Musical theater giant Stephen Sondheim dies at 91

NEW YORK — Stephen Sondheim, the songwriter who reshaped the American philharmonic theatre successful the 2nd fractional of the 20th period with his intelligent, intricately rhymed lyrics, his usage of evocative melodies and his willingness to tackle antithetic subjects, has died. He was 91.

Sondheim’s decease was announced by his Texas-based attorney, Rick Pappas, who told The New York Times the composer died Friday astatine his location successful Roxbury, Connecticut. Pappas did not instrumentality calls and messages to The Associated Press.

Sondheim influenced respective generations of theatre songwriters, peculiarly with specified landmark musicals arsenic “Company,” “Follies” and “Sweeney Todd,” which are considered among his champion work. His astir celebrated ballad, “Send successful the Clowns,” has been recorded hundreds of times, including by Frank Sinatra and Judy Collins.

The creator refused to repetition himself, uncovering inspiration for his shows successful specified divers subjects arsenic an Ingmar Bergman movie (“A Little Night Music”), the opening of Japan to the West (“Pacific Overtures”), French creator Georges Seurat (“Sunday successful the Park With George”), Grimm’s fairy tales (“Into the Woods”) and adjacent the killers of American presidents (“Assassins”), among others.

“The theatre has mislaid 1 of its top geniuses and the satellite has mislaid 1 of its top and astir archetypal writers. Sadly, determination is present a elephantine successful the sky. But the brilliance of Stephen Sondheim volition inactive beryllium present arsenic his legendary songs and shows volition beryllium performed for evermore,” shaper Cameron Mackintosh wrote successful tribute.

Six of Sondheim’s musicals won Tony Awards for champion score, and helium besides received a Pulitzer Prize (“Sunday successful the Park”), an Academy Award (for the opus “Sooner oregon Later” from the movie “Dick Tracy”), 5 Olivier Awards and the Presidential Medal of Honor. In 2008, helium received a Tony Award for beingness achievement.

Sondheim’s euphony and lyrics gave his shows a dark, melodramatic edge, whereas earlier him, the ascendant code of musicals was frothy and comic. He was sometimes criticized arsenic a composer of unhummable songs, a badge that didn’t fuss Sondheim. Frank Sinatra, who had a deed with Sondheim’s “Send successful the Clowns,” erstwhile complained: “He could marque maine a batch happier if he’d constitute much songs for saloon singers similar me.”

To theatre fans, Sondheim’s sophistication and brilliance made him an icon. A Broadway theatre was named aft him. A New York mag screen asked “Is Sondheim God?” The Guardian paper erstwhile offered this question: “Is Stephen Sondheim the Shakespeare of philharmonic theatre?”

A ultimate wordsmith — and an avid subordinate of connection games — Sondheim’s joyousness of connection shone through. “The other of near is right/The other of close is wrong/So anyone who’s near is wrong, right?” helium wrote successful “Anyone Can Whistle.” In “Company,” helium penned the lines: “Good things get better/Bad gets worse/Wait — I deliberation I meant that successful reverse.”

He offered the 3 principles indispensable for a songwriter successful his archetypal measurement of collected lyrics — Content Dictates Form, Less Is More, and God Is successful the Details. All these truisms, helium wrote, were “in the work of Clarity, without which thing other matters.” Together they led to stunning lines like: “It’s a precise abbreviated roadworthy from the pinch and the punch to the paunch and the pouch and the pension.”

Taught by nary little a genius than Oscar Hammerstein, Sondheim pushed the philharmonic into a darker, richer and much intelligence place. “If you deliberation of a theatre lyric arsenic a abbreviated story, arsenic I do, past each enactment has the value of a paragraph,” helium wrote successful his 2010 book, “Finishing the Hat,” the archetypal measurement of his postulation of lyrics and comments.

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Mark Kennedy is astatine http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits