The monstrous, pitiful Norma Desmond, the washed-up silent film star at the heart of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard, is a massive and complex role; it requires an actor of great charisma and gravitas to pull it off. Patti LuPone first played Norma on the West End, and Glenn Close had extraordinary success in the part on Broadway. But Sarah Brightman – who leapt to fame originating the role of ingenue Christine Daaé in Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera – is simply not up to the task in Opera Australia’s new production, her first major theatre role in three decades. Not physically, not dramatically and certainly not vocally.
Sunset Boulevard, a musical adaptation of Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 film, was always an odd fit for Lloyd Webber, a composer known for scale and sentiment rather than cynicism or satirical bite. Wilder’s vision always seemed better suited to Stephen Sondheim, who flirted with his own adaptation of the material before abandoning it. Lloyd Webber’s score is sumptuous and cinematic, with a jazz-inflected swagger that evokes the period, but it lacks the jangled nerves and bitter dissonance of the original. It also trades Wilder’s exquisitely calibrated pathos for unabashed mawkishness.
