>From the HGO program for "A Little Night Music."

   Patrick Summers, the newly-appointed HGO music director, quoted by Brian
   Kellow (of "Opera News") --

   "My general thought about Verdi is that his music is very masculine,
   in a way.  By contrast, `Traviata' is full of feminine sensuality...

   "The beginning is hard -- the party scene.  It must have a complete
   freedom about it, and to create great freedom in music is an illusion.
   You have to be controlled as a performer to allow that to happen...

   "Terry McEwen [former SFO general director, who died last year in
   Honolulu] had made a tape for me of about 20 performances of the three
   chords that introduce the Brindisi.  He said:  `You do a lot of bel
   canto operas -- you've got to hear this.  You've got to learn how to
   conduct silence.'

   "So we sat and listened to 20 conductors conduct those three chords.
   Fascinating.  The honest personalities of each of those conductors
   were present in those three chords.  You could very nearly tell their
   nationality."

------------

>From Richard Traubner's article on "A Little Night Music" --

   "Orchestrator Jonathan Tunick (among whose favorite composers
   is Richard Strauss) used a typical operetta orchestra with the 25
   musicians required by union contract for the Shubert Theater.  He
   later commented:  `The score is so delicate that I was tempted to
   dispense with the trumpets anddrums, but decided to include them
   for safety's sake.  It was after all, a Broadway musical, a field
   in which no one has ever suffered due to lack of sublety." As for the
   `perfumed atmosphere' Sondheim wanted, Tunick used `plenty of strings.'

   "The score was also composed mostly -- but not entirely -- in triple
   time; that is, in 3/4, 6/8, and so on.  Sondheim wanted `a waltzy
   score for a chateau weekend' at the turn of the century.  But he didn't
   limit himself to 3/4-time waltzes.  `The Sun Sits Low' and `You Must
   Meet My Wife' are waltzes, but `Liaisons' and `Later' are technically
   sarabandes; `Remember!' and the `Glamorous Life,' mazurkas, `In Praise
   of Women,' a plonaise; and `A Weekend in the Country,' a gigue -- as
   care listed by Mr.  Tunick.

   "However `waltzy' Sondheim may have made his score, it is a fact that
   no classical operetta has been composed entirely in 3/4 time.  [Ah,
   the CHALLENGE:  an absolute statement in a field of few absolutes!]

   "The Viennese public, for one, insisted on all manner of marches,
   foxtrots, polkas, even tangos and shimmies in their operettas.
   But the waltzes are often the most popular numbers, and connote
   the fin-de-siecle period to `Night Music' audiences."

Janos Gereben/SF
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