Photo: Regina Weinreich

Introducing this evening, Bernadette Peters cautioned the audience at Lincoln Center’s Geffen Hall, "Sweeney Todd"'s Mrs. Lovett will not be singing about baking shepherd pies with real shepherds a featured ingredient. Not that it mattered. This would be Stephen Sondheim composer, and except for two numbers from Follies with the outstanding Katrina Lenk singing the words to “Losing My Mind” and “Could I Leave You,” Peters kept her promise. Lenk will star in a revival of Sondheim’s “Company,” coming to Broadway.

Without his brilliant lyrics, the Sondheim feste did not disappoint. Beginning with the “Overture to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and “Suite from Into the Woods,” the orchestra, led by Alexander Gemignani, and directed by Lonny Price, sampled Sondheim’s ample oeuvre. You could see musicians pucker, whistling as birds in the woods. The performance, an hour and half of joy, included “Suite from Assassins” and ended with “Suite from Sunday in the Park with George.” Peters and Lenk returned, champagne flutes in hand, for “Auld Lang Syne.” If you are in New York City for the holidays, the Philharmonic is the place to be on New Year’s Eve.

Photo: Regina Weinreich

But the city had many surprises, especially a reading of Eric Carle’s greatest hits for kids, “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” and “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” at the South Street Seaport Museum. Though they did not specify age the show’s advertising, I was as charmed as my companions, Max Herman (4) and his little brother Zac Herman (1 ½) by the story telling and puppets, including the extraordinary reveal of a colorful butterfly at reading’s end. Enjoying a day of buses and ships, we toured the South Street Seaport’s exhibitions, watching a flier printed on an old-time press, and listening as the guide, Greta, told us the history of The Ambrose, a 1907 lighthouse boat. Then we boarded the city’s ferry, reaching midtown in a swift twenty minutes. This was one of my favorite days in 2019.