The Broadway giant has been toying for a decade with a project called ‘Bunuel’, based on the Spanish director’s films The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Exterminating Angel.
He’s decided now that, at 91, he’s never going to finish.
More here.
Statement by the Berlin Phil: It is with…
The composer Michael Tippett referred to him as…
The sad death of Sir Andrew Davis brings…
The International Malko Conducting Competition has ended in…
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He’d already written enough masterpieces for eternity by the 1980s!
Ah well.
Well Thomas Ades wrote an opera on the latter
He needs a good kick in the behind from Kurtag. It’s never too late to compose.
If you’re implying that Sondheim is lazy you have no clue. Also, please remind me which lyrics Kurtag wrote.
That’s really a shame; hopefully the near complete first act will be preserved and even staged. It could have a wonderful life as a chamber piece for schools or smaller theaters, or as an anchor work in Sondheim cabaret shows. Don’t throw it away!!
It’s a shame; Sondheim is still underappreciated if you don’t live in Broadway-world, and it would be nice to have more from him. But I’m much younger than he is and don’t plan to be working when I’m 91, so I can’t fault him if he’s had enough.
I’ve found Sondheim’s ‘singspiel’ musicals rather boring and monotonous. More syllables per note than Gilbert and Sullivan and not as interesting. And on the pointy end of consonance; unsympathetic characters; the complete nightmare. He did his best work when somebody else is composing the music.
My guess is that this will end up like Lulu: perhaps efforts will be made to present the finished first act, with a reconstructed second act. God willing!
But like someone else said, he’s written enough masterpieces for 10 lifetimes at this point.