sondheim Legacy
- “Growing Pains”: Revising Merrily We Roll Along
- “Give Us More to See”: The Visual World of Stephen Sondheim’s Musicals
- Orchestrators in their Own Words: The Sound of Sondheim in the Twenty-first Century
- “Nothing More than Just a Game”: The American Dream Goes Bust in Road Show
- “It Takes Two”: The Doubling of Actors and Roles in Sunday in the Park with George
- “Something Just Broke”: Assassins after the Iraq War—A Production and its Reception
- Sondheim on the London Stage
- “And One for Mahler”: An Opera Director’s Reflections on Sondheim in the Subsidized Theater
- Evening Primrose: Sondheim and Goldman’s Television Musical
- From Screen to Stage: A Little Night Music and Passion
- More Sondheim: Original Music for Movies
- Attending the Tale of Sweeney Todd: The Stage Musical and Tim Burton’s Film Version
- A Little Night Music: The Cynical Operetta
- Croaks into Song: Sondheim Tackles Greek Frogs
- Sweeney Todd: From Melodrama to Musical Tragedy
- “Careful the Spell You Cast”: Into the Woods and the Uses of Disenchantment
- Keeping Company with Sondheim’s Women
- Follies: Musical Pastiche and Cultural Archaeology
- Narratives of Progress and Tragedy in <i>Pacific Overtures</i>
- Queer Sondheim
- Sondheim’s America; America’s Sondheim
- Bibliography
- Index
