Contemporary Music Review, 9 Stephen Sondheim and The Open University in Wales

1989, Vol. 5, pp. 199-214

Photocopying permitted by license only

Sondheim's technique
S t e p h e n S o n d h e i m interviewed by Trevor H e r b e r t

This article is primarily made up of an edited transcript of an interview which Stephen Sondheim gave
in 1985 for a BBC/Open University television programme. In it the composer discusses his composi-
tional processes and the relationship between text (lyrics) and music. He also discusses issues relating
to performance practice of his work, in particular idioms (musical theatres, opera houses) inasmuch
as they influence his compositional method. The idiom of performances are further dealt with in
respect of the nature of audiences. The examples that Sondheim draws on are "The Ballad of Sweeney
Todd" from Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barberof Fleet Street (1979) and "Send in the Clowns" from A Little
Night Music (1973).

A note on the editing of the transcript

My questions are pr6cised but retain their original sense. I have edited out obvious superfluities in
Sondheim's responses and the order of the various sections of the interview have been modestly re-
arranged, but not to the extent that they alter the original sense. The music illustrations are those
which Sondheim played at the piano, the single exception being the first, which was illustrated in the
programme by a film extract.

KEY WORDS: Broadway, musical theatre

The questions were aimed at soliciting Sondheim's views on three broad areas;
compositional technique, word setting and the composer/audience relationship.
The extracts reproduced here are taken from each of these three areas. For
copyright reasons, the choice of Sweeney Todd and A Little Night Music as the
examples on which Sondheim would focus was made in advance of the interview.

TREVOR HERBERT: How do the initial ideas for songs present themselves? As
fragments of melody, rhythmic sequences or, perhaps, harmonic progressions?

STEPHEN SONDHEIM: . , . since I write exclusively for the theatre and for the
character and the plot, I'm always working with tools that have been set up for
me, that is to say the characters, the situation, the ambience, and what I try to do
is find a way of conveying that musically. In the case of SweeneyTodd, since I knew
I wanted this to be a scary show, what I wanted to do was convey a certain atmos-
phere at the beginning. Generally what I try to do is to get an accompaniment
figure, even in the more lyrical pieces that ! write, that is to say the slower pieces
9 just something that will suggest both the motion of the piece and the emotion
of the piece.
It seemed to me important that this piece be told as a tale, and as a whispered
tale at that, so that the stage would start off very dark and it would be like
somebody saying "I'm going to tell you a story", only doing it musically. So I
wanted a sort of murmuring to go on in the orchestra, a kind of faint wind-like
sound: I don't mean wind instruments, I mean - the breath of hell. And so I came
200 StephenSondheim

u p with this a c c o m p a n i m e n t figure - I usually start with an a c c o m p a n i m e n t figure

w h e n I write a song, e v e n ballads, m e a n i n g slow lyrical pieces, I tend to build o n
either harmonic or r h y t h m i c principles. Sometimes a melodic idea will occur to
me, but since good melodic writing implies the h a r m o n y that is u n d e r n e a t h it -
something y o u learn early o n w h e n y o u are s t u d y i n g m u s i c - I will often start with
the harmonic structure because for me w h a t gives music its distinction is its
harmonic l i n e . . , that is w h y it's so easy to play song detective; y o u can always
pick a t u n e from a Beethoven s y m p h o n y and find it recurring in a Strauss opera,
b u t it's the w a y it's h a r m o n i z e d that makes it individual. So the idea of setting u p
h a r m o n y that will eventually b e c o m e this version of the dies irae. ~

"~"7. I" ~' ' , .

I~.& ~ 'n3 7o~,- ,~ zor" va~, S~ - '~2~'

"r ~
i i i WlCle,
T' r
cI d '
7r r
WI~) OUr - g"

? .
la
' r: t;
_.it

Figure 1

and this m u r m u r i n g s o u n d led m e to this a c c o m p a n i m e n t figure, which operates

t h r o u g h o u t the s h o w - every time the Ballad comes back.

9 I I I 1 I I I I I I'I I I II ;I I I I I" 1

Figure 2

N o w there are a n u m b e r of subtleties in that. O n e of t h e m is that in order to keep

the sense of 6 going I accented the fourth eighth note in each [bar] just s l i g h t l y . .
9 and had it held over in the orchestra, so that there is a little pulse, a little throb
9 It's a stab, just e n o u g h to keep i t . . . from being m o n o t o n o u s a n d just [enough]
to disquiet y o u a little. It does not occur in the third bar so it is not regular because
 Sondheim' s technique 201

it w o u l d have been, I think, a mistake to [put it in every bar] - and t h e n a slight

crescendo on the fourth bar as if s o m e t h i n g a w f u l . . , is going to h a p p e n , just
e n o u g h again to unsettle the n e r v e s . . . .
H o w e v e r there is also, because I am also a lyric writer, the possibility of starting,
as I do sometimes, with a lyric idea, an idea for either a frame line or a p h r a s e or
s o m e t h i n g which suggests a r h y t h m , not necessarily a melodic profile but a
r h y t h m . Thus, if for example, setting this m e l o d y - I think I started with " A t t e n d
the tale of S w e e n e y T o d d " , that's a v e r y good o p e n i n g line. N o w having said that
it suggests a 6 r h y t h m right away -

Figure 3
One could make it a dotted r h y t h m -

Figure 4
but it suggests [a c o m p o u n d r h y t h m ] and that's also a suggestion of an old ballad
isn't it, ~? Once having d o n e that y o u think - all right, h o w do y o u set that line
"Attend the tale of S w e e n e y T o d d " ? Well, m y ear tells me that the "-tend" o u g h t
to be a higher note t h a n the "at-". So instead of going "at-" then, e v e n t h o u g h the
"at-" m a y be an u p b e a t and the " t e n d " m a y be a downbeat, if y o u start above, y o u
are putting a slightly false emphasis even if it's on the same note.

Figure 5
d o e s n ' t come to m y ear the w a y the V/I [does]

Figure 6
202 StephenSondheim

and s u d d e n l y I think, yes, that's the w a y y o u say that word - "Attend the tale of
Sweeney Todd [it] seems to me the important word is "tale".

Figure 7

So "tale" is the highest note in the melodic line.

Quite often the lyric will dictate a melodic idea just by the w a y the words rise
and fall. I am always very concerned with the setting of the language as it is
spoken. I write conversational lyrics for the most part. I rarely distort, and if I do
it's usually by accident and I just didn't catch it. But I'm a stickler for trying to
mimic the r h y t h m s of speech, partly because it sounds better on the stage from the
point of view of the actors, it's easier for them to sing if it approximates speech; it's
also easier for the audience to understand.

TH: Do your lyrics and musical ideas arrive simultaneously?

ss: In a sense, but they don't necessarily go h a n d in h a n d in terms of tone. One

of my favourite devices is to use either a light-hearted accompaniment for a very
bloody lyric, bloody in the sense of full of juice and text, or vice v e r s a - to use very
rich music in a very light way. I like that kind of conflict. But as far as the setting
of the language goes it seems to me you must do your best to make the audience
understand. I think the only sin, real sin, in the theatre is unintelligibility. That
can come from n u m e r o u s t h i n g s - it can come from not e n o u g h light and costume,
but it can also come from just not setting the language properly. Sometimes it
comes from a poor performer, but usually it's not, usually it's the songwriter's
fault. A n d my songs are not as hard to sing as they sound. They're quite often
dissonant and there are sometimes difficult m o m e n t s in the melodic lines where
I have a leap or something like that. But generally singers are very grateful
because they don't have trouble. I sometimes cause trouble by not giving them
proper breathing spaces which is something I am constantly fighting to try to find
a way of doing, particularly in a patter lyric, of keeping it going without having to
take a breath. But again I try very hard in the patter lyric to keep it trippingly on
the tongue . . . . Because if it's difficult for the performer to negotiate then it's going
to be difficult for the listener to hear, and in today's world w h e r e . . , everybody
is used to the quick taking-in of information there is
a very low patience threshold for an audience. If they don't u n d e r s t a n d the first
couple of lines or something, they turn off, they're not interested in listening any
more.

TH" YOU mention the possibility that production issues can cause unintelligibility.
Are there times w h e n compromises have to be m a d e in order to accommodate
general production principles?
 Sondheim's technique 203

ss: O h no, it h a p p e n s v e r y infrequently . . . . Sometimes I will a c c o m m o d a t e an

actor's voice, a singer's voice. The whole key relationship in "The Worst Pies in
L o n d o n "2 which is Mrs Lovatt's first song - this was quite different w h e n I wrote
it. But w e cast Angela Lansbury, w h o has, primarily, a chest v o i c e . . , she can sing
soprano but she uses that usually for comic qualities. H e r range, therefore, was
more limited because chest ranges are more l i m i t e d . . , and I h a d n ' t t h o u g h t of it
w h e n I was writing Mrs Lovatt. I . . . h a d n ' t h e a r d a chest voice in m y head, I heard
a sort of generalized soprano 9 The result was that it was too rangy so I had to
change the key relationships. I am n o w used to the n e w ones, but the original
ones were I think better. W h e n I say key relationships I'm talking about b e t w e e n
sections, I'm not talking about the key in which the actor sings it, but the fact that
the original range that it had m a y be an octave and four a n d an octave and five,
and for Angela I r e d u c e d it to,something like an octave and two, and that m e a n s
y o u have to take sections of it. That's one kind of change I have to make. It doesn't
h a p p e n very often but it does h a p p e n . You always w a n t to a c c o m m o d a t e the
singer. You k n o w there's no point in forcing the singer to do something - she
w o u l d have to go into her head voice and it w o u l d have r u i n e d it.
The other thing one does is listen to an audience. That is w h e r e the major
changes occur. A s h o w simply isn't written and p u t on the stage. A s h o w is
written, p u t o n the stage, and rewritten with the audience as collaborator. A n d
that d o e s n ' t have to do just with applause. That has to do with w h e r e their con-
centration is - are they following, are they not only enjoying but are they being
d r a w n along at the s p e e d y o u wish t h e m to be d r a w n along during the show? One
of the rules of t h u m b I have, a n d Hal Prince has, and most of the first-rate profes-
sionals I've ever w o r k e d with have, is [you] go into rehearsal with w h a t y o u think
is a perfect show, fully aware that during rehearsals s u d d e n l y h u g e flaws will
s h o w that y o u h a d no idea were there. As soon as y o u start putting it together
with a g r o u p of actors y o u k n o w that once y o u get in front of an audience a n o t h e r
set of h u g e flaws are going to s h o w up, some of which m a y be unfixable. So y o u
try to make it as perfect as possible to start with, so that y o u can do y o u r collabora-
tion with the audience because they will tell y o u w h e r e the story is dipping or
w h e r e the interest is dipping, or w h e r e t h e y ' r e enjoying it less. A n d it's even
subtler than coughing or rustling of p r o g r a m m e s - that obviously is a giveaway
9 . . but quite often y o u will just feel a let d o w n in the atmosphere. It s h o w e d u p
in S w e e n e y Todd - there was a song that is still on the r e c o r d i n g . . , as a matter of
fact w h e n it was d o n e at City O p e r a recently we restored the song for the judge
to sing. 3 It's his only musical statement and it-seemed necessary to me, but w h e n
in previews with the s h o w in N e w Y o r k - actually the previews were going excel-
lently - there s e e m e d to be a feeling, not specific and n o b o d y in the audience said
it, at the e n d of the first act that t h e y ' d sat a little too long. A n d it w a s n ' t that they
w e r e n ' t interested, y o u could feel something go out of the air s o m e w h e r e in the
middle of the act. A n d we looked at it carefully and realized that we had left our
principal characters for too l o n g - S w e e n e y and Mrs L o v a t t - the audience had just
got interested in t h e m and s u d d e n l y there was a seven-minute sequence with the
y o u n g lovers, t h e n a market place scene, w h e r e although S w e e n e y a n d Mrs
Lovatt are present it is really not about t h e m - it is about Pirelli the barker and his
assistant Tobias and the next scene was in the judge's chamber and it was about
the judge. So b y the time we got back to S w e e n e y and Mrs Lovatt there'd b e e n
m a y b e t w e n t y minutes w h e n the focus had not b e e n on them, and w e realized
204 Stephen Sondheim

that was w h a t it was. It w a s n ' t the lessening so m u c h of the audience's concentra-

tion; they were starting to lose focus. They, after all, d o n ' t k n o w the s t o r y - even
t h o u g h Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou were the top-billed people - they d i d n ' t
k n o w w h a t the feeling of the story was. It's not about the y o u n g lovers, they enter
into the story. It's not about the judge, he enters into the story. So that kind of
thing an audience can tell you. W h e n the s h o w had tightened u p properly, which
it took a few weeks of playing time to do, then I think I w o u l d have o p t e d for
restoring the judge's song so that w h e n we did it at the N e w York City Opera, we
[restored] it and the audience attention was held, because by that time e v e r y b o d y
k n e w . . . w h a t the story was about. I d o n ' t m e a n necessarily people in the
audience, but the cast was confident and it was [as if] they were sending a h i d d e n
message to the audience saying "we'll get back to our main characters in a
m o m e n t , so just be patient."

TH" "Send in the clowns" was written w h e n A Little Night Music was in rehearsal.
What circumstances b r o u g h t about its composition?

ss: I wrote a n u m b e r of songs in rehearsal, about seven of t h e m as a matter of fact,

which is quite a lot for me in a five-week period, including " W e e k e n d in the
C o u n t r y " , which is an e n o r m o u s l y complicated piece. I usually d o n ' t go into
rehearsal with that m a n y songs missing, [but I did that time] because I got to k n o w
the characters t h r o u g h the way the actors were playing them. The two main
characters in A Little Night Music are a lawyer in his mid 40s and a w o m a n with
w h o m he had an affair a n u m b e r of years earlier w h o comes back and they r u n into
each other again. We decided that the w o m a n had to be a w o m a n of e n o r m o u s
charm, grace, style, etc., because the conflict is that the middle-aged lawyer has
married a very y o u n g bride. So, if there's to be a triangle with a very y o u n g and
beautiful bride then the w o m a n has to be at least as attractive, in fact m o r e so, than
the y o u n g bride. A n d that isn't just a matter of the character writing, because
H u g h Wheeler w h o wrote the libretto did make Desiree the w o m a n of every-
b o d y ' s dreams - she's wise, she's witty, she's kind, she's compassionate, and the
bride is a selfish, s o m e w h a t bitchy, certainly self-centred y o u n g w o m a n . But that
isn't e n o u g h to tilt the scales. Therefore, k n o w i n g that w e were going to cast
s o m e b o d y beautiful, wise, witty, charming, [who] could play high comedy, we
did not expect to get a singer, because [it] w o u l d be asking too much, to get all that
in one package. So w h e n I wrote the score, I very carefully avoided writing songs
for Desiree so we w o u l d not be stuck in the casting d e p a r t m e n t by saying "Gee,
that w o m a n is perfect but she can't sing", or, "that w o m a n can sing but it's no
contest for the beautiful y o u n g bride." So I . . . wrote one n u m b e r for her in the
first act, which was quite quick and the kind of n u m b e r that can be sung by a non-
singer, called "The Glamorous Life", and also backed her u p with an ensemble of
five and two other people w h o also sang in the n u m b e r . . . . In rehearsal we
realized w h e n we cast Glynis Johns that Glynis had a really nice v o i c e . . , a small
voice but . . . a really musical one. She is very musical. H o w e v e r , she cannot
sustain notes for very long because she's not a trained singer. Hal [Prince] said to
me that in the love scene in the second act he t h o u g h t w e o u g h t to give, not just
because it was Glynis, but because [of] the character Desiree, to keep her alive
musically since we had so m a n y w h o could sing, that she should have a song.
Well, [for] the love scene I had already started a song for Frederick, the man, w h o
 Sondheim's technique 205

could sing, because we'd planned on the singer for the part, and I thought the
scene was his scene and the impulse to sing must be his impulse. And in fact that's
what we'd worked out, Hugh [Wheeler] and I. Hal said, let me redirect this scene
and you come down to rehearsal and let me show you how that can be Desiree's
scene. So I went down and indeed that's exactly what he'd done. Somehow even
when you read it on the page, though the thrust of the scene seems to be
Frederick's, it turns out to be Desiree's. And so I went home fired up with that
kind of enthusiasm and wrote, very quickly for me, this song, which took about
two nights to w r i t e . . . I was able to write it quickly partly because I not only knew
the character and the kind of mood of the piece but also the character as played by
Glynis Johns, who was suddenly very vivid. It's much easier to write for a
character as played by somebody than just for a character because you start to
think of colours that you might not have thought of before. So my problem was
that I had to find a song of regret and even anger that was a ballad, because I
wanted it to be a romantic moment, and something that could be reprised at the
end of the play when the two of them did get together, although in this scene they
go apart. [Also,] it had to be something [in] which she wouldn't have to sustain
notes. So that meant I had to find a short-breathed melody, and came up with
these things, because even if you're a heavy smoker you can sing this song.
i ii'~B
-

~ .La
~[~
~v Dk
L/ '/ i I e I r

PII Ifll
I , g I~J "iJ ,r:
*,~..," ILl it:J f' ~, '-'llJ I IJ l
"'

Figure 8
206 StephenSondheim

Even this phrase, which a regular singer w o u l d take in one breath,

Figure 9

could be sung as Glynis did

[ K'T'NI/W t 1 t I I ~ I I I I [ 9 II I ]

"' " t'4

Figure 10

and the whole tune has this built-in rubato. I set it up right in the first bar, with that
last beat of the first bar, [the anacrusis bar] a little ritard so that I would always
have the excuse to do it later -
Isn't it rich, [breathe, breathe] are we a pair
[breathe, breathe] me here at last on the ground,
[breathe] y o u in mid air.
A n d that doesn't sound like an affectation, to take that breath, because we've
already set up a tune that stops and starts, and stops and starts, so that through-
out this lady could always get her breath. A n d the result was she sang it exquis-
itely. It's the definitive thing, although Barbra Streisand has just m a d e a recording
of it that's also pretty spectacular.

TH: I've heard it sung by singers in a nineteenth-century opera style.

ss: The problem with that is that it's not a long-line melody. Renata Scotto sang
it at a recital right after the s h o w came out a n d I was all excited - a song sung by
a major opera star - [but] it was wrong. I d o n ' t w a n t to say it was dreadful, it was
just the wrong voice for the w r o n g song. She m a d e it into her o w n kind of piece,
which it is not, because it is not that kind of line, it's a line built in chunks.

TH: Were y o u surprised at h o w popular the song was?

ss: Very . . . . It's the only big hit song I've ever had and I m u s t tell y o u it did not
become popular immediately after the s h o w opened. It h a p p e n e d curiously
e n o u g h in England. England is w h a t m a d e it popular. Judy Collins did a record
and it became a best-seller in England. As a result of that, Frank Sinatra heard it
and he m a d e a record of it and that was a best-seller in the United States. A n d once
he and she h a d sung it and they both h a d hit records t h e n it entered the repertoire.
But if Judy Collins h a d not m a d e it a n u m b e r one song in England, I d o n ' t think
it ever would have been popular.
 Sondheim's technique 207

TH: What do you think gives the song its mass appeal?
ss: Generally popular songs come about from the right concatenation of cir-
cumstances, the right artist singing the right song at the right time. Louis
Armstrong doing "Hello; Dolly". I don't think "Hello, Dolly" would have been a
big hit if it hadn't been sung by Louis Armstrong in that arrangement at that given
time. I mean it might have, but one associates the song with him and then as a
result of that it becomes . . . widespread and everybody sings it and then it
becomes a song on its own. The same thing is true here. I mean I've written songs
in other shows that I . . . thought would have been big hits, you know, pretty
ballads well written and grateful to the singer and that sort of thing. But this one
is the one that became a hit.
TH: Do you expect singers to develop parts in your shows to the extent that they
take liberties with the m u s i c . . , slight rhythmic changes and so o n . . . or do you
expect your music, as Stravinsky put it, to be executed rather than interpreted?
ss: I'm fairly much of a stickler for their sticking exactly to what I've written.
However, during rehearsals, and working with individual singers sometimes you
happen fortuitously, and sometimes unfortuitously, on notions of rubato. I just
say I want the singers to feel that they can express the character. But primarily it's
the job of the writer to express it. And when I put in a rubato or a pause there's
usually a reason for it. If it isn't a specific physical reason like breathing or tuning
or something like that, there may be a dramatic reason, for making a ritard or not
making it. And when singers violate that it quite often distorts the intention. N o w
sometimes it helps, and sometimes I say that's a very good idea, let us mark that
in the score, let us make a ritard on that bar, I hadn't thought of that, or, let us take
that ritard out. But the more I write the more finicky I get. I used to, up until the
last few years, just write a note that would sustain itself in the melodic line until
the next note came in instead of being very careful about maybe taking an eighth
rest or quarter rest after the note, just to help the singer phrase apart from
anything else. Even though they might be able to sustain the note but because
sometimes a singer will literally see on the page

L 84

I Jove
Figure 11
and a good singer will hold the "you" and what I hear in my head is

Figure 12
208 StephenSondheim

and instead of writing half a note w h a t I've written is a w h o l e note because it goes
to the next bar instead of writing a half note and a half rest. A n d that isn't the
matter of giving the singer a chance to breathe, it's a matter of [wanting] to have
just that m u c h emphasis, I d o n ' t want it three-quarters a n d I d o n ' t w a n t it one
quarter, I want it two quarters.
[In the past] I just thought, well the singer will do that, [but now] I'm learning
to put these rests in to help the singer k n o w h o w to phrase. As I looked at this just
now, "Send in the Clowns", I s u d d e n l y realized this [the second beat] is a dotted
quarter -

iii~i,m~ -uu v-.m--,-- un n '

i i

Figure 12

and I should have written that as a quarter a n d an eighth instead of a dotted

quarter. But any good singer w o u l d be singing

Figure 13

and I might not w a n t that, and I think w h a t I w a n t is the phrases to be slightly

separated because the dramatic context is " m e here at last on the ground; y o u in
mid air" as o p p o s e d to "me here at last on the g r o u n d y o u in mid air" - that's not
w h a t I m e a n t - and it's tiny little details like that that often spell the difference
b e t w e e n tone and no tone.

TH" Quite recently y o u r musical, Sweeney Todd, was staged b y the N e w York City
Opera. There is a slight ambiguity in m y m i n d about the difference b e t w e e n an
opera and a musical in the h a n d s of S t e p h e n Sondheim. Do y o u have a view of
what the distinction is?

ss: Yes, I've a very dogmatic view of it. I think an opera is s o m e t h i n g p e r f o r m e d

in an opera house in front of an opera audience by opera singers. I think the same
piece p e r f o r m e d in a Broadway house, in a West End house, by West End or
Broadway singers, in front of a Broadway or West End audience is a show,
meaning it's a musical. The a p p r o a c h is different, the audience's expectations are
the major difference b e t w e e n operas and musicals. W h e n an audience enters an
opera h o u s e they are going for a specific kind of experience that's m u c h more
related to a rock concert than it is to a musical. T h e y are going to hear performers,
which is w h a t rock concerts are about - to hear that p e r f o r m e r - they d o n ' t care if
 Sondheim's technique 209

it's their fifth Tosca as long as it's the lady that they want to hear sing Tosca. They're
going primarily to hear a great instrumentalist and they do not go to be engulfed
by the story or the experience. In fact they will quite often welcome, as in most
classic operas, moments of respite and exploration of just an actor, just a singer,
going on about a tiny subject and making it a relevant one for three minutes
providing she is singing like a dream. That's w h y they go. So they don't care about
understanding the lyrics, which is w h y I think it is just as well to have opera in
foreign languages. Putting them in the native language is a mistake because then
you understand about every tenth word and it upsets you because you're trying
to get the rest of the sentence. But if it's in a foreign language you don't bother.
Philip Glass did an opera a couple of years a g o - he wrote it a number of years ago,
called Satyagraha [1980], which is in Sanskrit, and when I read about this I thought
what a pretentious foolish notion - Sanskrit. Well first of all I was knocked out by
the opera and I'm not knocked out by very many operas, but secondly I realized
what a brilliant choice he and his librettist had made, because Sanskrit is almost
all open vowel sounds. And not only do you not care about understanding the
words but it's perfect for the projection of the human voice. Everything is "ah',
all the sounds, it's like Italian, the perfect language to sing opera in, because it
allows everything to come out [of the throat] and not worry about [the lips].
TH: Opera often loses a lot in translation because of the timbre of language -
Tchaikovsky done in English, or Jana4ek.
ss: Yes, Janfi4ek spent his whole life trying to imitate his native tongue. But
there's more to it than that. I think national musical characteristics come from the
rhythm of the language of the countries. German music sounds like German
speech. Italian music sounds like Italian speech. It should. And therefore to
translate an opera seems to me at best a fool's e r r a n d . . . Obviously there are
exceptions where operas might translate well, but I wouldn't [do it] - I have been
asked to translate opera occasionally. I just think it's foolishness and s i m p l y . . .
oil and water. The sound of the French language dictates that kind of rhythmless
French music whereas the English language is a heavily rhythmed language and
you put that to French music and it j u s t - something doesn't work, no matter how
well it's written.
TH: One way of distinguishing between opera and musicals is that both are
defined not by their content but by the institutions and the tradition of the institu-
tions that are associated with them. It's also interesting that, in the late twentieth
century, as some opera, and perhaps art music generally, has become more
distant from audiences, a lot of the most eagerly awaited contemporary music is
done on Broadway and the West End.
ss: Yes, and part of that alienation of the opera audience- everybody talks about,
"oh, they don't write melody anymore" - it's not that, they don't write show-off
parts for the singers. They forget that the major reason that an opera audience is
there is not for the so-called epic theatre experience of Wagner, the Wagnerian
vision. Most opera audiences go to hear the singers and if contemporary opera
were written, no matter how dissonant, with parts where the opera singers would
have numbers the way they do in Verdi and Puccini, the opera would probably
work very well. Audiences want their singers to have numbers. And one of the
few
210 StephenSondheim

operas that doesn't have numbers that seems to work generally pretty well with
audiences, though nowhere near as well as the old warhorses, is Pelldas and
Mdlisande which is actually one long song. But it never satisfies an audience the
way Puccini and Verdi do, and not because it isn't pretty. It's because nobody gets
a chance to just take the stage and do a number and have the house come down.
Audiences want that release of applauding. And that's part of the theatre
experience.
TH: I was going to ask you whether there was a distinction between the audience
for an opera, at the Met for instance, and an audience in Sweeney Todd or Sunday
in the Park with George on Broadway; and from what you say they may be the same
people who will come with a different expectation.
ss: That's right. You see Sweeney Todd is really an operetta, it requires operetta
voices, that is to say the needs for the singers are slightly greater than the needs
on Broadway but nowhere as great as the needs in grand opera. It's what I would
call an operetta. A number of audiences who came to City Opera to see . . .
[Sweeney Todd] are used to coming to see both opera and operetta there. Some of
them [may] have never been to a Broadway musical because they think it just isn't
substantial enough for them or whatever. To their surprise they enjoyed Sweeney
Todd because they got both things at once: they got a story they didn't know, some
music that had some melodic outline that they could recognize, whether they
liked it or n o t - it wasn't all dissonant, it wasn't twelve-tone- and moments where
the singers just show o f f . . , you know Tim Nolan singing the Epiphany4 is a man
with an operatic baritone [voice], singing a large chunk of material - and the
audience was allowed to applaud and cheer and felt like it at the end of it, because
they saw a p e r f o r m e r . . . That's the important part of the opera e x p e r i e n c e . . .
seeing the performer. Now that's also of course true on Broadway - one wants to
see the performer perform, but it's the primary reason for the opera experience . . . .
Anyway, what generally happens in a show is that an audience goes for the
show, and in the case of Sunday in the Park with George. . . . our audiences are [now]
quite unsophisticated, because generally you run out of your sophisticated
audience in the first few months of a r u n d What keeps a show running is, in fact,
less sophisticated audiences. To them it's obviously very strange. I can see their
faces, the piece is strange, the subject is strange and the music is strange. But it has
a mood, and they gradually get sucked in, and by the end of the first Act, because
the first Act has a smashing ending where the painting is made, and they're
impressed with the stagecraft, you hear remarks like: "I like it, I like it". It's like
they're not sure, it's like a new food. The second act finally when it all comes back
to the past, because the second act goes to the present and then it goes back to the
past, you can feel them all get drawn in, they understand, they're in your
language, and that is w h y they're so enthusiastic at the end of the show. They've
heard all this strange music, but what they cared about was the totality.
The same thing happened in Sweeney Todd. I used to say quite proudly, "They
don't know they're in an opera." By an opera I meant a sung piece. They don't
hear the jagged melodies, because they're so interested in the story, because
[Chris] Bond's story is so gripping that it doesn't matter what they're singing, and
the audience often didn't know when they were speaking and when they were
singing because they were the same.
They were so gripped by the story that you could actually take a poll, I think,
 Sondheirn's technique 211

and say, "Did she just sing that line or did she speak it?" and y o u ' d get mixed
reactions . . . .

TH: What attracted y o u to Sweeney Todd? Originally it was the Chris Bond play
that y o u saw, w a s n ' t it?

ss: It was more than that. I'd n e v e r seen a n y grand guignol. I used to love horror
films before they became really p o p u l a r in the last ten years and really tagged, but
I used to love horror films, [that is] suspense films rather than I should say horror
[films]. A n d once w h e n I was in Paris, grand guignol was advertised and I went,
and although I d o n ' t u n d e r s t a n d m u c h French, w h e n the curtain w e n t u p I
thought, wait a minute, I think I've seen this, and it w a s n ' t grand guignol at all - it
was a p r o d u c t i o n of The Bat, which is a Mary Roberts Reinhart thing in French; it
w a s n ' t grand guignol. T h e n there was a n o t h e r evening of grand guignol in which
they did nothing; there were three one-acts, and all they did was spill a lot of gore
over the stage, and that was no fun either, it was camp. W h e n I was in L o n d o n in
1973 there was this p r o d u c t i o n of Sweeney Todd and I'd h e a r d of the legend of
S w e e n e y T o d d being something about cannibalism or something like that, and I
thought, well it'd be fun to go and see it, and I'd always had good experiences at
Stratford East, so I w e n t out there, even t h o u g h this was not a Littlewood produc-
tion. I f o u n d it a charming and sometimes scary evening, and on the w a y back I
thought, that lays itself out like a musical. That is to say, it's scenes b e t w e e n two
and three people and there's a little chorus scene. I thought, I bet that whole thing
could be sung. N o w I've n e v e r w a n t e d to do an opera per se but I had lunch with
John Dexter the British stage director the next day and I said, "Do y o u think
Sweeney Todd could make an opera?", because he's directed m a n y operas and
k n o w s the operatic field, and he said, "Absolutely". A n d he got me a copy of it out
of the British M u s e u m and, of course, it w a s n ' t this play at all. It was the original
Sweeney Todd, which was a ridiculous play, and I read all the other printed
versions and they were all ridiculous. A n d t h e n I read Chris Bond's version and
realized that he had written it b r a n d new. Virtually he took the elements of the
meat pies and the chair and the barber and m a d e his o w n play. There's n o revenge
motive in any of the other versions, it's all Bond's invention. A n d because it has
a twentieth-century good playwright's sensibility, instead of just blood and
t h u n d e r theatre, it can be musicalized, because those are real people in real situa-
tions, even t h o u g h it's a m e l o d r a m a and e v e r y b o d y ' s exaggerated. Because in
melodrama, as in farce, as y o u know, e v e r y b o d y has one motive, that's w h a t
makes it a melodrama. E v e r y b o d y has one motive and each one is an express train
9 . . it either ends u p in a bucket of blood or e v e r y b o d y dressing u p as e v e r y b o d y
else's m o t h e r and maid - that's a farce y o u know. A n d I h a p p e n to like that kind
of theatre.

TH: Your instinct to turn it into a musical was as immediate as that?

ss: Yes, immediate. I'd never had that before or since. It's the only musical I ever
started by myself.

TH" Are there parts of the s h o w that were written w h e n y o u were still in the full
flush of y o u r initial enthusiasm?
212 Stephen Sondheirn

ss: Yes, the first t w e n t y minutes. W h a t h a p p e n e d is I wrote quite quickly the first
twenty. I didn't start on the piece immediately because I was working on Pacific
Overtures at the time and there was a Broadway producer, a pair of producers,
w h o w a n t e d to bring the Bond play over, and I said, "If you will wait for two years
until I get this one on" - I m e a n because I k n e w they w a n t e d to do a musical with
me - I said "I'd love to do that as a musical". They said, "Swell". So it w a s n ' t until
two years later that I started on it, and rather than get a librettist, I t h o u g h t since
the book was so strong, since the play was so strong, and brief, because it reads
quite quickly, that I would just do it myself. Well, I did the first twenty minutes,
and realized I'd only covered the first four pages, out of thirty-five, and I thought,
this is going to be longer than The Ring cycle if I go on this way. So I called H u g h
Wheeler w h o had written detective stories a n d w h o is an Englishman, although
he lives in America, and with w h o m I'd worked on A Little Night Music, and I said,
"Would you help me on this?" The first t w e n t y minutes remain m y favourite part
of the show, because they were really written as an immediate emotional
response to Bond's play.

TH" H u g h Wheeler's text was based on Chris Bond's text a n d not Dibden Pitt's?

ss: Everything was based on Bond.

TH" You didn't feel a n y attraction about going back to the nineteenth century?

ss: Oh no. Because those were plays that Dibden Pitt a n d all his successors, right
through Austin Rosser and the one that Todd Slaughter kept playing at were all
ridiculous; they're silly melodramas; they were p e n n y dreadfuls: no tension in the
plotting, just somebody going, "Heh, heh, heh, I'll polish him off, I'll polish him
off", and there's a trick chair - there's nothing. All you can do is sit there and hiss
the villain. That's the only kind of fun y o u have. Bond w a n t e d that response to his
play; he wants people to hiss the villain, he believes in that sort of thing. But he
wrote it from a highly sophisticated and serious point of view. There is blank verse
in his version. All the upper-class people talk in blank verse. It's not printed as
blank verse, but as soon as I started to set the cadences, I thought, "Wait a minute,
it's coming out practically in iambic pentameter". Then I realized w h a t he'd done;
the lower-class figures talk in Cockney and speech rhythms, a n d the upper-class
figures talk in very r h y t h m e d verse.

TH: I remember seeing a television interview with Hal Prince w h o directed the
show and, as I recollect, he said that he was not initially attracted to working on
the show.

ss: Yes, he doesn't like melodrama or farce.

TH: He became attracted to it w h e n he saw it in broader terms than simply being

the story of a homicidal maniac, w h e n he saw it in terms of a period of industriali-
zation, about Victorian Britain, about the distinctions between class. Were y o u
influenced by those feelings?

ss: No. I w a n t e d to tell a scary story. Bond's play has the elements, particularly
of class prejudice, in it. I m e a n that's very clear- the judge does represent that, the
 Sondheim'stechnique 213

unfairness of the u p p e r class . . . . and I think as far as the Industrial Revolution

goes, I d o n ' t really believe that's in any w a y a part of Bond's play. It enabled Hal
to see a p r o d u c t i o n in his head, because w h e n I asked him to do it . . . . first of all
he said, "I can't do it, y o u k n o w m y feeling about melodrama"; he said also "I've
got to tell y o u m y least favourite look on the stage is the Victorian look - as soon
as a n y b o d y comes o n with a stovepipe hat I w a n t to leave the theatre." I said, well,
yes, b u t that's the w a y it goes. H e said, but let me think, m a y b e I c a n . . . A n d he
came up, with Eugene Lee, 6 with the idea of it all taking place in this factory. That
allowed him an entry into his o w n creative response to the show. I d i d n ' t n e e d
that because, for me, horror or suspense exists on its o w n terms and that's good
e n o u g h for me and that's all I m e a n t this piece to be. There are a couple of refer-
ences to engines and things like that, to point up a little bit about the Industrial
Revolution, but I really did that to please Hal and not to please myself.
See, for me Sweeney Todd is not about the [period of the] Industrial Revolution.
It is about something a little m o r e than scaring an audience; it's about revenge. It's
about a m a n obsessed with revenge. Obsession is obviously part of m e l o d r a m a
and part of farce; that's w h y e v e r y b o d y has one motivation, an obsessive motiva-
tion, and that's something that interests me a lot. I d i d n ' t realize h o w m u c h it
interested me until I got into the writing of it and realized it was one of the things
that attracted me about the play, I do believe that e v e r y b o d y has revenge in their
heart, e v e r y b o d y has reason for revenge, and it's only w h e n y o u become
obsessed with it that it destroys you instead of the object of y o u r revenge. And, in
fact, Christopher Bond based his treatment of Dibden Pitt and his n e w version of
Sweeney Todd partly, as he has said in his introduction to the play, o n The
Revenger' s Tragedy and The Count of Monte Cristo, two of the most famous plays
about revenge. That is what it's about, n o t . . , the Industrial Revolution. The
Industrial Revolution is a w a y for Hal to get into the play, but for me to get into
the play, I like to n e e d to get into it, because I just like the suspense, but w h a t I
f o u n d out was it was m y emotional response to the idea of writing about revenge
that got me going and rolling on that piece.

TH" Revenge is a strong t h e m e for a show, quite different from most Broadway
musicals which are often seen as mere diversions.

ss: O h sure. Well most of the shows I've d o n e are not in that tradition anyway.
Even w h e n they're f u n n y they t e n d to be sharp-edged. I d o n ' t like to write about
themes. I like the t h e m e s to be discovered as I'm writing. I like to write about a
character. I can't write about a theme. If y o u said to me, w h y d o n ' t y o u write a
piece about revenge? I'd say, what? But if y o u ' d say, write about this fellow and
this lady and she makes pies, I'd say, that's interesting. T h e n as I write I'd say,
"Hey, I k n o w w h a t this is about - it's about r e v e n g e . " You discover that. Same
thing w h e n we did the Seurat musical, Sunday in the Park with George. We just
thought, w o u l d n ' t it be . . . that picture's like. It's based on a painting called
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Le Grande Jatte. It's just a g r o u p of p e o p l e strolling
on an island, but it's v e r y strange. N o n e of t h e m is looking at a n y b o d y . N o b o d y
looks at a n y b o d y else in that picture. There are about forty-five p e o p l e in the
picture and n o b o d y is looking at a n y b o d y else. You start to think, wait a minute,
w h a t ' s going on here? A n d t h e n y o u realize it's like a stage set. T h e n in deciding
to do that and bring it to life a n d make these characters relate, y o u s u d d e n l y
214 StephenSondheim

realize that y o u are writing about art a n d the artist a n d y o u are writing a b o u t all
kinds of large themes, a n d the relation of the artist to society a n d to his personal
life. But we d i d n ' t sit d o w n to do that; w e sat d o w n to musicalize a painting.
So, the same thing. I sat d o w n to write a horror s h o w a n d f o u n d out that I was
writing about s o m e t h i n g that m e a n s a lot to me emotionally, a n d realized that's
w h y I was attracted to the material in the first place. A n d I can only write that way,
from story or character, particularly story. I h a p p e n to love plots. But I also like to
experiment with plotless musicals, because Company, 7 y o u k n o w , was the first
musical on B r o a d w a y that was half-way b e t w e e n a plot a n d a non-plot, a n d a
g r o u p of characters . . . . I love to explore that area.

Acknowledgements
C o p y r i g h t of all of the interview material resides with the O p e n University. I am
grateful to W a r n e r Chappell for permission to r e p r o d u c e quotations from Sond-
h e i m ' s works. The scores of Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street a n d A
Little Night Music are both published by Revelation Music Publishing Corp. &
Rilting Music, Inc., N e w York.

Notes
The transcript is of an interview w h i c h S o n d h e i m granted me on 19 September
1985, for a BBC Television p r o g r a m m e (Composers and Audiences: Tippett and
Sondheim) which forms part of the A102 Arts F o u n d a t i o n Course at the O p e n Uni-
versity of Great Britain. It was p r o d u c e d b y T o n y Coe, a n d recorded at Michael
Bennett's studios in N e w York City.

1. The climax of "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" is a harmonization of a sequential treatment of the dies
iraeplainsong melody transposed up a third. Sondheim had explained the use of the dies iraein the
song earlier in the interview.
2. SweeneyTodd, Act I, No. 3.
3. SweeneyTodd, Act I, No. 11. Judge Turpin's song "Johanna" (which is an entirely different setting
of the song with the same title sung by Anthony in Act I and Todd in Act II) was omitted from the
Broadway production but is published, with an explanatory note, as an appendix to the score.
4. SweeneyTodd, Act I, No. 17. Timothy Nolan sang Todd in the New York City Opera production,
1984.
5. Sondheim refers here specificallyto the time of the interview (September 1985). Sunday in the Park
with Georgeopened in Booth's Theatre on 2 May 1984.
6. EugeneLee was the production designer for the Broadway Sweeney Todd.
7. Sondheim's show Company, produced by Harold Prince, opened at the Alvin Theatre on 26 April
1970. It ran for 690 performances.