Lamplighters to Add Sondheim to Repertoire

courtesy of Lamplighters Music Theatre

The first Lamplighters Music Theatre production of the new year promises to be an imaginative and delightful departure from the Gilbert & Sullivan tradition. Among the composers whose theatrical works have translated from the Broadway stage to the opera house, Stephen Sondheim has been particularly successful. The San Francisco Opera production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, presented by David Gockley following a similar achievement with the Houston Grand Opera in 1984, made it onto my “memorable concerts” list for 2015. Sondheim provided both music and lyrics, working with Hugh Wheeler’s book. That joint effort first saw Broadway in 1979; but in 1973 the two collaborated on another memorable project, the creation of A Little Night Music, an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s film Smiles of a Summer Night.

The plot involves the romantic machinations of three couples. As might be expected, Sondheim captured the interleaving of both motives and actions through his deft capacity for writing intricate counterpoint. Indeed, when covering the original Broadway production, Rex Reed observed that the score “contains patter songs, contrapuntal duets and trios, a quartet, and even a dramatic double quintet to puzzle through.” He could just as easily have been writing about how Arthur Sullivan worked with the words of W. S. Gilbert. Nevertheless, Sondheim came up with the ultimate Broadway show-stopper, that has as much impact today as when he wrote it, “Send in the Clowns.”

San Francisco performances will take place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) in the YBCA Theater, which is located at 700 Howard Street on the northwest corner of Third Street. There will be three performances, at 2 p.m. on Saturday, February 2, and Sunday, February 3, and at 8 p.m. on Saturday, February 2. Orchestra tickets are $64.50 and those in the Terrace are $54.50. Seniors (aged 62 or older) are entitled to a $5 discount in both sections; and there is a $25.50 rate for students, also in both sections. The Box Office can be reached by telephone at 415-978-2787. Tickets may be purchased online through the three hyperlinks assigned to the above dates. The Box Office is closed on Mondays and opens at 11 a.m. on all other days. It closes at 8 p.m. on Thursdays and closes at 6 p.m. on the remaining days. The Box Office also opens 90 minutes prior to each performance.