Barbara Cook infuses Roundabout’s Sondheim on Sondheim with a half-century of Broadway musical wisdom.

When Barbara Cook sings a song by Stephen Sondheim, it stays sung. She is one of the great interpreters of the American songbook, and the best friend any songwriter ever had. In recent years, however, she has focused mainly on Sondheim’s work, mastering the melodic richness and virtuosic wordplay one expects of the composer and lyricist, but going beyond to reveal warmth, insight, humanity in each performance.

Cook first made her mark as Broadway’s go-to soprano ingénue: her 1951 Broadway debut was in the ill-fated Flahooley, but she bounced back a couple of years later in Bernstein’s Candide, and followed that up as Marian the Librarian in The Music Man in 1957—the same year that West Side Story opened, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Cook said goodbye to Broadway in the early 1970s and established a thriving career as a concert and cabaret singer, performing at small clubs and large halls all over the world. She’s released well-received recordings at a rate that Lady Gaga would envy. Cook sings frequently at Carnegie Hall and remains the only female non-operatic singer ever presented by the Metropolitan Opera.

Amazingly, Cook hasn’t ever sung Sondheim in a great big Broadway show. Until now.

Cook returns to Broadway in Roundabout’s Sondheim on Sondheim, a new revue of the composer and lyricist’s wide-ranging work, opening April 22 with a cast that stars Broadway and television stalwarts Vanessa Williams and Tom Wopat, as well as a new generation of singers. The show is directed by James Lapine, who directed and wrote the books for Sunday in the Park with George (Pulitzer Prize for Drama), Into the Woods, and Passion. Sondheim on Sondheim is Sondheim with a difference: rather than just a “and then he wrote” string of songs, the show offers an intimate look at the man and the artist in his own words, through footage of interviews, conversations, documentaries. It’s a prismatic, visually startling look at an artist we all thought we knew.

Cook once likened Sondheim to Picasso; both artists, she feels, are seminal figures in their eras, and both evince a ready willingness to take artistic risks. Hearing her talk about music and art, you feel like she’s raring to tackle whatever risk comes next. In her hands, Sondheim’s work just keeps getting simpler and freer and richer and clearer.

Cook, who turned 83 in October, talked to Front & Center during a rehearsal break.

FRONT & CENTER: How did you get involved with this project? Was there anything in particular that drew you to Sondheim on Sondheim? It’s a different kind of musical revue.

BARBARA COOK: First off, I have to tell you that it’s going to be really good. No kidding around. We’ve got something here that could be major. Thinking back, James Lapine and Stephen had been telling me that they would like me to do this show for some time. I was a little cautious because I wasn’t sure about the demands of doing eight shows a week and so on. But of course it was hard to say no—the material is just so wonderful. And when they explained to me what the visuals would be like, with the interview footage and the rest, I became more and more interested. And here I am.

Were you involved in the development of the show early on?

I came in when everybody else came in and we were ready to work. I didn’t have anything to do regarding song selections, in putting it together, or anything like that. Well, I did say that I’d like to do “Send in the Clowns,” and James agreed to that. That’s the only thing that I talked about at all.

It’s surprising that you weren’t involved in selecting songs.

Well, guys like James and Steve know how to make really good choices.

Were there surprises for you when watching the videos and interviews?

A few surprises, yes. It’s very moving to me, because I know so many of these people in the videos. I knew Dorothy and Oscar Hammerstein as well as their son Jimmy Hammerstein. They and Steve all go way back together. I did not know them terribly well, but it’s terribly moving to me to see them again, as well as so many others. Actually, I keep meaning to ask Steve when he and I first met, because I don’t remember exactly when that was. But I must have known him, oh, since the 1950s maybe. Certainly since the ’60s. [Laughs.] I’ve known him a long time.

Will audiences discover things about Sondheim that they didn’t know before because of the video interviews? Does he emerge as a different person than the one you’ve known?

A different person, no. Different aspects are being revealed, yes. For the general public, there will be a lot of things that they will be discovering about Stephen, lots of aspects of his life that are actually very moving. He is very open about very private things. To hear Stephen talk about his relationship with his mother—it was not an easy one—and then hear the songs that follow…well, it’s very moving.

Does that inform your interpretation of the songs?

I don’t think so—and I don’t know that it should, both for me as a performer and for the show as a whole. I am doing a lot of songs that I’ve never done before, and there’s a number of songs that I have done before.

Which songs are new to you?

There’s a lovely song from the show Evening Primrose called “Take Me to the World.” I hadn’t sung that before, and I had always thought about doing it. Oh—Tom Wopat and I are doing “You Could Drive a Person Crazy.” I’ve sung that alone, but now he and I are doing it as a duet—the way couples bicker sometimes. That’s a different take on the song that I hope people think is funny. I’m trying something different with some songs from Passion—we’ll see how that goes.

And there are new orchestrations for this show.

It’s just amazing what [arranger] Michael Starobin has done. It’s only eight musicians, and boy, Michael has done a great job. Michael and I worked together on the musical Carrie twenty years ago, so we know each other very well.

When you approach a new song, is that a big project? Is it fun?

It’s all a big project, believe me. [Laughs.] I tell you, everyone in this cast is really good. They are good singers and good actors. That’s a wonderful combination. Hearing what people like Vanessa Williams do with these songs, hearing what some of the other performers do—they all bring such different values to Steve’s work. We enjoy watching each other in this show. It’s a wonderful company—everybody is just great. And James really sets the right tone of calm as the director. You feel you’re in really good hands with him.

You’ve been singing some of these songs for quite a while now, and—

Stephen reminded me the other day that the two Follies concerts at the New York Philharmonic were in 1985, which means that I’ve been singing “In Buddy’s Eyes” for 25 years.

You mention “In Buddy’s Eyes.” Do you ever think, audiences sort of expect me to do this song, so I’d better do it?

I don’t think about any of that at all. I can’t get involved with that. I just do what is before me and hope I do it well.

Over time, does Sondheim’s material grow for you as a person?

It is so rich that I feel that there are always new things to find in there, new dimensions, new life connections. I always try to sing a song like it’s the first time. That’s just the way I work.

How does it feel to be back on Broadway?

It feels good. I’m enjoying it. I’ve done concert evenings on Broadway, but nothing like this. This is the first time I’ve done a show on Broadway in, let’s see, more than 38 years. The last one I did was The Grass Harp in 1971. That’s a long time to be in the trenches without other actors, trying to make this thing work on my own.

So it’s a homecoming of sorts.

Sure. It brings back all sorts of nice memories for me. And I’m more and more in awe of the work that James Lapine and the designers have done. I mean, visually, this is an amazingly beautiful show. And unusual. And moving.

We should expect the unexpected?

People will be surprised by this show. This is just not your ordinary revue of Stephen Sondheim songs that everybody else has done, with one song after the other, something like that. This show is major good: not only the material, of course, and the singers, but the visuals. It’s art onstage…so creative and so beautiful and so right. I believe you will have never seen anything quite like it.

Robert Sandla is the editor in chief of Symphony, the magazine of the League of American Orchestras, and writes frequently about theatre.

Comments

1. P Goyan Says:
   March 20th, 2010 at 3:15 am

   At the time it opened, I don’t think that “Candide” could be considered bouncing back. It was a flop, except for the Original Cast Recording.

   Also, I don’t think that Barbara Cook is the only woman to be presented by the Met. She was the first; I believe that Kristen Chenoweth followed her a year later.

   I adore Ms Cook, of course, and look forward to the reviews.

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