Sondheim, Etc.: Bernadette Peters Live at Carnegie Hall
This live concert from 1997, a benefit for the Gay Men's Health Crisis, was Bernadette Peters's Carnegie Hall debut, and it's a joy. Peters has always had a special affinity for the music of Stephen Sondheim, and she spotlights some of his best songs, only a few of them from the shows she's best known for,Into the WoodsandSunday in the Park with George. The program is part career retrospective--including non-Sondheim selections fromMack and MabelandDames at Sea--and part wish list, which provides a forum for Peters's pouty humor ("In this movie [Dick Tracy], this song was sung by a blonde bombshell... not me. Although we both have religious names."). She's backed by a full orchestra conducted by Marvin Laird, who also directed Peters's similar program a year later at London's Royal Festival Hall (captured onVHSandDVD). The very appreciative and knowing audience (there's applause at the first words ofDames' "Raining in My Heart") includes Stephen Sondheim himself. No doubt he was very proud.--David Horiuchi