Sondheim! The Birthday Concert

To Stephen, with love

At 80, Stephen Sondheim is having one of his best years, valedictories and revivals of his shows are everywhere and now there is even a Broadway Theater that bears his name. So how to do an unrote tribute concert when there have been so many. The answer is Sondheim! The Birthday Concert, directed by Lonny Price, filmed over two nights last spring at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center. The concert is a joyous (if mixed) bag starring the best and brightest musical theater performers. And one for the record for the enveloping orchestral treatments by the composer's chosen conductor Paul Gemignani.

Along with the usual suspects- Patti, Bernadette, Elaine, Mandy- just to mention a few, this concert shows the Sondheim torch being passed to the current crop of Broadway stars starting with the women from the bilingual hit production of West Side Story singing and dancing (very well) on the Sondheim-Bernstein song "America."

David Hyde Pierce, is sincere funsies as emcee and perhaps the most fun is seeing Sondheim in the audience reacting to the performances. The lyrical baritone Nathan Gunn, sings a meaty rendition of "Johanna" from Sweeney Todd. Gunn is joined by Audra McDonald for a full scene, with lush vocal results, on "Too Many Mornings" from Follies.

In contrast "A Little Priest" also from Todd, with George Hearn who created it on Broadway and last year's star Michael Cerveris, plays particularly clammy outside the show, even with Patti Lupone's Mrs. Lovett shtick. Another dicey selection is the dated novelty "Hot Spot" (originally written for Judy Holiday) that doesn't hold up even though Victoria Clark really tries to sell it.

Maria Riccetto and Blaine Hoven from American Ballet Theater do a lovely specialty duet to the music from the filmscore Reds, which probably played better in the theater than it comes over on film. The finale is 'Beautiful Girls' sung by Pierce with grand drollness in German.

Peters, looking radiant as ever still owns "Not a Day Goes By" but has sung it better, not really settling on any one of the many versions she can do. Lupone, to much of a belter to get inside the "Ladies Who Lunch" can only deliver the crescendos, trying to steer it away from the minted Stritch version who was looking on approvingly. Audra McDonald gave it all she got for the "Glamorous Life" from A Little Night Music, but out of context this is Sondheim torrettes. Donna Murphy really delivers "Could I Leave You" with knockout irony and vitriol.

But it is Stritch who makes "I'm Still Here" so solid that she hardly has to calibrate it from her performance at the Carlisle Hotel. Stritch delivers it indelibly, a proven master with Sondheim lyrics. That highlight is topped off by the corps de Broadway singers and actors from shows downtown filling the stage and in the aisles singing Sunday from Sunday in the Park with George. Sondheim, visibly moved, is priceless as he takes in this theatrical moment of his amazing career.