Mostly Sondheim

Barbara Cook is back in London, and all is right with the world. In fact,
the only wrong thing about the entire exhilarating cabaret evening of fine
songs, finely sung, is its slightly inaccurate and misleading title,
Mostly Sondheim.

The selections are not even largely Sondheim; partially Sondheim would
probably be more accurate, even if the rest of the programme’s choices do
have a tenuous link to the celebrated composer, in as much as they are all
songs from a list of some 50 songs that he declared, in a New York Times
magazine article, that he wished he’d written.

But it does mean that Cook, and her invaluable longtime musical director and
pianist Wally Harper (looking more gnome-like than ever, but an unerringly
supportive and utterly sympathetic player), have found themselves
invigorated by a largely new repertoire. Sure, because it’s on Sondheim’s
list, she’s able to sneak in one of her signature songs, “Ice Cream”, and
make it sound as fresh as when she herself first introduced it nearly 40
years ago in Boch and Harnick’s 1963 Broadway musical She Loves Me,
though she amusingly points out afterwards that she had to “give that B
natural more thought than I used to”. And even though it’s also on
Sondheim’s list, she avoids “Glitter and Be Gay”, even though she, too,
introduced that classic nearly 45 years ago in Bernstein’s Candide –
she’s a singer who clearly knows her (considerable) strengths and (few)
limitations.

Though the bell-like upper register that made her the leading Broadway
ingenue of the 1950s and 60s isn’t as powerful as it then was, Cook’s tone
remains exquisite, the notes sublime, her control effortless. Best of all,
she connects totally with every lyric, and not just so that every emotion within
it is revealed but also, crucially, so that every single word rings out in the theatre with
utter clarity. Her superb technique is, of course, a given; but the
overwhelming feeling that she also invests in the material is a constant
revelation. She makes you hear these songs often as if for the first time.
To hear Cook sing Irving Berlin’s “I Got Lost in His Arms” from Annie Get
Your Gun, for instance, is to get lost in a song that I thought I knew
but suddenly realised I hadn’t paid attention to its achingly lovely lyrics
before. She achieves this effect with the utmost restraint; she never
bullies the listener or the song, but simply draws you into the latter’s world
totally.

The Sondheim selections are no less revelatory, not least for the fact that
– since his songs are character-based and have therefore often been
rendered by performers who are actors first rather than singers – they’re
actually given their full vocal as well as emotional resonance. A powerful
curtain call rendition of the title song to “Anyone Can Whistle”, performed
without a microphone, was so perfect and true that you could weep. I could
go on; but you just need to go.

Mark Shenton