On And Off The Record

In the years following her triumph at the Seventh International Chopin Piano Competition in 1965, Martha Argerich—the “whirlwind from Argentina”—soon became known as a pianist who never played it safe. Each musical outing became for Argerich “a new, high-risk adventure, another opportunity to discover interpretative possibilities in the moment,” noted Caleb Bach. “While this profound need to constantly test limits and resist predictability always charged her performances with great vitality, her restless, impulsive nature was not always conducive to stability in her private life.”

In this, the second episode of a two-part program, Adriaan Fuchs takes a closer look at Argerich’s relationships with conductor Charles DuToit and pianist Stephen Kovacevich, discusses her phenomenal technique, shares some of the qualities that have made her a living legend, and looks at the insecurities and fears that have plagued her career. He also touches on Argerich’s brave struggle with cancer, and her triumphant, now legendary, concert at Carnegie Hall in 2000.

In this On And Off The Record podcast, the first of two programs dedicated to Martha Argerich, Adriaan Fuchs traces Argerich’s early years as a "wunderkind" in Buenos Aires, her formative studies with Friedrich Gulda, her triumphs at the Busoni and Geneva International Piano Competitions in 1957, and her rise to international prominence when she won the seventh International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1965, at age 24.

Thomas May once wrote that “an encounter with the searing artistry of Martha Argerich can resemble a religious conversion experience.” Alex Ross, writing in The New Yorker, likened the experience to what can “only be described as a possession, a visitation”. Indeed, Argerich, who turns 75 on June 5 of this year, has been called the “High Priestess” of the piano, a “goddess” who inspires a cult-like devotion among audiences, her fellow musicians and artists.

Argerich is one of the most enigmatic figures in classical music today, a living legend who is regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time, yet someone who readily admits that it is not a gift she sought, nor one she is particularly comfortable with. “I didn't want to be a pianist in the first place,” she once famously stated. “I still don't want to be, but it is the only thing that I can do, more or less.” Despite her legendary reputation, Argerich has paradoxically played only one solo recital in decades, instead preferring to play concertos or chamber music with musicians whose company she enjoys. A further contradiction is that her playing, whether it be Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Prokofiev, Strauss or Messiaen, feels entirely personal, yet is always completely in the service of the composer. “She seems both to own the music completely and to discover it on the spot,” Matthew Gurewitsch noted. “Her interpretations are never standard or middle-of-the-road. Yet, while one listens, there seems to be just one way. Hers.”

The bottom line is that, as Anthony Tommassini wrote in The New York Times, once you’ve heard Argerich play, you never forget it. “She is a colossal technician, a powerfully intuitive musician and an electrifying performer.”

A trained actor (with a Juilliard pedigree), LuPone was catapulted to overnight stardom when she thrust her arms skyward in the original 1979 Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s “Evita”. By her own account her experience of “Evita” was not enjoyable, and she had tremendous difficulty in mastering the vocal demands of the role. Even so, she managed to rip through the score like a hurricane unleashed (winning a Drama Desk Award, and her first Tony), and to this day, her portrayal of Eva Peron is generally considered to be definitive.

Following “Evita”, LuPone originated the role of Fantine in “Les Misérables”, and in the process become the first American to win a Laurence Olivier Award. She wowed audiences with her brassy pipes, tap-dancing sass, and deft comic skills in the role of Reno Sweeney in Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes”, and then originated the role of Norma Desmond in the original West End production of “Sunset Boulevard”. That experience, however, would lead to one of the greatest disappointments in LuPone’s career, when Andrew Lloyd Webber decided to cast Glenn Close, not LuPone, as Norma Desmond on Broadway, despite a signed contract that promised the role to LuPone.

She shed any preconceptions about the role of Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” with a refreshing interpretation in John Doyle’s 2005 Broadway production. And in 2008, won her second Tony for her indelible performance as Momma Rose in the Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim-Arthur Laurents musical “Gypsy”.

There is perhaps no more a fitting word than “glorious” to describe LuPone’s trademark full-throtlle singing style with its joyful blare and leering swoops. Part of the thrill of listening to her or seeing her perform, is the obvious joy she takes in her own voice and what she manages to accomplish with her incredible God-given talent. She takes risks, she pushes her chest voice higher than most singers dare to go. She’s known for her incredible vocal stamina, for having what many have referred to as “vocal chords of steel.” “LuPone has a miracle of a voice”, noted People Magazine. “It can be as big and bold as a brass band or as plaintive as a solitary woodwind.” But, no matter whether she is belting out high E’s, F’s and G’s in “Evita”, or has the audience in the palm of her hand crooning a torch song in an intimate cabaret venue, LuPone’ s style is, as Adam Feldman noted, “stamped with an implicit credo: all guts, all glory.”

In this, the final episode of Great Interpreters Goes Broadway!, Adriaan Fuchs profiles the career, the voice, the artistry of the one and only, Patti LuPone.

In this, the penultimate episode of "Great Interpreters Goes Broadway!", the spotlight falls on the "First Lady of British Musical Theater", Elaine Paige. A 4 ft 11in powerhouse performer, Paige’s extraordinary show business career spans 50 years. She was the first actress to play the iconic roles of Eva Peron in "Evita", Grizabella in "Cats" and Florence in "Chess", and has arguably appeared in more West End and Broadway musicals than any other performer of her generation. Her list of roles is impressive: aside from the aforementioned "Evita", "Cats" and "Chess", it includes appearances in "Hair", "Jesus Christ Superstar", "Billy", "Anything Goes", "Piaf", "Sunset Boulevard", "The King & I", "Sweeney Todd", "The Drowsy Chaperone" and "Follies".

What’s more, Paige has appeared in television and film, has thrilled audiences in concert worldwide, appearing in such venues as the White House, the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Sydney Opera House, has recorded 21 solo albums and earned eight consecutive gold and four multi-platinum discs and has achieved chart topping hits including "Memory", "Don’t Cry For Me Argentina" and "I Know Him So Well" which have become her signatures. She also has a highly successful, long-running show on BBC Radio 2, has been nominated for five Olivier Awards (winning in 1978 for her portrayal of Eva Peron in Evita), received an OBE and even been named "Rear of the Year."

Throughout her illustrious career, Tony Award-winning actress Bernadette Peters has dazzled audiences and critics with her performances on stage and television, in concert, and on recordings. Described by Stephen Sondheim as “flawless”, she has emerged as one of the leading interpreters of his work. Her initial success in the 80’s in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s "Song & Dance", and Sondheim’s "Sunday in the Park with George", was followed by the role of the Witch in "Into The Woods", and more recently, acclaimed revivals of "Gypsy", "Annie Get Your Gun", "A Little Night Music" and "Follies". Her versatile voice has variously been described as buttery and lemony, with a warmth, and a vulnerable, girly quality (David Cote called likened it to “an angelic soprano that can dip down to adorable, languid growls”). Her performances are marked by an ever-present mix of humor, warmth, passion and emotional depth. Hers is a subtle, less outward art, and her interpretations always full of depth and nuance.

In this On and Off the Record podcast, part of the "Great Interpreters Goes Broadway!" series, Adriaan Fuchs provides a portrait of this remarkable and iconic "Broadway Baby".

Arguably the most well-known and loved leading lady of them all, Julie Andrews is adored the world over for her roles as Mary Poppins and Maria in “The Sound Of Music”. Andrews’ voice, at its peak, was silvery, pure, clear as a bell, and instantly recognizable, and it continues to beguile generations of children (and adults) to this day on screen and in recordings. And even though she hasn’t worked that much on Broadway, she serves, as David Cote noted, as an “icon for the old-fashioned joys of Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe.”

Andrew’s massive successes in “Mary Poppins” and “The Sound of Music” coalesced in the public mind the character of a sweet-voiced Englishwoman ready to soothe childhood traumas by crooning about "A Spoonful of Sugar" or "My Favorite Things." Following these roles, she spent decades alternately conforming to and rebelling against the prim and proper, wholesome image they had bestowed upon her.

In this On and Off the Record podcast, part of the “Great Interpreters Goes Broadway!” series, Adriaan Fuchs takes a closer look at the life and career of Dame Julie Andrews.

Unlike most other Broadway Babies, it is said that five-time Tony Award winner Angela Lansbury initially had no dreams of the musical theater and didn’t especially aspire to it. Her career began in film, and she appeared in more than 40 movies (including “Gaslight”, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and “The Manchurian Candidate”) before making it to Broadway in 1957 with the play, “Hotel Paradiso”. But it wasn’t until 1964 that she had the opportunity to do her first musical. That show, “Anyone can Whistle”, was one of Broadway’s most legendary flops, lasting only nine performances, but it did give Lansbury the confidence to pursue a career as a musical performer, and it introduced her to Stephen Sondheim, a composer with whom she would go on to do a further three shows and of whose work she would become a noted interpreter.

It was the musical theater that allowed Angela Lansbury’s star to shine brightest: with her daffy comic skills and brassy pipes, she originated such landmark roles as Mame Dennis in Jerry Herman’s “Mame”, and Mrs. Nellie Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”, in addition to her star turns in “Gypsy” and “The King and I”. And then of course she also won the hearts of millions through her portrayal of mystery novelist and amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the hit television series “Murder, She Wrote”.

Admired by her peers and beloved by her fans, both young and old, Lansbury is, without a doubt one of stage and screen's most treasured stars. In this special On And Off The Record podcast, part of the Great Interpreters Goes Broadway! series, we examine the life and career of the remarkable Angela Lansbury.

With her gravel-edged belt, a voice like a car shifting gears without the clutch, as People magazine noted in 1988, her charismatic stage presence, tart-tongued quips, and her signature outfit: a long white man’s dress shirt, a black vest, black tights, and nothing resembling pants, Elaine Stritch, or “Stritchie” as Noël Coward referred to her, became a living emblem of show business durability.

Her career, which began in the 1940s, spanned almost 70 years and notably included roles in Coward’s “Sail Away”, and Stephen Sondheim’s “Company”, but reached its highpoint in 2001, when in her late 70s, Stritch delivered a Tony Award-winning performance in her one woman show “Elaine Stritch At Liberty”.

“Equal parts blond bombshell and battle-ax,” Adam Feldman noted, “Stritch sings in a skeleton key that somehow unlocks every song. Her curmudgeonly, whiskey-drenched style explodes with a rare force of character: a tough yet tender blend of honesty, rue and mordant wit.” She was, as NPR’s Scott Simon observed, “her own greatest character.”

In this On And Off The Record podcast, Adriaan Fuchs takes a closer look at the life and career of the “First Broad of the American theater”: the one and only, Elaine Stritch.

In the second program of the 8-part Great Interpreters Goes Broadway! series, Adriaan Fuchs examines the life and career of Mary Martin, one of musical theater's greatest stars.

Mary Martin’s place in the history of American musical theater is singular. With her radiant stage presence, warm, golden voice, and legendary charm, she originated such Tony Award-winning leading roles as Nellie Forbush in “South Pacific”, the title role in “Peter Pan” and Maria in “The Sound of Music”.

But even though her roles were iconic, Martin doesn’t inspire the same devotion today as some other leading ladies, noted David Cote. “Maybe that’s because she was denied the chance to immortalize most of her performances on celluloid, or because she didn’t have an outsize personal or idiosyncratic voice like Ethel Merman.” While Merman was the Broadway powerhouse whose brassy, clarion voice could galvanize audiences, Martin was the subtler, more inward-looking artist. If she couldn't top Merman for vocal prowess, she probably had the edge on that elusive quality called charm. But, as David Cote argues, whatever the cause of Martin’s underrated stature, she deserves credit for being the first to tell us what we now take for granted: that the hills are alive, that children can fly and that men can be washed out of hair.”

No other performer embodies the spirit of the Great White Way more than the iconic Ethel Merman.

After sky-rocketing to fame in 1930 singing “I Got Rhythm” in the Gershwin musical Girl Crazy, Merman became the darling of such legendary songwriters as George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Jule Styne. During her career, which spanned more than 50 years, she starred in leading roles in a whopping 13 original musicals, nearly all of them hits. Among the iconic roles she created were Reno Sweeney in "Anything Goes", Annie Oakley in "Annie Get Your Gun" and Mama Rose in "Gypsy".

In this On And Off The Record podcast, the first in a series of eight programs dedicated to the great women of musical theater, Adriaan Fuchs explores the life and career of the one-and-only Ethel Merman.