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Публикация на www.broadway.com, посвященная недавнему 10-летию мюзикла:

http://www.broadway.com/template_1.asp?CT=8&CI=29520



Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of the world premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Sunset Boulevard. I could not let the occasion pass without recalling some of the highlights of what was the most eventful, headline-making musical run in memory.

--Having won the role of Norma Desmond, Patti LuPone is off to London to begin rehearsals. Just as she's about to depart, LuPone, who has been guaranteed the Broadway Sunset as a package deal with the London premiere, hears of the casting of Glenn Close, who will play Norma in the show's U.S. premiere in Los Angeles.

--LuPone isn't thrilled to learn that, when customers phone up to purchase tickets to Sunset at the Adelphi Theatre and are put on hold, they hear Barbra Streisand's recordings of Norma's big songs.

--It's the first time in history that most of the major New York critics arrive en masse to cover the opening of a West End musical. The opening date is postponed from June 29 to July 12, wreaking havoc with the critics' plane and hotel reservations. The delay is due to technical problems; it seems that the hydraulic mechanisms involved in John Napier's floating-mansion set have been picking up signals from mobile phones and taxi radios in the vicinity of the Adelphi, causing the set to make unscheduled (and dangerous) movements.

--At the opening night party, Billy Wilder, director and co-writer of the show's source film, diplomatically declares that, "In many instances, the musical is better than the film."

--The London critics are reasonably positive about LuPone's performance. But Frank Rich, reviewing the London opening in the New York Times on July 14, 1993, declares LuPone "miscast and unmoving." John Simon in New York Magazine calls her "grotesquely miscast," and LuPone also gets less than favorable reviews from the New Yorker, Newsweek, and Time .

--October, 1993: The New York Times reports that LuPone is still set to star in the Broadway Sunset in the fall of 1994. She's quoted as saying, "If I were being replaced, well, I haven't seen a check yet. And $1 million wouldn't cover it."

--Opening on December 2, 1993, Glenn Close wins raves in the L.A. production, which features Alan Campbell, George Hearn, and Judy Kuhn. Once again, the New York critics descend, and find Close superior to LuPone. In the Times , Vincent Canby cheers the new Norma.

--December, 1993, Liz Smith reports: "As good as Glenn Close is, and as much as Andrew Lloyd Webber adores her interpretation, she will NOT replace LuPone for the Broadway run. Webber conceived Sunset Boulevard with Patti in mind. It is she who will bring the show to the Great White Way."

--February, 1994: It's official: Close will be Norma on Broadway, with Lloyd Webber opting to buy out LuPone's contract and make a settlement with his West End star. (While many still feel this was an act of extreme cruelty, I don't believe the producer had much choice: How could you bring the hugely expensive Sunset to Broadway with a star whose performance had already been unfavorably reviewed in the New York Times and other American publications, particularly when another American performer had already won raves in the role?)

--Long-rumored for the role of Norma, Betty Buckley is hired to replace LuPone in London. But first, the London production is shut down for a re-do, incorporating the alterations in text and design that were instituted in L.A. Sunset reopens at the Adelphi in April 1994, with Buckley opposite John Barrowman, and their reviews are good.

--Faye Dunaway is to replace Close in Los Angeles in July 1994, so that Close can star in the Broadway Sunset. But Dunaway is dismissed during rehearsals, and the L.A. production is shut down at the end of June. Lloyd Webber tells the press that, in spite of coaching, Dunaway's singing was still not up to snuff, and that "great embarrassment could have occurred" had Dunaway made it to the stage. Another version of the story alleges that Dunaway was a scapegoat, and that firing her allowed Lloyd Webber to close the L.A. production and recycle the scenery and some of the cast elsewhere. Dunaway files suit for $6 million.

--On November 17, 1994 at Broadway's Minskoff Theatre, Close opens in Sunset and triumphs. L.A.'s superb Betty, Judy Kuhn, is pregnant, so she doesn't appear in the Broadway production, thus giving Alice Ripley a career break. In the Wall Street Journal, critic Donald Lyons calls Sunset "the best musical since Gypsy." (Maybe he meant the best since Tyne Daly's Gypsy.)

--Sunset is the only book musical to open during the 1994-'95 Broadway season. It beats the only other nominee, Smokey Joe's Cafe, for the Best Musical Tony, and takes the unopposed book and score prizes. Close wins her third Tony for Sunset. (The first three London Normas all get Olivier Award nominations, but not one wins.)

--A list of actresses supposedly contacted as to availability and interest in playing Norma at some future date (Broadway, London, Toronto, etc.) includes Anna Maria Alberghetti, Julie Andrews, Lauren Bacall, Anne Bancroft, Karen Black, Ann Blyth, Eileen Brennan, Carol Burnett, Diahann Carroll, Dixie Carter, Stockard Channing, Cher, Blythe Danner, Judy Davis, Patty Duke, Christine Ebersole, Barbara Eden, Sally Field, Joanna Gleason, Mariette Hartley, Florence Henderson, Judith Ivey, Olivia Newton-John, Shirley Jones, Madeline Kahn, Cleo Laine, Angela Lansbury, Carol Lawrence, Michele Lee, Ute Lemper, Shirley MacLaine, Ann-Margret, Julia Migenes, Ann Miller, Liza Minnelli, Mary Tyler Moore, Rita Moreno, Bernadette Peters, Debbie Reynolds, Chita Rivera, Diana Ross, Cybill Shepherd, Teresa Stratas, Meryl Streep, Marlo Thomas, Kathleen Turner, Lesley Ann Warren, Sigourney Weaver, and Raquel Welch.

--It's revealed that box-office figures were deliberately inflated for a week when standby Karen Mason was substituting for a vacationing Close. The situation makes the front pages of the News and Post when an incensed Close fires off a letter to Lloyd Webber, saying "If I could leave Sunset tomorrow, I would....I made {the show} a hit...and yet a representative of your company went out of their way and lied to try to make the public believe that my contribution to this show is nothing, that Karen's performance is equal to mine....It sickens me to be treated with such disregard."

--In the fall of 1995, the Toronto production opens, with glamorous Diahann Carroll backed by Rex Smith, Walter Charles, and Anita-Louise Combe. As was his wont, big spender Garth Drabinsky keeps the Livent Sunset alive for almost two years, moving it from Toronto to Vancouver in spite of dwindling box-office receipts.

--London, October '94: Betty Buckley is rushed to hospital for an emergency appendectomy; Lloyd Webber veteran Elaine Paige is rushed into Sunset, and later takes over the role when Buckley leaves the London version.

--On July 4, 1995, Buckley replaces Close in the Broadway Sunset, playing her first performance to rapturous ovations. When the critics come, the Times's Canby misses Close, but the others praise Buckley's touching performance.

--In December, 1995, the German-language Sunset opens at the out-of-the-way Rhein-Main Theater, near Weisbaden. Helen Schneider is a good Norma, but her successor, Daniela Ziegler, is better.

--For the first U.S. national tour (1996-'97), Linda Balgord is hired to play Norma, her company including Ron Bohmer, Lauren Kennedy, and Ed Dixon. Hiring an unknown like Balgord proves a box-office mistake, and the lavishly scaled tour folds. In 1998, a new tour goes out, with entirely different sets and staging (Susan H. Schulman, Kathleen Marshall). Petula Clark, who had been London's fourth Norma, heads the second U.S. tour, which features Lewis Cleale, Allen Fitzpatrick, and Sarah Uriarte Berry, and this one lasts.

--The least seen of the star Normas is Rita Moreno, who goes on in the London production during Clark's vacation. Moreno is not in good voice.

--In June 1997, the Australian production is prematurely aborted in Melbourne. On closing night, leading man Hugh Jackman makes an extended curtain speech, lauding his terrific Norma, Debra Byrne. Sunset director Trevor Nunn remembers Jackman when it comes time to cast the Royal National Theatre's Oklahoma!

--Once again replacing Buckley, Elaine Paige makes her Broadway debut in 1996 and offers the funniest, earthiest, and best sung Norma to date.

--February 1997: At the same time Lloyd Webber closes Whistle Down the Wind in D.C., cancelling that show's scheduled Broadway arrival at the Martin Beck, the composer announces that the New York, London, and Canadian Sunsets are all shutting down. The New York production folds on March 22, 1997; the London and Vancouver versions close the following month.