we are the lucky ones

“I’ve been lucky,” Stephen Sondheim said in his last major interview.

Daniel Dorsa for The New York Times

That was Stephen Sondheim one week ago, speaking to our theater reporter about the two Broadway shows he was about to see. It would turn out to be his last major interview.

There was little indication that Sondheim was unwell. One of the greatest songwriters in the history of musical theater, he died on Friday at 91, leaving “a life’s outpouring of rapturous, hilarious, gorgeous and tortuous song in his wake,” our theater critic writes in an appraisal.

Impromptu wakes filled New York City piano bars with tunes and tears. “Our industry and our art form owes everything to him,” a voice teacher said.

Stephen Sondheim, the dexterous composer and lyricist of musicals including Sunday in the Park With George, Into the Woods, and Sweeney Todd was the elder statesman of American theater even if he always stood outside of its trends. 

An iconoclast whose vital music tested preconceived notions about what belonged on stage, he created songs for a murderous barber, a neurotic neo-Impressionist, and a vengeful witch. His work always teemed with moral ambiguity, never providing the easy answers some looked for in musicals. 

Reticent to share anything about his own life, Sondheim constantly examined the nuances and complications of being human in his work. He proved that breaking out into song didn’t need to be trite or simplistic, but could contain frustration and confusion. 

*Reprinted from NYTimes & Vanity Fair