Character guide
Desiree Armfeldt
from A Little Night Music
Desiree Armfeldt is a touring actress and former lover of the lawyer Fredrik Egerman in A Little Night Music, Stephen Sondheim's 1973 musical.
- Show
- A Little Night Music
- Broadway premiere
- 1973
- Role
- Lead
- Music by
- Stephen Sondheim
Desiree Armfeldt on stage vs screen
Broadway compared with the 1977 film and Bergman's 1955 film
Glynis Johns originated Desiree on Broadway in 1973 and won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical; Sondheim wrote Send in the Clowns for her in short phrases that worked around her vocal limitations. Elizabeth Taylor played Desiree in Harold Prince's 1977 film, which moved the story from Sweden to Austria.
The character goes back to Ingmar Bergman's 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night, the musical's source, where Eva Dahlbeck played the actress Desiree Armfeldt. The name stayed the same across all three versions, even when the 1977 film renamed other characters for its Austrian setting.
Who is Desiree Armfeldt?
Desiree is witty and weary from years of touring, and when she encounters Fredrik again after many years apart, she engineers a country weekend to try to win him back from his young, unconsummated marriage. At the same time, she is entangled with a jealous, married dragoon officer, Count Carl-Magnus, complicating her plans.
Her confidence masks real loneliness and regret about the life she has built, and over the course of the story she comes to a clear eyed reckoning with what she actually wants, rather than what convention expects of her.
Desiree's role in A Little Night Music
Desiree is a lead role and sings the score's most famous song, Send in the Clowns, a rueful ballad about two former lovers whose timing has never quite matched up. The role demands strong acting ability and controlled, conversational vocal delivery more than pure belting power.
The part was originated by Glynis Johns, who won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1973, and Send in the Clowns has since become one of the most recorded songs to come out of a Broadway show, performed by singers far outside the theatre world.
Desiree Armfeldt: frequently asked questions
What show is Desiree Armfeldt from?
Desiree Armfeldt is a lead character in A Little Night Music, which opened on Broadway in 1973.
Is Desiree Armfeldt a lead or supporting role?
Desiree is a lead role and the show's central woman.
Who wrote the music for A Little Night Music?
Stephen Sondheim composed the music and lyrics for A Little Night Music.
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