Cheap Sondheim - A Celebration at Carnegie Hall (DVD) (Kirk Browning) Price

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Customer Reviews of Sondheim - A Celebration at Carnegie Hall

if only you knew!!!!
I think "deangold" (see his review) obviously knows nothing about Stephen Sondheim or his music, since he doesn't even know that the title of the the song is "Getting Married Today". Also, I think for him to bash the late GREAT Madeline Kahn for her INCREDIBLE performance is a little sad....Did you notice that she is on stage...and you are not!!! Jealous are we?

The beauty of Mr. Sondheim's music is that you can take it out of it's setting and original staging and still enjoy it and be moved by it. Granted that most of the hair-do's and clothing are a little outdated on this DVD....but that is just fun.

There are many marvelous performances on this DVD....from Bernadette Peters' stirring rendition of "Not A Day Goes By", to Daisy Egan's very cute "Broadway Baby".

Furthermore, "deangolds" review of "Putting it Together": He thinks that it is fantastic. Has he actually watched it. There are some very great performances in it...but I would have to say that his "idea" of what performing is....well, I don't think he has ever been on stage in his life...and if he has....it wasn't good. BUY THIS DVD!

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Like Wagner
To paraphrase Noel Coward, Stephen Sondheim lacks talent to a remarkable degree. So, if you don't like it, don't listen to it (as I would like to say to the ladies' league of decency). There is a remarkable, darling old (Mary Rodgers) show called "The Mad Show" (with Linda Lavin and Jo Anne Worley), in it is a clunker called "The Boy From." I hated it before I ever knew who wrote it. Sondheim wrote it, an interpolation from the master. In "The Seven Percent Solution," a high octane cast Sherlock Holmes caper is a number sung I think in a brothel called "I Never Do Anything Twice." I winced and loathed it and would have bet money it was a German tune. The end credits gave it to Sondheim. It has been said Sondheim learned his trade from Hammerstein. Hammerstein didn't have much to teach, but he was better than this. A few years ago I made an effort to catch the Sondheim bug and bought many ($$$) CDs of Sondheim shows. God what a dismal, infuriating waste. The man has written only one popular song, "Send in the Clowns." I won't knock it by saying it's just a series of triads because lots of good songs are. But one? Sondheim's songs are insipid and weird and unpleasant to listen to, and as at least one person has said (and that one person is a comfort), you don't walk out of the theater humming them. Because you can't. This is good? Look at Lloyd Webber's songlist. Which would you rather hear? Ethel Merman went to her grave baffled by his success, I'll do the same. And talk about pretentious! In NYC I walked out of "Company" in a rage of ripped-off boredom, sat through "Follies" twice (because I liked the old actors, and if I have to name a favorite Sondheim show, it is this one), and watched that horrific totally unmusical "Sweeney Todd" (all the way through) on PBS. Oh yes. And that ridiculous rumor that Sondheim composed some of the dance music for "West Side Story." Only a tin ear would buy that one. And this review just covers his so-called music. Lyricwise, he has turned a few good phrases, but hardly enough to constitute a career. It's been said that the lyrics to songs are so unimportant that anyone can write them. That it just doesn't matter. Sondheim is no exception. Larry Hart is. Unless you already know Sondheim, or are from Manhattan, I advise you to rent this DVD before buying it. It stinks.

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agree with Tyler K. Brown: deangold hasn't a clue
One of the greatest joys of Sondheim is how he can be reinterpreted and still pack the same punch. deangold's review only proves that he not only doesn't grasp Sondheim's true artistry, but he's severely lacking in understanding theatre. Hint: that 'humorless piece of a stage hand reading lines that were written foe Angela Lansbury' is the irrepresible comic genius Bill Irwin doing a deliberate send up - deangold apparently missed it when Irwin shows up later in the show as the silent hysterical foil to Karen Ziemba for a show-stopping version of "Sooner or Later".

Some songs are performed as originally conceived ("Ballad of Booth") while others are teased (Dorothy Loudon turns the sentimental "Losing My Mind into a comic tour de force by combining it with "You Could Drive a Person Crazy - and damn if it doesn't work!) and others are outright revamped (the Tonics' jazz up the usually quiet ballad "Good Thing Going" with "Company" snuck in the middle). This is theatrical caberet at its very best, with top performers putting a unique spin on great songs.

If you're positively married to the Original Broadway Soundtracks, you may get a shock from some of these versions. But anyone who can appreciate artistry will thoroughly enjoy the uniqueness of this production which leaves you breathless time and again. Glenn Close singing "Send in the Clowns" proves WHY this song has been redone by every hack on 8th Avenue, Liza Minnelli and Billy Stritch put a little oomph in Back in Business that Madonna sorely lacked, and Bernadette Peters' rendition of "Not a Day Goes By" shows exactly why this petite woman is a Broadway powerhouse.

And they're all doing it to the magic of Sondheim. This is not to be missed.

(Do wish they hadn't cut those extra songs thought... darn it.)