Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – MasterVoices hits the bullseye with its joyful, starry concert rendition of Sondheim and Laurents’s ANYONE CAN WHISTLE

• By drediman
• March 12, 2022
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Last Thursday, MasterVoices hits the bullseye with its one-night-only concert rendition of Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents’s 1964 musical Anyone Can Whistle at Carnegie Hall (the venue’s iconic Stern Auditorium also hosted the 1995 concert of the cult favorite musical, which starred Bernadette Peters in a fabulous turn). The sold out event marked only the symphonic choir’s second in-person performance since pre-pandemic times, following the concert performance of A Joyful Noise last December. The performance is also the centerpiece of MasterVoice’s landmark 80th anniversary season, and it couldn’t have asked for a more celebratory evening, which also functioned as a sort of unofficial memorial to the late, great Stephen Sondheim.

Nevermind that the show – which depicts a fictitious town and its restless and frustrated denizens – is an unruly concoction that has resisted being tamed (the original production actually only lasted nine regular performances and has yet to be revived on Broadway). The main attraction here is Sondheim’s brassy, ecstatic score, which was done full justice. Indeed, Don Walker’s original orchestrations was exuberantly recreated by the excellent MasterVoices orchestra – conducted, as always, by artistic director Ted Sperling – and the chorus (which functioned as a stand-in for the town’s citizens) sang with joy and character, leaning into the the work’s zany storytelling. In addition to his conducting duties, Mr. Sperling also directed the concert with apparent affection for the material. His tight staging featured inspired, impressively polished choreography by JoAnn M. Hunter, whose work played a central role in the storytelling.

As for the cast, Mr. Sperling has lined up a starry set of sterling theater pros, led by a deliciously droll Vanessa Williams as Cora Hoover Hooper, the town’s lovably scheming mayor. As J. Bowden Hapgood, the town’s potential savior, the dashing Tony-winner Santino Fontana was a charismatic leading man through and through, yet he handled the role’s considerable eccentricity with aplomb. Perhaps stealing the show was Elizabeth Stanley, whose gorgeously sung and sensitively acted performance as Nurse Fay Apple was the heart of the show. Rounding out the cast were such theater luminaries as the gleeful Douglas Sills as Comptroller Schub and the great Joanna Gleason as the evening’s narrator.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

ANYONE CAN WHISTLE
Concert
MasterVocies at Carnegie Hall
2 hours, 30 minutes (with one intermission)
Closed