Short Takes: Aug. 31, 1992

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CABARET

Berlin's Salute To America

As Americans again fret whether the U.S. can survive changes brought by immigration, it is heartening to revisit the songs of Irving Berlin, a Russian Jewish immigrant whose words and music, from God Bless America to White Christmas to There's No Business Like Show Business, prove how readily and deeply he resonated with the spirit of his new nation. His work is gloriously celebrated in SAY IT WITH MUSIC at New York City's ritziest nightclub, Rainbow & Stars, on the 65th story of NBC's building in Rockefeller Center. A cast of seven led by Kaye Ballard performs 47 songs in just 60 minutes, yet gets the flavor of each. A highlight: Manhattan Madness, a 1932 musing on urban glitter and horror that could have been written last week.

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Love at the Opera

She dresses in Madonna-style bras, strips on stage and sings about justifying her love, but this songbird's debut album will never make MTV. Lesley Garrett, the English National Opera's untraditional lead soprano, presents a sumptuous assortment of operatic arias on DIVA! A SOPRANO AT THE MOVIES. Her finely colored voice with its firm vibrato is not elitist, and she sings this collection of songs that have made their way into films with a passion and abandon that would make Madonna envious. Garrett's plaintive Voi che sapete, from The Marriage of Figaro, and her flirtatious plotting in Quando m'en vo, from La Boheme, are the answer for those looking for substance in their tunes.

POP MUSIC

Twist and Shout

In the early '60s, between Elvis and the Beatles, two corporate names ruled rock 'n' roll: Spector and Scepter. Phil Spector's over-the-Top-40 sound has often been memorialized; now THE SCEPTER RECORDS STORY is related in a 65-song set on three CDs. Owned by Florence Greenberg, a New Jersey mom, the diskery made its rep with girl groups (the Shirelles) and treble rousers (the Isley Brothers, the Kingsmen). It then officiated at the marriage of gospel and pop, with Dionne Warwick selling peerless Burt Bacharach ballads. The set includes many savory hits and some obscure gems: Bacharach's prime plaint I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself and a King Curtis tune called Potatoe Chips (Dan Quayle take note).

CINEMA

Big Town, Big Think

Making his rounds on New York City's night streets, a drug dealer named John LeTour (Willem Dafoe) feels doom gathering around him. The cops are taking an interest in him, one of his best clients is self-destructing, his boss (Susan Sarandon) is threatening to leave the trade, and an ex-lover (Dana Delany) will have nothing to do with him. In LIGHT SLEEPER, bad things happen to not- so-good people. Writer-director Paul Schrader (American Gigolo, Patty Hearst) likes to work the margins of American life, and he does so with a certain style. Also with literary pretentiousness and moral portentousness. But the point here is obscure. One keeps hoping he will relax into genre filmmaking, where a crime is just a crime, not an occasion for woozy philosophizing.

BOOKS

Iris in Wonderland