Taking It on the Chen

From the Classical Vault Dept.: Fifteen years ago, violinist Ray Chen performed in Schenectay, yet another example of a rising star being snagged for a local performance early enough in that career ascendancy to make such a booking possible. I thought we could have made him feel more welcome.

                                                                                      

Ray Chen

WHERE’S YOUR BACKBONE, PEOPLE? I’m talking to you, the audience at Ray Chen’s dazzling recital last week. The violinist finished with a Wieniawski finger-buster that spewed wicked spiccato, left-hand pizzicato, harmonics true and false and other virtuoso hallmarks, a spectacular finish to an astounding program. You leapt to your feet, applauding madly, and Chen and pianist Andrew Tyson returned and bowed and returned and bowed again.

Then Chen pulled a fast one: He played a slow one, “Melodie” by Gluck, a Fritz Kreisler arrangement of a flute tune from “Orfeo ed Euridice.” It’s a beautiful display of violin tone and interpretive gentleness, but, as an encore, it does more than that. It calms the audience, robbing them of the furor that the finger-buster provoked. 

And you applauded, albeit in a more restrained manner, and even before they were offstage after their second set of bows that time, you packed up your hands and toddled home.

Enriching the Hall

From the Comedy Vault Dept.: Back in my reviewing heyday, I presented myself as someone able to write knowledgably about many different disciplines, usually the snooty ones, but I enjoyed forays into realms like comedy, popular song, and even offbeat subjects like ice skating. Here’s a look at Rich Hall’s stop in Schenectady in 1990. Hall dipped into the SNL universe for a season and since has been busy writing plays (at his ranch in Montana) and living and working in London.

                                                                                  

RICH HALL'S APPEARANCE at Proctor’s Theatre Thursday night was presented in the guise of comedy, and it’s true that he worked a lot of delightfully-entertaining bits into his set. But he’s really, down deep, a humorist, following a tradition too few comics know about these days.

I haven’t seen him on television and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to share in the instant recognition factor – and that there’d be inside jokes I wouldn’t get.

It wasn’t like that at all. Hall works the audience with easily-recognizable situations – like so many others, he has his own dog and cat routine – but he’s also got a fascination with language that leads him into a territory of free-association once the province only of people like George Carlin.

Like Carlin, Hall explores the sound and sense of words. They differ markedly in matter, however. Carlin shocks by going for the jugular of taboos and chills the audience into laughing at itself. Hall’s is a warmer approach, making friends with the crowd and inviting them into the banter.

Courting the Farmgirl

From the Concert Vault Dept.: Baritone Sanford Sylvan displayed such virtuosity as he moved through his 30s that his resume included appearances with major opera companies and orchestras throughout the world, and the creation of roles in two acclaimed John Adams operas: “Nixon in China,” in which Syvan sang the role of Chou En-lai, and then the title role in “The Death of Klinghoffer.” We were fortunate enough to see him several times in the Albany area, including performaces as part of what was then known as the Schenectady Museum-Union College concert series. He was based in Manhattan but long associated with Boston, and he spent sabbatical time in Scotland. When he died in 2019, at the age of 65, his New York Times obituary failed to mention, among his survivors, the man he married in 1996. I reviewed his 1984 Union College recital here; below is a recently unearthed review of his 1994 visit, with Schubert’s “Schoene Muellerin.”

                                                                                            

SUPPOSE YOU FINALLY GET this attractive farmgirl to pay attention to you, then she suddenly throws you over for some hidebound hunter. Do you punch him out? Sue him?

Sanford Sylvan

If you're a self-pitying German poet, you rush home and write verse about it, ending up with the lullaby sung to you by the brook you flung yourself into. 

I haven't checked to see whether Wilhelm Mueller was actually being autobiographical in his cycle of 23 poems, published in 1820, but the sorrow and sentiment in “Die Schoene Muellerin” shines through a reading of bare texts and erupts into a magical marriage of music and verse in Schubert's famous setting of all but three of the poems.

The Schenectady Museum-Union College Concert Series had a later-than-usual finish as baritone Sanford Sylvan and pianist David Breitman were at last able to present this cycle. Measles – that dreaded Capital District word just now – postponed the concert until last night.

Which meant no other hardship than that we got to see a gorgeous sunset through the high windows of the Union College Memorial Chapel as Breitman opened the program with the Drei Klavierstücke, D. 946, by Schubert.

Jazzing the Classics

FOR A FEW DECADES during the last century, when classical music was a familiar part of the musical landscape, many jazz bands borrowed tunes with pleasing results. John Kirby’s sextet recorded several such examples (his Schubert Serenade is a knockout), and Freddy Martin set lyrics to those strains. Harry James played the Bumblebee; Woody Herman did the Sabre Dance. The practice has fallen off a great deal since then, but two recent recordings remind us that, as bassist Mark Wade puts it, “A good tune is a good tune.”

Wade’s trio performs on “New Stages” (Dot Time), a fifteen-track collection that takes some unusual turns through the classical repertory, while pianist Ted Rosenthal’s trio (and guests) explore eleven songs on “Impromp2" (TMR), so-named because it’s a follow-up to his 2010 collection of classical-informed pieces. 

Both collections share rhythmically compelling, harmonically inventive approaches to the music under consideration and, remarkably, given the breadth of source material out there, they also share a single piece: Chopin’s Waltz in A-Flat Major, Op. 69 No. 1, known to many as the “Farewell.” 

Rosenthal’s version was fashioned as a vehicle for Ken Peplowski, in one of the clarinetist’s final sessions (see Chip Defaa’s tribute to Peplowski in the March issue). It opens with a straightforward reading of the tune by Peplowski in duet with Rosenthal, who gives a light swing to his first solo passage; without deviating very much from the structure of the piece, Peplowski and Rosenthal alternate 16-bar passages, diving behind its innocent sweetness to embellish the melody with increasing urgency before Peplowski calms it again and brings it home.

Galway Dazzles, Flute Sparkles

Critical Drubbing Dept.: A few weeks ago (in this piece), I recounted my journey from a snotty, full-of-himself critic to a somewhat less-snotty, still rather full–of-himself critic, and I cited a concert by James Galway as one of the turning points in my attitude. I tried searching for the actual review with no success; naturally, it sprang to light when I wasn’t looking for it at all. Like so much of what I had published in 1986 and earlier, the original computer files are long gone, so I’m relying here on a tearsheet that lingered in my files. I wish I’d gotten over berating the audience for applauding between movements by then; now I’m just happy to learn that we’re all awake. Here’s that review.

                                                                                          

HIS GOLDEN FLUTE sparkling in the spotlight, James Galway dazzled a near-capacity crowd at Proctor's Theatre, where be performed with the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada Monday evening.

Galway served as soloist and conductor, and his music alone radiated the charm that the television audience knows from his talk-show appearances. Thanks to that exposure, he is a known quantity on the classical stage and thus draws people who might otherwise think twice about spending ticket money. His program similarly comprised known or accessible pieces, a splendid starting place for the novice coecertgoer.

The first suite from Handel's Water Music was the opener. Galway has a lean but enthusiastic conducting style —  not for him those flailing Bernstein arms — and he shaped his ideas along conventional and acceptible lines. The orchestra responded with appropriate energy, although there were the spotty problems that suggest a not-well-warmed-up group. There were no surprises in this very familiar work until the hornpipe movement busted loose with a wonderfully quirky but ompletely sensible rhythm; Galway probably has an Irish insight other conductors would be wise to learn.

Big Bands are Victorious

THE FIRST BATCH OF V-DISCS shipped to military fighters overseas on Oct. 1, 1943. Less than two years later, we won the war. Many other elements contributed to this victory, of course, but let’s not short-change the power those records must have had.

Mosaic Records celebrated this unique catalogue category with the release in 2024 of a massive set of V-Disc small-group sessions and the promise that a big-band set would follow. It’s here. It’s ten CDs of excellent-sounding music by top-flight bands and a few who never gained that category but should have. 

Right off the bat what invites celebration is the restoration quality. Those discs were meant to be played beside bunk and rack and even out in the field using the spring-wound phonographs that were shipped with the discs (along with packets of extra steel needles). And you got a lot of music: These discs were cut with more grooves per inch than usual to allow for up to six minutes of music on a 12-inch side.

The program continued until May, 1949, at which time the companies producing them destroyed all of their discs and masters. Service men and women were forbidden to bring them home, but with over eight million of those platters circulating overseas, many were bound to find their way back. There are stories of scofflaws having their collections confiscated, and at least one offender did jail time. 

Honey and Steel

From the Classical Vault Dept.: Again (as with last week), going back twenty years, I wrote about two back-to-back concerts that included an orchestra appearance at Proctor’s Theatre, something that now rarely happens at that venue. In any event, the violinist within me was thrilled. I’m a lousy player but a keen fan of the repertory.

                                                                                      

TWO MAGNIFICENT VIOLINISTS appeared within two days of each other in Schenectady, in two significantly contrasting settings of music and hall. Young Arabella Steinbacher blazed through the dazzling Khachaturian concerto surrounded by a large orchestra and witnessed by some 2,000 concertgoers at Proctor’s; Jaime Laredo, a renowned artist with decades of performance credit, played the three autumnal Brahms sonatas in an emotionally riveting partnership with pianist Leon Fleisher in the more intimate setting of Union College’s Memorial Chapel.

Arabella Steinbacher
Photo by Peter Rigaud

Laredo played like honey, Steinbacher like steel; both knew how best to approach the works they’d chosen.

Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto is a big and brassy trifle, replete with modal characteristics springing not only from the composer’s Armenian heritage but also with a fascination for Oriental sounds that found its way into music by Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakoff, among others.

Written in 1940 with lots of advice from violinist David Oistrakh, its fast outer movements are busy – the concluding Rondo is a feast of pyrotechnics – while its middle, an Andante, displays the lyricism that has attracted Khachaturian’s ballet music to hip filmmakers (the love theme from “The Hudsucker Proxy,” for example).

Gambling on Dining

From the Culinary Vault Dept.: Twenty years ago, I reviewed a restaurant in Saratoga Springs that seemed destined for a long run, but didn’t make it very far off the back stretch. After eight years, owner Tim Meaney put the business up for sale, telling the Times Union that winters were a struggle, and it was time to move on. As near as I can figure, the address was next home to a tapas bar calling itself “62 Beekman”; currently, it’s an Italian eatery called Taverna Novo.

                                                                                                

SEVERAL YEARS AGO, a friend of mine ran a drop-in center for kids in a storefront on Saratoga’s Beekman Street. Although he was doing good work, offering a place for teens to engage in meaningful activity, he wasn’t particularly welcomed by the neighborhood. After the program fell apart, he encouraged his board of directors to hang on to the building, predicting that the neighborhood would develop a more artistic identity. They unloaded the building anyway, for a sum they must these days deeply regret.

Because Beekman Street is doing just as my friend predicted, spawning galleries and eateries and attracting a clientele happy to get away from the busy downtown. The Beekman Street Bistro is in a building that, not too long ago, was condemned; its owner, a construction engineer, crafted its reconstruction with ideas and input from Tim Meaney and Dan Spitz, who decided to take a chance on this burgeoning neighborhood and commit to a fine-dining restaurant.

 I‘ve Got a Secret

RED NORVO STARTED HIS JAZZ CAREER playing xylophone, which isn’t a very shouty instrument, but he was forward-thinking and harmonically inventive enough to enhance any ensemble he joined or led. In keeping with his instrument, he also was quietly rebellious. He made most of his rebellious statements through music, as his 1933 trio recordings of “Dance of the Octopus” and Bix Beiderbecke’s “In a Mist” attest, but in 1942 he initiated a different kind of rebellion: He made a (technically) illegal recording.

He’d made many recordings before this date, but they were officially recorded and officially released. But at midnight on July 31, 1942, the official recording industry was shut down by a musicians strike called by union president James C. Petrillo.

Petrillo was a firebrand, so renowned and feared that his name became the punchline for popular radio comedians – and every listener knew who Petrillo was. His argument was that the radio industry was robbing his musicians through a lack of royalty payments on the recordings they aired. And he believed that recordings themselves wiped out some 60 percent of in-person gigs. The strike would end only when the major record companies – RCA Victor, Columbia, and Decca – signed agreements to pay into a special fund.

Dick Baker's Cat

Mark Twain Dept.: It was the fashion, over a century ago, to entertain the public with dialect stories, which could range from the affectionate to the racially savage. This was a characteristic that ranged from stage performers like Chic Sales to writers like Mark Twain (who also took to the stage). Here’s a fine example of Twain’s facility with the genre and familiarity with the mysterious wisdom of cats.

                                                                                                

ONE OF MY COMRADES THERE — another of those victims of eighteen years of unrequited toil and blighted hopes—was one of the gentlest spirits that ever bore its patient cross in a weary exile: grave and simple Dick Baker, pocket-miner of Dead-Horse Gulch. He was forty-six, grey as a rat, earnest, thoughtful, slenderly educated, slouchily dressed and clay-soiled, but his heart was finer metal than any gold his shovel ever brought to light—than any, indeed, that ever was mined or minted.

Drawing by B. Kliban

Whenever he was out of luck and a little downhearted, he would fall to mourning over the loss of a wonderful cat he used to own (for where women and children are not, men of kindly impulses take up with pets, for they must love something). And he always spoke of the strange sagacity of that cat with the air of a man who believed in his secret heart that there was something human about it—maybe even supernatural.

I heard him talking about this animal once. He said:

"Gentlemen, I used to have a cat here, by the name of Tom Quartz, which you'd 'a' took an interest in, I reckon—, most anybody would. I had him here eight year—and he was the remarkablest cat I ever see. He was a large grey one of the Tom specie, an' he had more hard, natchral sense than any man in this camp—'n' a power of dignity—he wouldn't let the Gov'ner of Californy be familiar with him. 

Both Barrels

TWO WEEKS AGO I posted a review of a biography of American abstract expressionist Barnett Newman that included a review of his work by NY Times critic John Canaday. It’s worth reproducing his lede:

Give a man enough rope, they say, and he'll hang himself. The adage received double proof this week at the Guggenheim Museum. That body hanging from the rafters belongs to the painter Barnett Newman, and the companion object swinging alongside is Lawrence Alloway, the museum's curator, who wrote the catalogue for Mr. Newman's exhibition of 14 paintings called "The Stations of the Cross."

Sir James Galway

This ran on April 23, 1966. A different time, obviously; today, Canaday plausibly could be accused and even prosecuted for hate speech, although a review, being clearly defined as an opinion piece, usually escapes such consequence. Dig up the review; you’ll be impressed by the amount of invective Canaday packs into the 600-some words he devotes to Newman’s work.

There’s a shooting-range aspect to a certain kind of review. Although it’s not, by my casual reading, as prevalent in the major periodicals, it has flourished – and then some! – in the many online platforms afforded to anyone who can use a keyboard and the internet. This blog is one of them, but I’m here to appraise Canaday and his ilk, not to bury them. 

X Marks the Audio Spotlight

From the CD Vault Dept.: Back when Dorian Recordings was a thriving label based in Troy, NY, the aim was to produce the best-sounding CDs possible, which began with a recording location – the Troy Music Hall – that was (and remains) one of the best in the world. Beyond that, there were technical considerations brought to bear, and I wrote the piece below to explain the engineering wizardry that went into the finest-sounding of their CDs.  

                                                                                            

AS AN AUDIOPHILE LABEL launched early in the digital age of recordings, Dorian Recordings has always set, maintained, and even exceeded the finest standards. Since its inception in 1989, Dorian has presented a varied series of CDs that include the exciting early music performances of the Baltimore Consort, the organ fireworks of Jean Guillou, the warm sound of the Dallas Symphony, and many other performers who transcend the bounds of classical music.

Craig Dory and Brian Levine
in the Troy Music Hall

Recently, Dorian introduced the xCD series of compact discs, a hand-selected group of recordings that embody the best of the meticulous technology that goes into every Dorian recording – technology that is itself, in Dorian’s hands, an art form. To understand what makes the xCD series special, let’s look first at the recording chain that’s behind every release.

It begins with excellent musicians, of course, and an appropriate venue. Dorian co-founder Craig Dory is the mastermind behind the recording technology, but for him the process begins with the sounds. “I look for a hall that’s spectrally interesting with complex reflections, in which the sounds arrive early and stay longer. Not only does this add an attractive glow to the sound but the artists feel better in a great hall.”

Portrait of the Artist . . .

NO PROMINENT ARTIST – at least none who ever talked about it – merged his personal identity so thoroughly with his work as American painter Barnett Newman. We know what he thought about his work and himself because he wrote about it extensively, often in the form of essays and reviews and other screeds that he churned out tirelessly. He was as eloquent in his prose as he was spare in his painting, although he’d have been the first to jump down my throat for such a glib assessment, so let me explain.

Newman came to prominence as one of a loosely affiliated, New York-based group who, by developing what came to be termed abstract expressionism, wheeled the world’s center of art from Paris to their home city. Although there was enough commonality in these works to merit the umbrella term, look more closely and you see how different they were. You’d never mistake a Jackson Pollock for a de Kooning or Rothko, but the collective impudence of this anti-realist art kept many galleries and critics idling on the safe ground of the likes of Hopper and Benton. 

Newman was one of a group of 18 who wrote an open letter to the president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art condemning a proposed exhibit titled “American Painting Today: 1950.” They believed that the candidates were being selected by a too-conservative jury, thus ignoring what they believed was the true face of American art. The letter was published in the New York Times on May 22, 1950, and the controversy it aroused led to a story in Life magazine titled “Irascible Group of Advanced Artists Led Fight Against Show,” and picturing 15 of the 18 posed in a stark, possibly angry manner. Thus they became known as “The Irascibles.” And that article represents the comparatively brief moment when the artists supported and encouraged one another.

My Least-Favorite Things

From the Poetry Vault Dept.: I found an old essay of mine that I wrote with no eye to publication. I merely wanted to indulge my persistent grumpiness by analyzing a song parody to explain why it doesn’t work. 

                                                                                      

HERE’S THE PROBLEM with trying to parody someone like Oscar Hammerstein. You have to know the rules of scansion and rhyming. And you have to know how to set up a gag so the payoff is as effective as possible. There’s a parody of “My Favorite Things” that’s been around for a while, aimed at the aged (like me). But it reflects the poor craftsmanship of junior-league poets. Let’s see what we’re working with here:

The lyric is presented as “These are a few of my favorite things.” If it’s meant to be the title, the writer should know that the title is merely “My Favorite Things.”

It begins: “Maalox and nose drops and needles for knitting, 
Walkers and handrails and new dental fittings,”

But “fittings” and “knitting” don’t rhyme properly.

“Bundles of magazines tied up in string, 
These are a few of my favorite things.”

To Their Maker, Impeccably Shaved

From the Music Vault Dept.: I noted last week that I seize upon anniversaries as excuses for these postings, and today is no exception. Twenty-five years ago, my review of a then-new recording of “Sweeney Todd” graced the pages of Metroland Magazine, the Albany-area alternative newsweekly at which I held a far-too-long sinecure. But I got away with writing things I never would have sold as easily anywhere else.

                                                                           

WITH MANY OF THE MAJOR ORCHESTRAS cut loose from their decades-old contracts with recording companies, there’s a scramble to achieve a presence in the CD stores. Self-publishing is an option being mined successfully by a few, chief among them the New York Philharmonic. Their latest release skirts the over-recorded symphonic repertory to present a fresh look at Stephen Sondheim’s almost-operatic masterpiece “Sweeney Todd,” giving a depth and perspective to the piece that wasn’t achieved by the otherwise admirable original cast recording.

It’s a project that might have been perfect had baritone Bryn Terfel not been sidelined from the recording; as it was, George Hearn, in good voice and well-versed in the role, stepped into the title role and did well by the part, although he tends to resort to yelling when the going gets exciting. Although Angela Lansbury left an indelible stamp on the role of Mrs. Lovett, here Patti LuPone does an exquisite job with the bloodthirsty part. 

In fact, it’s a triumph all around, the handpicked cast working together splendidly. Met Opera bass Paul Plishka is a standout as Judge Turpin, but that puts him only slightly ahead of the rest. If you’ve only heard the original cast recording, you’re in for another treat: That set was the victim of the LP’s limits; the two CDs of this set contain practically the whole show, dialogue and incidental music included. Even material that was cut from the original Broadway run.

Fifteen Years

I’M SHOCKED TO REALIZE that I’ve been maintaining this blog for fifteen years (not to the day, but close). Its original purpose was to help me get work, because I allowed me to point editors (or whomever) to stuff I’d written in order to back up my claims of being able to write fairly well.

Although I began ambitiously posting a piece per day, taking Saturdays off, so to speak, by posting photos of mine, that ambition slackened over time. I cut down to two posts per week and now, one. It feels as if I’ve mined everything in my files worth exhuming, although I know that there’s much, much more. Restaurant reviews alone seem endless, although they’re of lessening value as prices rise and eateries close. I dashed off any number of concert and theater advances – pieces to promote an upcoming event – which means that, unless there’s a compelling interview attached, those too have grown obsolete.

Looking over those early postings, which I dread, I see that it took a while to find my footing in this realm. I had thought of concentrating on food, given the thirty years I spent reviewing restaurants and my own phagomaniacal leanings, but I was dismayed to discover a plethora of food bloggers, each mirroring the last, each with a grinning self-portrait and chirrupy bio, each forcing you to slog through a megillah of adjective-laden crooning larded with photos of ingredients, procedures (don’t those sauté pans glisten?), and wondrous finished products before finally dropping you onto the recipe itself. I can’t compete with that level of self-promotion.

The Fable of the Visitor Who Got a Lot for Three Dollars

George Ade Dept.: I’ve heard no reports of an uptick in sales of George Ade’s Fables in Slang despite my promotion of those wonderful works in this column. Of course, you can download an e-book from Gutenberg or get a print-on-demand copy through that online behemoth – but I’m happy to keep supplying you. Newspaperman Ade hit pay dirt when he dreamed up these fables, and once his first collection of them was published, he was able to take a lot of that pay dirt to the bank. llustrations by Clyde J. Newman

                                                                          

THE LEARNED PHRENOLOGIST sat in his Office surrounded by his Whiskers.

Now and then he put a Forefinger to his Brow and glanced at the Mirror to make sure that he still resembled William Cullen Bryant.

Near him, on a Table, was a Pallid Head made of Plaster-of-Paris and stickily ornamented with small Labels. On the wall was a Chart showing that the Orangoutang does not have Daniel Webster's facial angle.

“Is the Graft played out?” asked the Learned Phrenologist, as he waited. “Is Science up against it or What?”

Then he heard the fall of Heavy Feet and resumed his Imitation. The Door opened and there came into the Room a tall, rangy Person with a Head in the shape of a Rocky Ford Cantaloupe.

Aroused from his Meditation, the Learned Phrenologist looked up at the Stranger as through a Glass, darkly, and pointed to a Red Plush Chair.

The Easy Mark collapsed into the Boarding-House Chair and the Man with more Whiskers than Darwin ever saw stood behind Him and ran his Fingers over his Head, Tarantula-Wise.

Moscow on the Mohawk, or Hooked on Russia

From the Food Vault Dept.: This review, which I'd wanted to share much earlier, turned out to be hiding in a computer directory where it shouldn’t have been, another example of glasnost gone wrong. The night of this visit was more memorable than the piece suggests. True, we eschewed dancing to the loud, bad disco music played by two loud instruments and a rhythm box, but the party of twenty that filled up the room became increasingly boisterous, insisting that we join their table (we didn’t) or at least join them in a vodka toast – which we did, but only because they convinced us that their friends in the kitchen were not going to send out our food until we did so. Not surprisingly, the restaurant closed not long after this review appeared, but that closure surely was in the works already.

                                                                                            

LATER, TRYING TO RECONSTRUCT THE EVENING, my wife and I had trouble ascertaining just what it was that pushed it all over the top. The big birthday party, to be sure, and the Russian disco band. The mini-skirted, satin-bloused waitresses added an entertaining touch (and the worry that Schenectady’s fleshaphobic mayor might try to close down this place). Then there was the formidable menu, sporting such unusual items as schti, which our waitress wouldn’t describe because the kitchen was out of it, so why bother?

The current occupant at this address.

Troika – the name refers to the team of three horses that pulls a traditional Russian carriage – occupies a building that went through a few incarnations as Indian restaurants, interrupted by a stint serving Korean food. To put a Russian restaurant there is a delightful idea. The location does seem to be a kiss of death, though.

So my first question would have been about that location. Unfortunately, my follow-up phone calls to manager Ella were unsuccessful. She was too busy with customers to talk one day, which is a good sign; but she couldn’t honor our phone appointment the next day, however, because “she’s having some trouble with the boss,” the phone-answerer whispered, explaining, “I’m just a friend who stopped by to visit today.”

The Old Song and Dance

From the Theater Vault Dept.: Despite my lifelong Lloyd Webber antipathy, I felt inclined to like this show just on the basis of its unusual concept. And I’m a great fan of good dance. But this one turned out to be yet another Lloyd Webber show, and reading my review of it again after all these years (the piece dates back to 1987), I now understand the root of that antipathy. It was a high-school trip to see “Jesus Christ Superstar” on Broadway. I was a senior, and at last had a girlfriend – or so I thought. We sat together on the bus heading into Manhattan, and were adjacent in the theater. But I was by then picking up this-ain’t-gonna-last vibes, and, sure enough, it didn’t. I couldn’t blame it on her – I loved her, with what must have been terrifying first-relationship fervor. I was too self-centered at that point to blame myself, so I had to blame someone. I blamed Lloyd Webber.

                                                                                                 

Melissa Manchester

“SONG AND DANCE,” the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that began a week’s run at Proctor’s Theatre Tuesday night, presents us with a dilemma that is all too characteristic of the contemporary musical-theater stage: Bimbo comes to the city, is too stupid to maintain a successful social relationship, gets mean, regrets it, and acts stupid again. Curtain.

The two acts are divided according to the title: the first is sung; the second, danced. Emma is a Brit who comes to New York to make a success as a hat designer. But, until she gets her green card, she makes time with a succession of mercurial men, culminating in a short-lived affair with a married man from Westport who wants to leave his wife and kids for her. So she dumps him.