‘West Side Story’ and ‘Sweeney Todd’ Broadway lyricist Sondheim dies at 91
Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who helped American musical theatre evolve beyond pure entertainment to reach new artistic heights with works such as West Side Story, died early on Friday.
Actor and singer Anna Kendrick called Sondheim’s death “a devastating loss”.
“Performing his work has been among the greatest privileges of my career,” Kendrick wrote on Twitter. Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who was mentored by Sondheim, has called him musical theatre’s greatest lyricist.
Sondheim’s lawyer, Rick Pappas, told The New York Times the composer died at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut.
Sondheim’s most successful musicals included Into the Woods, which opened on Broadway in 1987 and used children’s fairy tales to untangle adult obsessions, the 1979 thriller Sweeney Todd, about a murderous barber in London whose victims are served as meat pies, and 1962’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a vaudeville-style comedy set in ancient Rome.
Sondheim, whose nine Tony Awards surpassed the total of any other composer, started early, learning the art of musical theatre when he was a teenager from The Sound of Music lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II.
“I love the theatre as much as music and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry – just making them feel – is paramount to me,” Sondheim said in a 2013 interview with National Public Radio. Several of his hit musicals were turned into movies. His songs were celebrated for their sharp wit and insight into modern life and for giving voice to complex characters, but few of them made the pop charts. He had a hit, however, with the Grammy-winning Send in the Clowns from his 1973 musical A Little Night Music. It was recorded by Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and Judy Collins, among others.
One of Sondheim’s greatest triumphs was his Pulitzer Prize for the 1984 musical Sunday in the Park with George.
As Sondheim collected accolades, New York City’s Broadway theatre industry underwent many changes. It had a major role in American culture through the 1950s, but lost significance as rock music gained a hold on the public starting in the 1960s.
But Broadway musicals also became more artistic, and Sondheim played a critical role in their evolution, critics said.
He explored such weighty topics as assassinations, the need for family, the pull of dysfunctional relationships, social inequality and western imperialism.