‘Fiddler’ and More: Sheldon Harnick’s Diverse Oeuvre Celebrated at 92NY

Sheldon Harnick‘Wonder of Wonders’92NYThrough June 3The single greatest thing one can possibly watch on YouTube, no competition, is a wedding video from 2010. Here we see a Hispanic-American family who choose to celebrate the big day by performing the “Fiddler on the Roof” number “La Chaim” — and they do the whole thing, all the verses and choruses and even the Russian soldiers’ dance break at the climax. The video has attracted almost eight million views, not least because it features a pre-”Hamilton” Lin Manuel Miranda singing to his new wife Vanessa, but it illustrates the universality of the songs of Sheldon Harnick — that a 21st century Puerto Rican family could relate so well to a tale of a Jewish shtetl in tsarist Russia, and the “Fiddler” score in particular.Concluding Monday, a celebration of Harnick’s music at 92NY was originally planned to mark his reaching 100, but, alas, he left us a few months after his 99th birthday just about a year ago. The program, assembled by Ted Sperling, who also served as musical director and host, began with an overture that also brought out the diversity of Harnick’s music, in that it started with the extroverted and lusty “La Chaim (To Life)” and then immediately segwayed into “Dear Friend,” a sweet and intimate waltz from “She Loves Me.”Mr. Sperling’s program largely focused on the six well-known musicals that Harnick wrote with composer Jerry Bock, from “Fiorello!” (1959) to “The Rothschilds” (1970), all of which, with the exception of “Tenderloin” (1960), were regarded as successes in their time and since. Mr. Sperling thoughtfully bookended the program with other, lesser-performed Harnick works, including an industrial jingle that he wrote on commission for the Ford Motor Company.The first sung number, “Beautiful Beautiful World,” illustrated Harnick’s inherent optimism — reflecting the reaction of the first man, Adam, in “The Apple Tree” (1966), on the wonders of the world that God has given him. This was performed by the entire company of five singers, but the first solo was a brilliant, out-of-the box choice: “Garbage,” a devastatingly funny parody of an old-fashioned torch song, introduced by Bea Arthur in “The Shoestring Revue”; Alysha Umphress delivered it memorably here, getting the most out of what was amazingly subtle wordplay on such a broad and outrageous number, like, “Don’t think I wasn’t burned up / By your incinerations.” Ms. Umphress, whom most of us first came to love in the 2014 revival of “On The Town,” sang much more than garbage, including an extended and hysterical story song from “Passionella” in the third act of “Apple Tree.” Throughout, Mr. Sperling served as an engaging and assured narrator, and even the crowd was hip; when he played a clip of Harnick and Bock demonstrating their original idea for the opening number in “Fiddler,” titled “We’ve Never Missed a Sabbath Yet,” those in the house immediately recognized how it evolved into “Tradition.” The program included the expected iconic songs from “Fiddler,” such as Harnick & Bock’s biggest, “If I Were a Rich Man,” delivered at full throttle by Adam Heller, as well as “Miracle of Miracles,” by Adam Kantor, who sang it in the most recent Broadway production, which Mr. Sperling conducted. Still, it was gratifying that they gave equal time to such lesser-performed but not less classic musical theater works as “Fiorello,” “The Apple Tree,” and “The Rothschilds.” Mr. Sperling and company also illustrated how even Bock and Harnick’s cut songs are better than most songwriters’ best-known numbers; the host recalled how Harnick himself celebrated the 50th anniversary of “Fiddler” at 92NY in 2014 with a program of songs that didn’t even make it into the show.Sam Gravitte shined on “Where Do I Go From Here?” a deleted song from “Fiorello” that Peggy Lee famously recorded, and Mr. Kantor and Anna Zavelson dueted sweetly on “Sewing Machine,” scissored from Act II of “Fiddler.” Mr. Sperling himself performed two additional “Fiddler” deletions — “What a Life,” which evolved into “Rich Man,” and “A Butcher’s Soul” — almost as effectively as Harnick himself did at 92NY 10 years ago.The show ended with a return to tradition — not that song, but to the vintage Lyrics & Lyricists custom of giving us a singalong near the end of Act II; this time, it was the venerable “Sunrise, Sunset.” The last number was a rare but worthy collaboration between Harnick and Cy Coleman for the movie “The Heartbreak Kid.” In the 53 seasons of the series thus far, there were probably more evenings built around Sheldon Harnick — mostly as host and not just programs of his own work — than any other songwriter, but, as this final show of the 2023-’24 season makes clear, it hardly seems like enough.

‘Fiddler’ and More: Sheldon Harnick’s Diverse Oeuvre Celebrated at 92NY

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