Mixed reviews for Zeta-Jones' Broadway debut

Catherine Zeta-Jones’s Broadway debut received mixed reviews today, with veteran co-star Angela Lansbury diverting the bulk of critics’ praise following the opening of 'A Little Night Music'.

The Welsh actress stars as Desiree Armfeldt in the revival of Stephen Sondheim’s 1973 musical and brings a “decent voice, a supple dancer’s body and vulpine self-possession” to the role, according to the New York Times.

But 84-year-old Lansbury is the star of the show, according to the first reviews.

Critics describe her performance as “a wonder” and “just about perfect” in a production that fails to hit the high notes.

Zeta-Jones’s performance is noted for bringing a touch of Hollywood glamour to proceedings.

Writing in the New York Daily News, Joe Dziemianowicz said she looks “ravishing” and has “a pretty good voice”.

But he is less complimentary on her acting, commenting on the 40-year-old’s “skittering accent, which wanders from Wales to mid-America to the Deep South”.

The Associated Press’s Michael Kuchwara is similarly minded. Zeta-Jones is “gorgeous, looking just right as this ripe, alluring woman who has never shirked from the way of all flesh”.

He continues: “Zeta-Jones has a throaty, sensuous voice, which she uses to good, flirty effect. But her acting particularly in the first act, seems overdone, too strenuously self-aware.”

The reviewer states that overall there are some “lovely moments, most of them supplied by Angela Lansbury” but that too often the show seems “forced, boisterous and a little crude”.

British director Trevor Nunn received a tough time at the hands of New York’s notoriously hard-to-please critics.

Writing in the New York Post, Elizabeth Vincentelli complains that his “murky-looking” production lacked nuance and energy.

The New York Times’s Ben Brantley suggests the show may still prove to be a hit, but mainly because of the stars’ fame rather than any “artistic finesse”.

'A Little Night Music' opened on Sunday at New York’s Walter Kerr Theatre.