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Edward Seckerson
Writer and broadcaster Edward Seckerson is chief classical music and opera critic for The Independent. He wrote and presented the long-running BBC Radio 3 series Stage & Screen, in which he interviewed many of the most prominent writers and stars of musical theatre. He appears regularly on BBC Radio 3 and 4. On television, he has commentated a number of times at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition. He has published books on Mahler and the conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, and has been on Gramophone Magazine's review panel for many years. Edward presented the 2007 series of the Radio 4 music quiz Counterpoint. He has interviewed everyone from Leonard Bernstein to Liza Minelli; from Paul McCartney to Pavarotti: from Julie Andrews to Jessye Norman.
Sondheim aficionados will note that Trevor Nunn has reinstated one cut number - "Silly People" for Madame Armfeltd's manservant Frid - in his excellent revival of the master's A Little Night Music at the Menier Chocolate Factory. It's a strange, somewhat bitter, digression that briefly but boldly shifts the perspective on to the serving classes and points accusingly at the self-indulgent folly of their social betters.
But the ever practical Sondheim and his collaborators felt that at this point in the show the audience weren't interested in gaining insight into a peripheral character. Seeing it reinstated, I'm not so sure. But that's the joy of Sondheim shows - reappraisal perpetually renews them. To know them better is to love them all the more. And something else is becoming clearer with the passage of time: that the sharpness of their observation thrives on the closest scrutiny and actively benefits from a more intimate presentation.
Remember how A Little Night Music was lost without trace in the wide open spaces of the National's Olivier Theatre? Put simply, we couldn't get close enough to the people, and people - real people truthfully portrayed - are what Sondheim shows are all about.
But the ever practical Sondheim and his collaborators felt that at this point in the show the audience weren't interested in gaining insight into a peripheral character. Seeing it reinstated, I'm not so sure. But that's the joy of Sondheim shows - reappraisal perpetually renews them. To know them better is to love them all the more. And something else is becoming clearer with the passage of time: that the sharpness of their observation thrives on the closest scrutiny and actively benefits from a more intimate presentation.
Remember how A Little Night Music was lost without trace in the wide open spaces of the National's Olivier Theatre? Put simply, we couldn't get close enough to the people, and people - real people truthfully portrayed - are what Sondheim shows are all about.
