Stephen Sondheim’s shows have become the kinds of standards that are pretty much indestructible. No matter what kind of production they receive, their innate qualities shine through.

One of Sondheim’s greatest musicals, his 1973 A Little Night Music, which is currently getting its first Broadway revival, has been a show that is thrillingly alive even when the production is not ideal. This musical, based on Ingmar Bergman’s great Smiles of a Summer Night from 1955, features one of Sondheim’s most glorious scores and includes his unmistakable standard, “Send in the Clowns.”

I was lucky enough to see this show during its premiere run in New York, when I was in high school. And while I’m not given to idealizing theatrical experiences of the past (except perhaps for the original production of Follies, which I also saw as a star-struck – or Sondheim-struck – teen), I remember the production well, from the wistful charm of Glynis Johns as Désirée Armfeldt and the languid wisdom of Hermione Gingold as her mother Madame Armfeldt to the sets of Boris Aronson, the costumes of Florence Klotz and the lighting of Tharon Musser.

I saw a production of A Little Night Music a few years ago at New York City Opera – this musical has found a home at opera companies – and while it was cast with non-singers (to put it mildly), including Jeremy Irons, Juliet Stevenson and Claire Bloom – the production showed off what a wonderful libretto Hugh Wheeler wrote, adapting Ingmar Bergman’s screenplay.

The current production, which stars Catherine Zeta-Jones as Désirée and Angela Lansbury and her mother, under the direction of Trevor Nunn, has its charms, though it loses something of its sparkle and rueful effervescence with the smaller-scale orchestrations and dark lighting here (as if inspired by Bergman’s gloomy Winter Light rather than the summery source movie for this musical).

Zeta-Jones, perhaps more musical-comedy star than an Ibsen heroine (one can’t remotely imagine her playing Hedda, one of Désirée‘s signature roles) relaxes into the role as the evening progresses, and her “Send in the Clowns” is lovely and touching, but other numbers are less satisfying overall. The rousing “A Weekend in the Country,” for example, which closes Act I, needs a larger sound. Nevertheless, I came away from this show impressed, as always, by the Sondheim genius. His string of musicals from the 1970s – Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures and Sweeney Todd – is among the greatest artistic achievements in American theater.

I was lucky enough to have seen all of these in their original productions, and I’ve seen my share of dud revivals (the miserable John Doyle interpretation Company, for instance), yet always I’m astounded by the humanity, insight and wit of Sondheim’s scores, and often as not, by the quality of the books to his musicals.

Unfortunately, while Sondheim is a great American theatrical treasure, new productions of his works usually begin abroad, in London, where this Night Music originated. Despite the difficult economics of Broadway, American producers should do what they can to stage full-scale revivals of Sondheim works – he is one of our great national treasures. That said, I’d be eager to see a production of A Little Night Music that Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris plans to open in February, starring Kristin Scott-Thomas  as Désirée and Leslie Caron as Madame Armfeldt. Even if it doesn’t quite work, it will still be sublime.