Leonard Bernstein’s immediate successor in the musical theatre sphere was Stephen
Sondheim (b. 1930), with whom he collaborated on West Side Story. Whereas Bernstein’s
career predominantly unfolded in the concert hall, Sondheim made his way almost
exclusively within the theatre. However, many of his works, such as Sweeney Todd
(1979) and A Little Night Music (1973), are operatic in scope and are now often
performed in the opera theatre.33 Like Bernstein, Sondheim’s subject matter is usually
contemporary (or has contemporary implications) and often includes biting social criticism. According to Block, Sondheim has provided Broadway with “some of the most compelling, innovative, thought-provoking, and often emotionally affecting
musicals of this, or any, time”.34
Prior to Sondheim, the musical typically had a narrative structure which provided a framework for all songs, dances and dialogues. However, in Sondheim’s musicals, the music, lyric, dance, dialogue, design and direction are fused to support a central idea in much the same way as a Wagnerian opera. Many scholars and critics have commented
on the interwoven “seamless whole” created by Sondheim in his musicals.35 Banfield
has suggested that by writing concept musicals which explore the various facets of a single idea, rather than plot driven musicals that explore the actions and motivations of a range of different characters, Sondheim’s musicals “imply a kind of Wagnerian
32 Subotnik, Rose Rosengard. 1991. Developing Variations: Style and ideology in western music. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. 277.
33 Warner, Keith. “‘And One for Mahler‘: An opera director’s reflections on Sondheim in the subsidized theater.” In The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies, edited by Robert Gordon. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 237.
34 Block, Geoffrey. 2009. Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway musical from ‘Show Boat’ to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 337.
35 Gordon, Joanne Lesley. 1992. Art Isn’t Easy: The theater of Stephen Sondheim. New York: Da Capo Press. p. 7; Schiff, Stephen. 1983. “Deconstructing Sondheim.” New Yorker 49(3): 86.
Gesamtkunstwerk”.36 Joanne Lesley likewise compares Sondheim’s musicals to a
Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk.37 Similarly, Stephen Schiff describes Sondheim as the first
writer of musicals to use motifs in the Wagnerian manner, “tying themes and
characters together, and probing the psychology behind what is being sung”.38
Doubtlessly comparisons of his work with Wagner’s would horrify Sondheim, who is
not an admirer of Wagner.39 However, he does acknowledge his preoccupation with
musical unity. He often cites one of his most influential teachers, Milton Babbit, a composer of integral serial music:
This is what Milton Babbitt taught me … How do you organize something that lasts twenty or thirty minutes so that it doesn’t fall apart or become a series of five-minute pieces? … To me, it’s
important that a score be not just a series of songs—that it should in some way be developed, just the way the book is … Composition is about development, not about repetition. You move a motif along just the way you move a character; the character remains the same, but it
also changes.40
Sondheim is clearly not such a fan of the number opera format usually embraced by the other composers discussed here. His compositional approach is likewise quite different. Although Sondheim incorporates a wide range of disparate musical styles, he typically
integrates them into the unified web of his overall score41 rather than layering them
using the Stravinskian or Ivesian technique. According to Schiff, Sondheim uses a vertical compositional approach that gives primacy to harmony rather than melody. He typically begins the compositional process with the accompaniment figure rather than
36 Banfield, Stephen. 1993. Sondheim’s Broadway Musicals. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. p. 147. 37 Gordon, Joanne Lesley. 1992. Art Isn’t Easy: The theater of Stephen Sondheim. New York: Da Capo Press. p. 7.
38 Schiff, Stephen. 1983. “Deconstructing Sondheim.” New Yorker 49(3): 86.
39 For a good discussion about the debate surrounding the comparison between Sondheim and Wagner see Calderazzo, Diana. 2005. “Stephen Sondheim’s Gesamtkunstwerk: The concept musical as Wagnerian total theatre.” Master of Arts Thesis, University of Central Florida.
40 Cited in Schiff, Stephen. 1983. “Deconstructing Sondheim.” New Yorker 49(3): 86.
41 See, for instance, Lovensheimer, Jim. 2008. “Stephen Sondheim and the Musical of the Outsider.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Musical, edited by William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird. Cambridge:
the melody, employing “a tonal language not dissimilar to that of such early-twentieth- century composers as Rachmaninoff and Ravel”. As with these composers, the resulting effect is, an “atmospheric wash against which one melody sounds no more
appropriate” and, for Schiff, “no more memorable” than another.42 The resulting
monologic, poetic nature of his work stands in stark contrast to the multi-layered, multi-voiced works that have been discussed here, in which clearly differentiated musical soundblocks create a musical narrative through interacting layers of sound. Sondheim’s achievements are much admired and few composers of musical or opera since Sondheim can fail to take account of his work. Indeed, like Wagner, his work has exerted something of a paralysing influence. Commentators struggle to suggest any
obvious successor to Sondheim.43 Just as opera struggled to find its identity after
Wagner, the musical is now also struggling to find its identity after Sondheim. In a
recent interview about his successful musical Matilda, Tim Minchin has stated:
I have a public profile, not too much financial pressure, a show in the West End, Hollywood interest. If I can’t be [Stephen] Sondheim — apart from my massive lack of talent in the face of him — then who can be? It’s almost like a f***ing obligation, to write something that is not commercially pressured, in the hope that it could be a drop in the
turning of the tide against all those safe bets.44
The “safe bets” that Minchin is referring to are commercially produced American musicals. Because of his ability to create socially relevant works that escape the formulaic approach of most commercial musicals, like Minchin, I greatly admire Sondheim’s craftsmanship and his skill. I likewise looked to Sondheim as a model for my work but ultimately, like others, I have felt it would be almost impossible to emulate his unique approach. His ability to write lyrics and music and create a
42 Schiff, Stephen. 1983. “Deconstructing Sondheim.” New Yorker 49(3): 86.
43 Patinkin, Sheldon. 2008. “No Legs, No Jokes, No Chance”: A history of the American musical theater. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. p. 410; See also Banfield, Stephen. 2005. “Popular Musical Theatre (and Film).” In The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Opera, edited by Mervyn Cooke. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 304.
44 Aspden, Peter. 2011. “Lunch with the Ft: Tim Minchin.” Financial Times. 5 November 2011. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/dadba4fc-048e-11e1-ac2a-00144feabdc0.html. Accessed 26 August 2015.
musically and dramatically unified work has bought the musical to new heights. My response, like that of many twentieth-century composers responding to Wagner, has been to return to the early days of opera for inspiration, as I have done here. My main influences among late twentieth century composers are those who have likewise looked
back to the more inclusive and multi-voiced, polystylistic approach of opera buffa and
operetta composers to find inspiration for their work.