Classical

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A Little Night Music For such a fragrantly enchanting musical, this 1973 Tony winner displays a near-Schoenbergian attention to subcutaneous structure; the sophistication of Stephen Sondheim’s music and lyrics acts as a bittersweet metaphor for game-playing artifice in matters of the heart. The dramatic personae form a neatly interlocking pattern of romantic triangles, which resolve at a Swedish country estate during the long, long twilight of Midsummer’s Night, and the score is a dance suite of variations on triple time: waltz, gigue, mazurka, sarabande, polonaise, even the rippling harp triplets underlying the show’s most popular number, “Send In the Clowns.” This last is sung by Desiree Armfeldt, one of musical theater’s greatest roles for actresses past ingenue age-and she even gets the hero at the end. (Through March 9.) GAVIN BORCHERT SecondStory Repertory $27 Friday, February 21, 2014, 8pm