Yesterday's enfant terrible morphs into today's éminence grise: Stephen Sondheim, whose music and words were once savaged as unmelodic and overly sophisticated respectively, but who has since inspired a generation of music theater composers, will turn 80 on March 22 and there will be numerous birthday tributes. Manhattan School of Music (MSM) got a jump on celebrating the Sondheim birthday season with an extraordinary program, "Beautiful Girls: a Stephen Sondheim Revue of Songs for Women," on January 18, to benefit musical theater at MSM, with Paul Gemignani, master conductor of Sondheim musicals, leading the MSM Chamber Sinfonia and a quartet of Broadway divas-Zoe Caldwell, Donna McKechnie, Marin Mazzie and Jenn Colella-in classic songs by Sondheim, the composer and lyricist, and some, by other composers, to which Sondheim contributed lyrics. Lonny Prince directed and Josh Rhodes choreographed this amazing evening.

The company probed Sondheim's insights into a diversity of women in quartets, trios, duets, and solos. Following Gemignani and the Sinfonia's lively account of part of the potpourri overture to "Follies," McKechnie, Mazzie and Colella, feigning not being prepared for the show's 7:30 curtain, came out in bathrobes to sing, "No, don't look at us" (i.e. "Don't Look at Me," from "Follies"), before shedding the robes to reveal their concert finery beneath and insisting, "I'm so glad I came." The trio collaborated on an ebulliently biting "You Could Drive a Person Crazy," and on "(Not) Getting Married Today," both from "Company," with, in the latter, Mazzie gorgeously intoning the high soprano choirgirl's line, McKechnie butching it up to play Paul, and Colella, unraveling as Amy, delivering the terrified bride's breathless patter. They also harmonized on "Pretty Women," Sweeney and Judge Turpin's song from "Sweeney Todd," one of several men's numbers to which they gave their particular spin.

Although Caldwell's principal roles here were as narrator, moderator and, sometimes, referee, she also joined the others in offering their take on "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid, " another men's song, from "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," and kicked off "Broadway Baby," the foursome's final number, from "Follies." Here, in response to the classy Mazzie's, "Heck, I'd even play the maid," Colella ad-libbed, "No, you wouldn't," and Mazzie agreed, "No, I wouldn't."

Mazzie and McKechnie sparred in earnest in "There's Always a Woman," cut from "Do I Hear a Waltz?" with Sondheim's lyrics to Richard Rodgers' music, and Mazzie, as Countess Charlotte Malcolm, and Colella, as Anne Egerman, commiserated, ruing spousal infidelity, in "Every Day a Little Death," from "A Little Night Music."

In "Liaisons," from "Night Music," Caldwell put her dramatic instincts to the service of illuminating Madame Armfeldt's reflections on past love and lamentable change-in the presence of Angela Lansbury, yet. From "Gypsy," with Sondheim's words and Jule Styne's music, McKechnie gave us a dynamite "Some People," with a hint of Ethel Merman when, as 'Mr. Orpheum,' she sang the name "Rose," and Caldwell's cameo appearance as Papa, protesting, "You ain't getting 88 cents out of me, Rose!" In songs from "Follies," McKechnie limned a Sondheim survivor, a brave graduate of life's school of hard knocks, in "I'm Still Here," and vented in bittersweet, nay, just bitter waltz "Could I Leave You?" McKechnie looked frankly at love, or as Caldwell put it, "you see what the man is and marry him anyway," in "So Many People" ("I guess the man means more than the means"), from "Saturday Night."

Introduced with Caldwell's, "Some girls have a lot of love to give," Mazzie gave us a winning and witty "(I shall marry) The Miller's Son," Petra's practical guide to love, lust and marriage, from "Night Music"-so she did play the maid, after all-and, in a song from "Evening Primrose," written for television, wistfully realized the yearning of department store mannequin, come alive, in "Take Me to the World." She made us feel the full pain behind the love in "Not a Day Goes By," from "Merrily We Roll Along." Learning life's hard lessons was the thread running through Colella's "I Know Things Now," Little Red Ridinghood's sobering song from "Into the Woods," and "Another Hundred People," from "Company," her ebullient enthusiasm tempered by the daunting realities of New York City. Apt simplicity marked her title song from "Anyone Can Whistle."

The starry divas notwithstanding, there were also two opportunities for MSM singers to shine. Mezzo-soprano Margaret Peterson handily caught the sense of wonder in "I Remember (sky)," from "Evening Primrose." And the MSM Symphonic Chorus brought the concert to a close with a touching, ringing "Make Our Garden Grow," the finale from Leonard Bernstein's "Candide," a musical for which Sondheim wrote some new lyrics when it was revived on Broadway, nearly two decades after its premiere.

Eighteenth century opera is on the Manhattan School spring calendar, with the MSM Opera Theater productions of Handel's "Il Pastor Fido," a Senior Opera Theater production, from April 1 through 4, and Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro," on April 28 and 30, and May 2. Visit www.msmnyc.edu for details or to buy tickets.