“A song in the dark,” by Jay Nordlinger

“A song in the dark,” by Jay Nordlinger

I end my current Music for a While with a song—the same song with which Nina Stemme ended her recital in Carnegie Hall at the beginning of this month. It was her final encore. Stemme is a Swedish soprano. Twenty years ago, I heard another Swedish singer—the great mezzo Anne Sofie von Otter—sing the song as an encore in the same hall: Carnegie. And the song? “My Ship,” from the 1941 Broadway musical Lady in the Dark. The music is by Kurt Weill, a…