Funeral: Susan Sings, Brian Doesn’t
Leave it to the New York Times, most days a great paper, to get it wrong about one of its icons: Edward M. Kennedy. Today’s article covering the Senator’s funeral got the year of Joe Kennedy, Jr.’s death wrong: it was 1944, not 1942. (Perhaps the mistake will be corrected online by the time you read this). And, in its summary of the music for Teddy’s funeral, the story mentioned Yo-Yo Ma (who played the “Sarabande” from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 6) and Placido Domingo (who sang Franck’s “Panis Angelicus”) but not the stand-out performer: Susan Graham (left), singing Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” Brian Stokes Mitchell (right) was scheduled to perform from “Man of La Mancha.” (Kennedy was a big fan of classic Broadway musicals; I once sat behind him at a performance of “Guys and Dolls.” I was impressed that he knew all the words, but wish he hadn’t felt compelled to mouth, and sometimes sing, them throughout the show.) In the event, Mitchell didn’t sing. I’m sorry that Broadway didn’t have the spotlight, and sorry that Mitchell, who’s my neighbor in New York, didn’t perform. I am elated, however, that the histrionic standard “The Impossible Dream” was effaced from world view.
“The Impossible Dream” is the most boring Broadway beat-your-chest ballad ever written. I, too, am glad the world was spared yet another live rendition.