{"id":1612,"date":"2013-05-09T08:07:30","date_gmt":"2013-05-09T06:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/?page_id=1612"},"modified":"2022-03-09T19:47:30","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T17:47:30","slug":"stephen-sondheim-80-years-old-berwaldhallen-stockholm","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/press-clips\/reviews-2010\/stephen-sondheim-80-years-old-berwaldhallen-stockholm\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Sondheim 80 years old, Berwaldhallen, Stockholm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dagens Nyheter 100213<\/strong><\/p>\n

By: MARTIN NYSTR\u00d6M<\/p>\n

The American musical composer Stephen Sondheim turns 80 this year and is praised at Berwaldhallen. Sondheim has never sounded better than this on a Swedish stage.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the second season of the now much talked about TV series \u201cMad Men\u201d the year is 1962 and everyone are suddenly keen to see \u201cA Funny Thing Happened On The Way to the Forum\u201d that has just had a highly acclaimed premiere on Broadway. A musical farce with a story in free fall by the young Stephen Sondheim who has previously made \u200b\u200bthe lyrics to \u201cWest Side Story\u201d and who has now started his career towards becoming America\u2019s most recognized and award-winning musical composer. \u201dA funny thing …\u201d was also the first musical that I myself saw on Broadway a few decades later, with an unforgettable Nathan Lane starring in a show where the energy in the stalls had a given jaw-drop factor.<\/p>\n

Now when the Radio Symphony Orchestra, fronted by Helen Sj\u00f6holm and Peter J\u00f6back, make a tribute to Stephen Sondheim, who turns 80 in March, they begin with music from \u201cA Funny Thing …\u201d – but with newly written lyrics explaining that \u201cthis will not be a ballet or a choir, there will be no effects and nothing that interferes.\u201c Only a dedicated and passionate performance of a bunch of his very best songs and acts.<\/p>\n

And it must be said at once: Sj\u00f6holm and J\u00f6back has been spurred to great deeds and the Radio Symphony Orchestra will not be anything less either under the conduction of Anders Berglund. Indeed, Sondheim has never sounded better than this on a Swedish stage.<\/p>\n

Because despite his greatness Sondheim has never, like Andrew Lloyd Webber, really made it big in Sweden \u2013 except for occasional productions of for example \u201cA Little Night Music,\u201d \u201cInto the Woods,\u201d \u201cCompany\u201d and \u201cSweeney Todd\u201d. He\u2019s a bit too sophisticated and elegant for the general musical audience and too non-commercial for the producers. But at the same time he is considered something of a God among musical artists themselves and is a bit of an alibi for the true artistry of the musical genre. I remember sometime in the 90\u2019s when the ensembles from two commercial musical productions in Stockholm \u201cran away\u201d in the middle of the season and set up a self-funded Sondheim Evening at the Oscar Theatre.<\/p>\n

A lot of that feeling is also in the show at Berwaldhallen when Sj\u00f6holm and J\u00f6back tell of Sondheim\u2019s works and perform at the top of their abilities in song after song. When they spur ahead into the often syncopated flow of words and make the wishes fly or make a stop in a moment of breathless awe.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most of all in the duet from \u201cPassion\u201d that makes me dream of a Swedish staging of this darkly romantic and totally unique chamber musical based on a movie by Ettore Scola. And why not with Sj\u00f6holm, J\u00f6back and Malena Ernman as the three main characters. In my opinion this is a given sequel to this lovingly brilliant \u201cCongratulations\u201d to Sondheim in Berwaldhallen.<\/p>\n

Back<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dagens Nyheter 100213 By: MARTIN NYSTR\u00d6M The American musical composer Stephen Sondheim turns 80 this year and is praised at Berwaldhallen. Sondheim has never sounded Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1476,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1612","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1612\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helensjoholm.nu\/_eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}