Nov 01, 1989
Sting makes his Broadway debut: The sound of classical music drifts from a large upstairs dressing room at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre one hour before an evening dress rehearsal. Gordon Matthew Sumner is playing Mozart. "I think it helps to concentrate on something else for a minute or two," says Sumner, better known as rock superstar Sting, as he gets up from the piano. "Otherwise, you end up worrying..."
Nov 01, 1989
As the sexy, sinister Macheath in Broadway's 'The Threepenny Opera', Sting is taking the greatest gamble of his gaudy career. This is not his turf. We are strolling west on 46th Street on a midsummer day in midtown Manhattan, and even in tank top and cotton pants, even with a dashing moustache adorning his face, it is unmistakably Sting, a man who has spent the past decade as one of the most famous men in the world...
Oct 01, 1989
Sting sat in a dressing room at the Brooks Atkinson Theater, playing 'Yankee Doodle' on the jaw harp. "This is my New Sound," he said between twangs, italicizing the last two words with the studied pomposity of a progressive-rock deejay. "Very American, isn't it? Well, I'm a New Yorker now, so it's fitting." It was the week before the opening of the New York previews of "The Threepenny Opera," Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill's acerbic study of money and morals in Weimar Republic Berlin, and the Brooks Atkinson, shuttered since spring, had been engaged to provide temporary rehearsal quarters...
Sep 01, 1989
Sting and the President's Men: In his frock coat, wing collar and spats, he looks a bit of an Edwardian Jack the Lad - a handsome, smiling presence with blue-eyes steel underneath. Then, with a swish of his sword-stick, he is into his first song. This is Sting, the millionaire rock star known for his support of good causes, embarking on a new career possibly more dangerous than any exploit into the Brazilian rainforests...
Sep 01, 1989
Sting's Mack attack: The singer-actor takes on The Threepenny Opera. Bertolt Brecht's own production notes for 'The Three Penny Opera' were imperilled when Sting was cast as the rogue Macheath. The instructions are clear: The actor assuming the role of Mack the Knife should not use sexuality as a starting point for his characterisation, which must have been a major hurdle for one of the world's most strikingly handsome pop stars. Still, some of Brecht's other guidelines were curiously prescient: Macheath is "to be presented as a bourgeois phenomenon... he is already somewhat bald, like a radish, but not without dignity... he has not the least sense of humour..."
Jun 01, 1989
Ecological rock: Pop musicians sing out to save the planet. It resembled the historic Live Aid concert of 1985: a global jukebox featuring some of the world's top musicians performing for a cause. And like the original world benefit for African famine relief, the event was broadcast to an audience expected in advance to number one billion viewers in more than 100 countries...
May 01, 1989
Message beyond music - Sting finds fulfilment as a supporting act. Sting looks drawn and tired, showing the fatigue of a man carrying a lot on his shoulders and more on his mind. He is into the fourth month of a world tour in which the famous rasping voice which once fronted The Police will not hit a note, if you don't count the note of caution his message brings...
May 01, 1989
His day job on hold and no new album or concerts planned, Sting has set up a foundation to save the Brazilian rainforest and embarked on a promotional campaign to raise funds and meet international heads of state. A heartfelt crusade or a millionaire's conceit? Watch out. He's off again... "I start getting very dewy-eyed when I talk about the Indians, very idealistic. But that's the way I feel. I think they hold clues as to who we are. I have a theory that we don't really understand the world, we think we do, but we don't. Like I don't know where my shoes came from, I don't know who made them or how they were made. I don't know where most of the things in this house came from. Paul Du Noyer examines the "game plan" of the teacher turned philosopher rock star...
Apr 01, 1989
Protection the roots of the forest: Pale and jet-lagged after an overnight flight from Los Angeles, Sting, the exemplary, super-healthy rock star with a conscience, is campaigning again. After a world tour with Bruce Springsteen on behalf of Amnesty International, he has taken up the cause of the Amazonian Indians. He is to travel with Chief Raoni of the Kayapo tribe for two months before his next concert tour. For Sting, it is another date in his diary. For Raoni, it is a matter of life or death...
Apr 01, 1989
Rock star Sting is a self-confessed changed man. One of the world's top-selling and most popular solo singers he has been moved to action by his concern for the destruction of the world's environment, and in particular by the plight of the Amazon Indians. Such is his dedication to their cause that he has committed himself to devoting nearly a year of his life to help the Indians to preserve their heritage...