Little Night Music, A, is a musical comedy with music and lyrics by the American composer Stephen Sondheim. The British-born American playwright Hugh Wheeler wrote the book (story). The show opened on Broadway on Feb. 25, 1973, and proved to be one of Sondheim’s most popular musicals, running for 601 performances.
A Little Night Music is based on Smiles of a Summer Night, a motion picture directed by Ingmar Bergman of Sweden in 1955. Sondheim’s adaptation was widely praised for its sophistication and wit as it explored the romantic affairs of people of different social classes.
The story is set in Sweden about 1900. Most of the action takes place during one weekend at the country house of the elderly Madame Armfeldt. The central characters are Fredrik Egerman, a middle-aged lawyer, and Desirée Armfeldt, an actress and Madame Armfeldt’s daughter. Fredrik and Desirée had been lovers at one time. Now Fredrik is unhappily married to a young woman named Anne. Other main characters include Fredrik’s son, Henrik; Desirée’s daughter, Fredrika; Desiree’s current lover, Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm; the count’s wife, Charlotte; and two young servants, Petra and Frid.
Sondheim’s music explored various forms of the waltz. “Send in the Clowns,” sung by Desirée, became the most popular song from the musical. Other numbers included “A Weekend in the Country,” “You Must Meet My Wife,” “Remember?,” “The Miller’s Son,” and “Every Day a Little Death.”
In the original Broadway production, Len Cariou played Egerman and Glynis Johns was Desirée. Hermione Gingold played Madame Armfeldt. Harold Prince was the director, and Patricia Birch designed the choreography (dances).
