The great mystery at Lincoln Center is why Bartlett Sher’s direction of vintage Broadway musicals at the Vivian Beaumont is so brilliant and his direction of warhorse operas at the Metropolitan Opera is so uninspired. Could it be Sher doesn’t care for opera? He once said, “What I don’t like about opera is that it starts and stops, you lose consciousness, then you’re back.”
Next door at Lincoln Center Theater’s Vivian Beaumont, Sher not only loves but understands what makes musicals sing and run like a bejeweled timepiece. There’s an entirely different director at work here, and Sher’s “My Fair Lady” revival, which opened Thursday at the Beaumont, is the third in a glittering string of successes, preceded by “South Pacific” and “The King and I.”