With ‘Harmony,’ Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman Offer a Musical That Is Almost Defiantly Life-Affirming and Joyous
As antisemitism again surges in the wake of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, ‘Harmony’ is especially timely, as it follows a half-Jewish sextet between its formation in the late ’20s and its forced dissolution by the Nazis.
The first act of Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman’s musical “Harmony” wraps in 1933, with a German vocal ensemble that had by then gained international renown, the Comedian Harmonists, making its American debut at Carnegie Hall. As the show documents the event, the group receives congratulatory telegrams from Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, Fanny Brice, Will Rogers, and Gypsy Rose Lee.
As Mr. Sussman, who wrote the book and lyrics for “Harmony” — and who has been Mr. Manilow’s collaborator for more than 50 years, dating back to the latter’s heyday as a pop superstar — has noted, La Guardia, Brice, Rogers, and Lee all became enduring icons, not to mention the subjects of musicals themselves. This was not the case for the Harmonists, the victims of one of the worst catastrophes of a catastrophe-ridden century.
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