[In the following review, Simon gives a positive assessment of the New York City Opera's production of A Little Night Music, focusing on the staging, costumes, and orchestration. However, he finds fault with the performance of the cast.]

Of course it's desirable to revive our best musicals, and why not put them into opera houses if those are the ones willing and able to stage them? What does it matter whether you consider Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's A Little Night Music opera, operetta, or musical comedy, when, by any name, its good parts—to wit, the music, the lyrics, and their wit—smell equally sweet? But if the State Theater can perhaps just make it as an opera house, nonoperatic voices are in trouble here. I shall not harp on it—and certainly not trumpet it—but amplified in this barn, a show affects the ear as tomato juice, consumed can and all, would affect the stomach. But once you get past the tinny sound, there is much to enjoy in this production.

Not least of the virtues is Scott Ellis's staging, which uses relatively simple and inexpensive sets for maximum suggestive value and deploys the actors across a large and not undemanding stage in elegant configurations that are nevertheless not at war with the sight lines. With his set designer, Michael Anania, Ellis has devised mostly fluid, leafy, floral, cloudy panels and backdrops that can quickly and easily accommodate a dropped façade or a few well-chosen sticks of furniture—without ever relinquishing their bucolic airiness.

Lindsay W. Davis's costumes are tastefully aware of how far opulence can go without becoming ostentatious, or exquisiteness without becoming effete. And Dawn Chiang has done everything lighting can to keep things playfully pastel and knows how to turn a scrim into the very fabric of protective memory. Susan Stroman's choreography is rather rudimentary, but there being no dancers present, anything more might easily have been less. And Paul Gemignani's conducting gently nudges an always sympathetic orchestra toward such empathy that we would not be surprised if there was waltzing in the pit.

The cast, however, is a mixed bag, and not only because some have operatic, some show-biz backgrounds. The key figures, you'll recall, are the worldly and wise actress, Desirée Armfeldt, and her worldly but not so wise—indeed, charmingly befuddled—soul mate, the lawyer Fredrik Egerman. Neither role is well enough filled. Sally Ann Howes, with top-heavy wig and one uncharacteristically unflattering costume, does not, for all her amiable ways and graceful singing, have the presence to be the pivot of this swirling action. Glynis Johns did better on Broadway, and just listened to on records, Jean Simmons can move and enchant you. As for George Lee Andrews—who was Frid, the non-singing butler, on Broadway—his voice is well rounded and engaging, but his Egerman is still more butler than lawyer.

Although he sings with brio, Michael Maguire is a humorless and charmless Count Malcolm, but Maureen Moore gets the Countess across tidily though unsubtly. Susan Terry would be a fine Petra if she weren't so American, but Kevin Anderson, as Henrik, is a real find as singer and actor, and looks if anything too good. Beverly Lambert is a tolerable Anne Egerman, Danielle Ferland is a rather too weird Fredrika, and the chorus of five ubiquitous commentators, albeit somewhat overdirected, is efficient enough. As the aged Madame Armfeldt, Regina Resnik, even if not exactly aristocratic, comes through, like the old pro she is, with steady voice, ringing diction, and tart timing. And she does have the unearned advantage of not being Hermione Gingold.

With Sondheim in top form in a nicely flowing production, not even Hugh Wheeler's lumpish book (from Bergman's film—a masterpiece, though Bergman himself, I am sorry to say, has turned against it) could dampen the fun. But won't Miss Resnik, please, correct the terrible English in “Don't squeeze your bosoms, dear”? A woman has two breasts, but always, except perhaps in a Schwarzenegger movie, one bosom.