Little Lark of London

“It’s all about the same theme: how people under pressure come together, fall apart, find each other, lose each other, love each other.”

Tony-nominated Broadway actress Melissa Errico is bringing her concert, Sondheim in the City, to London for one night only on 12 July at Cadogan Hall. The show is inspired by Errico’s album of the same name and promises to be “a dazzling blend of song, story, and emotion,” with Errico paying tribute to one of the greatest composers of all time. She will be joined by Julian Ovenden as a guest vocalist and Tedd Firth accompanying on piano, as well as a trio from Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. 

Recently, we had the chance to speak with Errico about her upcoming concert. We discussed what drew her to the works of Sondheim, the creative process for a concert like Sondheim in the City and even some of her favourite Sondheim songs!

How did you first get started in the world of theatre?

My spiritual beginning was at the age of twelve when I saw Rodgers and Hart’s On Your Toes on my birthday and began to weep with pleasure and need. “Who are these people and how did they get up there?” I cried to my mother.  I’ve spent the rest of my life finding out and joining them. My practical beginning was a few years later, when I got cast in the first touring company of Les Misérables and left college to go on the road.  Just a couple of years after that, still a youngster, I got cast as Eliza in the last Broadway revival of My Fair Lady. It was a dream-come-true beginning, and since then, I’ve been up and down and searching and finding and singing and acting – and I still want to know who those people are and how they got up there!

What is it that drew you to the works of Stephen Sondheim?

So many things! The wit and spice and virtuosity of his lyrics are the first thing everybody talks about, of course, and I love “landing” really tricky fast multi-syllabic things like the bridge of “Uptown, Downtown” or the whole of “ Getting Married Today.” But for me, the heart of Sondheim is his enchanting, spell-binding music . . . No composer gives me as a singer such a sense of being enveloped by pure feeling as he does  in something like “Loving You” or “Not While I’m Around” or “I Remember.” That’s why I called my first album of his songs, “Sondheim Sublime” – meaning sublime in the romantic sense – of something enrapturing and almost scary in its beauty. 

Can you tell us a bit about your concert, Sondheim in the City?

It’s inspired by my most recent album called, well, Sondheim In The City, which is an anthology of Steve’s songs about New York. That’s still the core, but I dance outside the lines and draw on other songs from other places, too – there’s London and Paris in the show, and even a bit of Sweden. But it’s all about the same theme: how people under pressure come together, fall apart, find each other, lose each other, love each other.

What is your creative process like for a concert like this?

I make list after list of songs in collaboration with my musical director, Tedd Firth, and then I work endless hours with my wonderful vocal coach, Phil Hall.  Then I search for story. I’m an actress in the first instance, so I could never go out  on stage and just say, “Well, my next song is . . .” I need a story and a point lurking everywhere.  So, I make an outline of where I want to begin emotionally – maybe with a big, audacious challenge, like “Everybody Says Don’t” – and where I need to end – maybe with an inspiring, philosophical song like “Move On.” Then I consult with my secret co-writer – not so secret, actually – the legendary New Yorker essayist Adam Gopnik, who helps me find structure, layers and sentences – and we produce a draft at long distance (He’s always travelling somewhere, to lecture on liberalism or Monet’s haystacks or whatever.). 

Then I put all of that together and rehearse and rehearse – now in London with the brilliant MD Jordan Li Smith, who has a room at the Royal Academy of Music. Jordan and I swoon over the intricacies of the music. I’ve never understood how any singer, like Sinatra, could work without rehearsal. Then . . . Then I hope that I can somehow discard all the work consciously and just step out and sing without thinking, from inside, since by then it’s all in there. I choose onstage which ideas to share. Finally, Tedd onstage on the piano is a kind of unspoken teamwork. He & I are better not talking about everything – we agree on what is locked in and what is wild. A concert? It’s a process.

What was it like to work with Stephen Sondheim?

Amazing, intimidating, inspiring.  I’ll tell several Sondheim stories on stage and read from some of his letters, but here’s one more, which is typical of him. We were in the sitzprobe of Passion – the first time the songs are matched to the orchestra – and I had to sing the word “couldn’t” in one of Clara’s songs. He stopped me. “You have to sing the apostrophe!” He said with a mischievous glint in his eye, knowing I love a challenge like that (And also knowing, if I may say so, that I work hard at having good stage diction!). “You have to sing the silence between “could” and “‘nt.”I leapt on the challenge and started singing the apostrophes!  Steve beamed each time I did. That was the kind of always-reaching-higher feeling he engendered in me. Demanding but generous! Even though he could be a famous grump, I never saw that side. And that little remark gave me the title for my one-woman show, Sing The Silence, about the larger truth of women’s silences.

Do you have a favourite Sondheim song, either to perform or listen to?

Like choosing a favorite child . . . Oh, actually that puts me in mind of another Sondheim story! When I was making Sondheim Sublime, my first album of his music, he urged a little-known song on me, “Isn’t He Something!” from his almost-last show, Road Show.  It’s a mother singing to one son about how magical the other son is. I loved the song as a song, and gave it everything, but as a mother myself of three teenage girls, I thought that this is the one thing you would never do – compare one child to another unfavourably.  Great song, but secretly I was thinking this shows that Steve never had children!

Favourite?  I love them all. But as I say, “Move On” is almost always my finale, and I never miss the chance to sing, yes, “Send In The Clowns”, a song about a woman who got everything she wanted and nothing she wanted. Perfect Sondheimian ambivalence.

What do you hope audiences take away from Sondheim in the City?

Well, a wonderful hour or two of music to resonate in their heads, of course. But I also hope they hear the way Steve’s values filter through his music. He loved city life – New York or London or wherever – because it forces what might be called a “cosmopolitan co-existence” upon us. We have to deal with each other, sometimes even love each other, even though we all come from different places and are of different kinds.  As in the great song “Sunday” – we’re all in this park together. That’s a lesson the world needs, I think, maybe now more than ever, and it’s at the heart of Steve’s vision.

How would you describe your concert in one word?

Inspiring! I hope (That’s three. But I’m a multisyllabic girl!).

Melissa Errico: Sondheim in the City runs for one night only on 12 July at Cadogan Hall. For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.