Evermore

Dan Stevens delivers "Evermore" with surprising emotional authority, his voice — a lyric baritone with genuine classical training behind it — carrying the Beast's transformation more convincingly than any visual effect in the 2017 film. Written by Alan Menken and Tim Rice as a new solo for the character that the 1991 animated film never gave him, the song arrives at the narrative's lowest point, Belle gone and the Beast choosing to release her rather than hold her against her will, the act of love that makes him worthy of love returned. The production is deliberately austere in its opening measures, strings spare and searching, before the orchestra commits fully to the emotional peak with a confidence that trusts the melody's inherent power. Stevens's phrasing is intelligent — he understands the lyric intellectually before he delivers it emotionally, which gives each line a dual register of thought and feeling rather than raw sentiment alone. The central conceit, that the Beast will carry his love for Belle across all his remaining time even knowing she may never return it, belongs to the tradition of grand romantic sacrifice that musical theatre does better than any other form. A solitude song by its very nature: headphones, eyes closed, the kind of track that demands you stop whatever else you are doing and simply inhabit it. Among the best things the 2017 production added to its source.