“Why can’t you throw ‘em a crumb?
What’s wrong with letting ‘em tap their toes a bit?
I’ll let you know when Stravinsky has a hit —
Give me some melody!”
Thus sings a producer to an aspiring composer and lyricist team when they audition for him in Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along – with the composer acidly attacking his own reputation for lack of hummability with a song that, as it happens, is very hummable.
But I’ve just returned from attending the first night of a new version of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale that doesn’t throw us any crumbs of comfort. Not only is the music as jarring as ever, but so is the concept that it surrounds – director Andrew Steggall has, by using a company that combines three European actors with three from Iraq, propelled it forward as a haunting parable of the current conflict there.
And Stravinsky may, at last, have a hit.
