PRESS
FAIRFIELD — The Fairfield Arts & Convention Center will host a concert next week featuring the music of Stephen Sondheim, the composer after whom the arts center’s theater was named.
Melissa Errico, who worked with Sondheim on several productions, will perform “Sondheim Sublime” on Thursday, Sept. 15 at 7:30 p.m. Errico released an all-Sondheim album in 2018, and will be performing songs from that album, as well as telling stories from her decades’ long relationship with the composer.
No One Is Alone: Melissa Errico Remembers Stephen Sondheim
also features Max von Essen.
Tony nominee Melissa Errico celebrates what would have been the 92nd birthday of the late, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim March 22 at 7 PM at The Green Room 42 with an evening entitled No One Is Alone: Melissa Errico Remembers Stephen Sondheim. The event will be available for both in-person audiences and to stream.
The Broadway favorite is joined by Tony nominee Max von Essen (Evita, An American in Paris, Falsettos) for the concert. Tedd Firth is the
musical director.
WHEN:
Fri, June 12, 2020 at 3 p.m. on Facebook
WHERE:
The Sheen Center website as well as its
FaceBook and YouTube channels
As part of a celebration of Stephen Sondheim’s 90th birthday, “Poetry in America Live” — a new series from the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture in partnership with PBS’s “Poetry in America” series — will focus on his song “Finishing the Hat” from the musical “Sunday in the Park with George.” This live event will include a performance of Sondheim songs and a discussion of the lyrics to this particular song. Elisa New, host of PBS’s “Poetry in America,” will be joined by the Tony Award nominee Melissa Errico, the New Yorker staff writer and author Adam Gopnik and the musical director Tedd Firth.
Melissa, Sublime And Subliminal
Errico Brings Sondheim Concert
– The Independent
– San Francisco Chronicle
– Theater Pizzazz
“New Melissa Errico Album, Program
This Weekend At 92Y In New York Celebrate Stephen Sondheim's Music”
– Forbes Magazine
“Melissa Errico to Bring Sondheim Sublime Concert to London”
– Playbill
– Long Island Advance
"What Makes Stephen Sondheim's Music ‘Sublime’?
Melissa Errico Explains"
The Tony nominee celebrates the release of her new album, Sondheim Sublime, with a return engagement at Feinstein's/54 Below.
"Singing the sublime
with Melissa Errico"
A musical meditation from Melissa Errico,
who finds light and wisdom in the Sondheim songbook
"Since beginning her stage career in the early 1990s, Melissa Errico has illuminated the theatrical world with her radiant presence and her unique intelligence— on stage, in recording and in her writing. With this caricature, Sardi’s celebrates her performances, her concerts, her engaging essays for the New York Times on the actor’s art -- and, especially, her ravishing new tribute album to Broadway’s greatest contemporary composer, SONDHEIM SUBLIME, which The Wall Street Journal has called “gorgeous & intelligently sung” and The New York Times has called “The Sondheim Album Of The Year.” For all of these achievements, Sardis is proud to recognize Melissa Errico.”
“Melissa Errico – Sardi's Caricature: Alec Baldwin, Donna Murphy too!”
– Theater Pizzazz
“Learning To Love Stephen Sondheim”
– The Wall Street Journal
“Broadway Leading Lady Melissa Errico Finds the 'Sublime' on Her New
– Billboard
“What Makes Stephen Sondheim's Music ‘Sublime’? Melissa Errico Explains”
– Playbill
“Melissa Errico to Receive Sardi's Caricature”
– Broadway.com
“Singing the sublime with Melissa Errico”
– Purist
CD Review: ‘Sondheim Sublime’ by Melissa Errico
– Stage and Cinema
* * * * *
What the critics are saying about Melissa Errico...
“Not to put too fine a point on it, “Sondheim Sublime” is the best
all-Sondheim album ever recorded”
— The Wall Street Journal
"Errico is the finest interpreter of Sondheim's music in America today"
— Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker
“Many have found the sophistication and satire and mordant ambivalence in Stephen Sondheim. With this new CD, Melissa Errico finds a subtler, more soulful Sondheim than the one we thought we knew, sung with the intensity of a secret expressed at long last, with many moments of the sublime.”
— The New Yorker
“Both Sondheim and sublimity are promised and delivered in Melissa Errico’s newest album. Her emotional, authentic, stirring, gracious, sophisticated interpretations of 15 Sondheim tunes are delivered with her delicate, dulcet, relaxed, pleasant, unpretentious, murmuring warble of a vibrato. Refinement, subtlety, and shadings are ever-present here, even in songs that are not always thought of as ballads, such as “Sooner or Later” (Dick Tracy)... “Marry Me a Little” will stir you, “Goodbye for Now” will touch you, “Children Will Listen” will move and excite you, “No More” will inspire you, and “Children and Art” may just
wreck you.”
— Tony Frankel, Stage and Cinema
“Her familiarity with the way the [Sondheim’s] songs work to advance character and story in vivo naturally informs her in vitro style, which is actorly to begin with. The hysterical bridal lament “Getting Married Today,” from “Company,” found her crawling around the floor of the cabaret’s tiny stage before winding up cocooned under the piano while her inventive accompanist, Tedd Firth, played on. Her fierce “Loving You” from “Passion” — she also sang two gorgeous duets from that show with Ryan Silverman — brought unusual attention to the two distinct thoughts often blurred in the line “I will live and I would die for you. That attention to the lyrics and their rush of harsh “wisdoms” was Ms. Errico’s keynote. She refreshed the cabaret staple “The Miller’s Son,” from “A Little Night Music,” by setting up each of its three verses as a different escape fantasy. In a lightly jazzed “Not While I’m Around,” from “Sweeney Todd,” she demonstrated how the meaning that is locked in tiny verbal gestures can be released with bold phrasing. (“I don’t need to, I would never / Hide a thing from you / Like some.”). She shone in selections, like the three from “Passion,” whose lushness she could relax into without underlining. Her full-bodied soprano also proved ideally suited to songs of regret, like the rarity “It Wasn’t Meant to Happen,” cut from “Follies.””
— Jesse Green/The New York Times
“Sheer musical comedy mastery”
—The New Yorker
“Errico is a powerhouse known for her impeccable vocal phrasing and tantalizing journeys through song…this savvy songstress's knowledge and respect for the music she sings pays off. It's what elevates this cabaret act to something more than just a collection of songs but an actual experience for all who were fortunate enough to witness it. You could literally hear the audience either left breathless between songs, or actually talking back to her as she recounted some of her favorite Sondheim anecdotes, and was able to strike a careful balance of sharing personal encounters with the composer, with staying humble and accessible.”
— Broadway World
“Recipe for a superb evening of cabaret: Start with a glowing, top-of-the-class Broadway actress and singer; add songs written by one of the theater’s best-ever lyricists/composers; all elements were on hand for Melissa Errico at Feinstein’s/54 Below.”
— Cabaret Scenes
“Sometimes five stars aren’t enough. Such was the case with the hypnotic New York star Melissa Errico’s triumphant solo UK debut at Zédel’s, 90 minutes of pure bliss...Songs apart, she’s undeniably funny. The anecdotes tumble out in this well-rehearsed show with some inspired arrangements by musical director Tedd Firth. Every number is a joy but ‘Loving You’, from Passion, is particularly beautiful. If you can get in, don’t miss her – marvelous Melissa is a bit special."
— Jeremy Chapman,
The London Musical Theatre Review
✭✭✭✭✭
“In her London debut with MELISSA SINGS SONDHEIM, Ms. Errico is simply scintillating!...thoughtful, radiant & ravishing.”
— Mark Shenton, Shentonstage.com
"The sterling-voiced Broadway actress emanates an easy, robust glow of pleasure…it goes without saying that she sings divinely.”
— Ben Brantley/The New York Times
“[Her] singing is impeccable…a former ingenue, Melissa has ripened into
nuanced maturity.”
— Ben Brantley/The New York Times
“Divine…the voice of enchantment…
one of the most valuable assets of the musical theater."
— The New York Times
“Ethereal, gorgeous, elegant, popular…
with inward emotion and real artistry.”
— The New York Times
“Her performance is the stuff dreams
are made of…her singing is as pure
and sweet as her warm smile”
— The Wall Street Journal
“She is one of the best singing actors we have.”
— The Wall Street Journal
“Stunningly beautiful”
— The Wall Street Journal
“Errico's lush soprano is a seduction
in itself.”
— The Village Voice
