Video & Recap: Madeline at the Metropolitan Room

Most of the cast. From left: Betancourt, Larsen, Harada, Leritz, Feltman, Hall, WVM, Shapiro, Burke, Copeland, Willison. Not pictured: Rice, Cohen, Ross, Cubeta.
Photo by Maryann Lopinto.

I’m told that I looked like a little kid playing with shiny new toys during every number of our tribute show, “Gone Too Soon: The Music of Madeline Kahn,” at New York’s Metropolitan Room on Saturday afternoon. You can’t really see that in the video that I’m posting here — the light was pretty dim where I sat — but you can certainly see why I was so happy. One talented performer after another came out and dazzled us on the Met Room stage.

Some of these people I’ve know for years — others I’d just met. I knew that all of them were first-rate. Yet even my absolute confidence in them didn’t quite prepare me for just how wonderful they were.

In a note to me after the show, Ann Harada reflected on the “gallantry” and “vulnerability” of performers — and observed that “It was also glaringly apparent that Madeline attracted ridiculously difficult material.” But these people are pros. You can see for yourself, by watching the video here.

Ann Harada. Photo by Maryann Lopinto.
To see the complete video, click here.

The show was born on a cold spring night, when Peter Napolitano, Janice Hall, and Adam B. Shapiro and I sat in the theater at Urban Stages. Peter was brainstorming, coming up with ideas to help me promote Madeline Kahn: Being the Music • A Life. “Have you thought about doing a cabaret show?” Peter asked.

No, I had not. Bear in mind that, in that little quartet, I’m the only one who doesn’t have a MAC Award, that honor bestowed on the best of New York’s cabaret scene. (Peter has three.) But in that instant, our show took on a life of its own.

Much to my satisfaction, we wound up at the Met Room, where I’ve enjoyed several shows (including those of Peter, Janice, and Adam). All of us like the room — it has good karma, I think. Producer Joseph Macchia was looking to fill a slot in his “Gone Too Soon” series, so in we walked. Within a few days, we were lining up performers and coming up with material.

Adam, keeping a grippe on my book.
Photo by Maryann Lopinto.

Fittingly, the show started off with Adam, who’s been with the show since its inception. (His enthusiasm actually helped persuade me that this thing could work!) He paid tribute to the performance that first gave Madeline the idea that she might go into show business. Adam is such an irrepressibly joyful performer, and I’m fully convinced that he can do anything.

Actor–choreographer–producer Lawrence Leritz was next, charming us all with a little number from Kiss Me, Kate, in which Madeline made her New York stage debut fifty years ago. For Saturday’s show, as for our presentation at the Drama Book Shop in June, Lawrence proved himself stalwart, holding my hand through every storm. Little wonder I call him Megastar.

Lawrence: Make that Mr. Megastar.
Photo by Maryann Lopinto.

Janice had been preparing “Das Chicago Song” for a long time — she was ready to sing it at my book party in May, but somehow that didn’t happen. In a way, I was glad that she waited until now to sing it. With the song’s composer, Madeline’s dear friend Michael Cohen, on piano, the number was a revelation to us all. And the combination of Michael, Madeline, Kurt Weill, and Janice is tailor-made for me. If I didn’t have a copy of my narration in hand, I’d have been speechless.

Janice: Don’t ask why.
Photo by Maryann Lopinto.

Soprano Rosa Betancourt has impressed me every time I’ve heard her — notably as Musetta in La Bohème, with Fort Worth Opera in 2013. I knew she could bring wit and personality to her number, all the while maintaining a glorious lyric line. She more than lived up to my expectations, and our music director, Jeff Cubeta, accompanied her beautifully. As Joyce Di Donato says so often, it’s always fun to see a non-opera audience respond to opera when it’s done well.

Rosa: The girl can’t help it.
Photo by Russ Weatherford.

For the next set, Jeff ceded the piano bench to the legendary Steve Ross, “The Crown Prince of Cabaret,” who joined our cast less than 48 hours before. For his friends Joan Copeland and Walter Willison, he played three numbers from the show they did with Madeline, Two by Two.

I can now say I’ve done a show with Steve Ross. Amazing.
Photo by Maryann Lopinto.

Joan turned 93 a few days before our Drama Book Shop event, and on that evening she had taken a friend and me aside to sing her big solo from Two by Two, word- and note-perfect, just for us. It was pure magic — and a real gift to be able to share that magic with more people on Saturday. Probably few actors will ever rival her distinguished career (with “roles too numerous to mention,” as she said in her program bio) — and not many actors will rival the joy she finds onstage.

One of the most remarkable people I’ve met.
Photo by Maryann Lopinto.

I’d heard Walter sing “I Do Not Know a Day I Did Not Love You” before, and then as on Saturday it’s a stunning interpretation, imbued with tremendous feeling and glorious vocalism. Yeah, he didn’t get a Tony nomination for this show only because he stood up to Danny Kaye: he got it because he’s good.

Walter: I do not know a day I did not love to hear him sing this song.
Photo by Russ Weatherford.

Madeline’s Act I solo from Two by Two was cut during tryouts and had never (to our knowledge) been performed publicly in New York at any point in the ensuing 45 years. As conceived originally, she would have sung it to Joan. So Walter called Joan back to the stage and sang “Getting Married to a Person” (which he’d learned only at five o’clock that morning!). I treasure the way they interact — and now, more than seven years after I started writing the book, I can say I’ve heard Madeline’s lost song.

Walter & Joan: Like family, after all this time.
Photo by Maryann Lopinto.

Hanna Burke is a favorite and frequent participant in the “Gone Too Soon” series, as well as a devoted Madeline fan. Now that I’ve seen what she can do with one of the lady’s most famous numbers — evocative of Madeline and yet somehow her own — I can’t wait to hear more. She’s talking about a one-woman show of Madeline’s material, but she and I agree that it would be wiser not to use the title Madeline came up with when thinking about her own one-woman show: Kahn-cepts.

Hanna: Just happy to see her.
Photo by Maryann Lopinto.

My darling Ann Harada took the stage next with a number from At Long Last Love, an irresistible interpretation that took such care with the words that she even chose a dress to match the lyrics. Sometimes I wonder how such a huge voice can come out of such a tiny person, but Ann has tremendous control over her instrument. She rattled the rafters and caressed our ears, and she even threw in a little Lili von Shtupp for good measure.

Ann: Who knows how she does what she does?
Photo by Russ Weatherford.

The winner of this year’s MetroStar competition, Minda Larsen, gave us a number from She Loves Me, gorgeously combining sweetness and intelligence — not an easy thing. Because of some computer malfunctions, I had to assemble the program for the show several times — and just before the show started, we realized that I’d left out Minda. I felt terrible, and even worse when I heard her wonderful performance. A former finalist in the Lotte Lenya Competition with a limpid lyric soprano, she’s obviously my kind of people.

Minda: Sheer loveliness.
Photo by Russ Weatherford.

In a variety of roles in the Unauthorized! parody musical series, Julie Feltman has persuaded me that her voice can do almost anything. That’s precisely what’s required of the number she sang from On the Twentieth Century, which involves what the critic Walter Kerr described as “gutter coloratura,” ranging from basso growls to piercing shrieks, with plenty of ornaments. Julie is also a fearless comedian, and she tore into this song with abandon.

News Flash: Beautiful woman loses mind …

… sings coloratura.
Julie Feltman.
Photos Weatherford (above), Lopinto (below).

There’s a special satisfaction to seeing Sarah Rice, the original Johanna from Sweeney Todd — the first show I saw in New York. Her sly wit and radiant soprano are so well-suited to popular music from the late-19th and early-20th centuries, so I knew she’d excel in the Irving Berlin number she chose. You’ll see she’s wearing a cast on her arm — you’ll never guess how it got there. But it precluded her sharing another talent, playing the theremin. She’s learning the theme from Young Frankenstein, so maybe we’ll get the chance, some day soon.

Sarah: Source of surprises.
Screencap from video.

When I told friends what the penultimate number on the program would be, and who would be singing it, they nearly exploded. I understood why. For hardcore fans (and who among us is not?), this was an occasion nearly as significant as Patti LuPone taking on Gypsy. Ann and Adam joined Sarah onstage for one more example of Madeline’s “ridiculously difficult” repertoire, and I was ecstatic. Perfect characterizations by all — I get the feeling that Sarah has sung at more than a few weddings in her time — and three glorious voices.

Today is for Sarah — and Ann — and Adam.
Photo by Russ Weatherford.

We concluded with a singalong. Confession time: I don’t sing at all. So I slipped to the back while the rest of the cast sang out, and the audience joined in. It was a fun way to end the show, and a useful reminder that Madeline’s legacy is alive and well — if only we pick it up and run with it.

For me, the highlight of the afternoon that you can’t see in the video was the rapturous expression on Joan Copeland’s face, whenever anyone sang. She was in her element on Saturday, connecting with an audience as only she can, reuniting with old friends and making new ones. And she loved the music. That means a great deal to me.

Peter Napolitano, Joan Copeland, Steve Ross.
Photo by Maryann Lopinto.

And I owe it all to Peter Napolitano. He had a dream, he made it mine, and then he made it a reality. At times it was a hard slog to get there — more work and infinitely more stress than I’d anticipated. (At one point, I observed that I don’t have the temperament for this line of work. In the gentlest, kindest way possible, Peter replied, “No, you probably don’t.”) But through it all, I knew that with this lineup of talent, we would have a terrific show, and ultimately it really was worth it.

Now that it’s over, several of us have remarked that we can sense Madeline smiling. The show is just one more demonstration that the book — and Madeline herself — have taken me in directions I never could have imagined.

The author. Who'd a-thunk it?

If for some reason you have made it all the way to the bottom of this page without clicking on the link and watching the video, here it is again. Right HERE.

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‘The Music of Madeline Kahn’ at the Metropolitan Room

It’s show time!

On Saturday, September 12, New York City’s Metropolitan Room will present “The Music of Madeline Kahn” as part of its “Gone Too Soon” series. Produced by Joseph Macchia and directed by Peter Napolitano, the tribute will feature music from just about every phase of Madeline’s career. I’ll be the host, and afterward I’ll be signing copies of Madeline Kahn: Being the Music • A Life. Because this book hasn’t required me to do nearly enough crazy things yet.

So far, the cast includes several of Madeline’s colleagues:

• Walter Willison and Joan Copeland, co-stars of Two by Two, the Richard Rodgers–Martin Charnin musical in which Madeline had a featured role (1970–71). After our event at the Drama Book Shop in June, Joan took me and a friend aside and sang her solo from Two by Two: she’s 93 now, and believe me, you’re in for a treat.

• Michael Cohen, music director of the revues Madeline performed at the Upstairs at the Downstairs club (1965–67). He’s also the composer of the brilliant Weill parody, “Das Chicago Song.” I wrote about Michael’s opera here.

• Lawrence Leritz, who started as a Madeline fan and later worked with her when he guest-starred on Cosby (1999).

I interviewed all of these people for Madeline Kahn: Being the Music • A Life, of course, and Lawrence and Walter (who was pretty much on 24-hour call for seven years to provide me with his memories and advice) were especially helpful to me. Having them along for this ride is a tremendous comfort to me — besides which, they’re terrific performers.

We’ll also feature performers inspired by Madeline. From Broadway, Ann Harada, of Avenue Q, Cinderella, and TV’s Smash; and Sarah Rice, the original Joanna in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. I wrote about Ann’s wonderful show Christmas Eve with Christmas Eve here, and about Sarah’s beautiful Ivor Novello tribute here.

From opera, sopranos Janice Hall and Rosa Betancourt. I’ve written often about Janice and her fascinating career, which also encompasses cabaret and spoken theater — here, here, here, here, and here (for starters). And Rosa was the marvelous Musetta in Fort Worth Opera’s La Bohème in 2013.

And from cabaret, Adam Shapiro, Hanna Burke, Minda Larsen, and Julie Feltman. Adam and Julie have knocked my socks off in everything I’ve seen them do — and I’m looking forward to getting to know Hanna and Minda, about whom people rave. (In the good way.) I note that Hanna is working up a Madeline Kahn tribute of her own, and that Minda — in addition to winning the Metrostar competition recently — was a finalist in the Lotte Lenya Competition not long ago. They’re obviously my kind of people. Our music director is Jeff Cubeta, who has quickly earned a reputation for being able to tackle any kind of music — just the guy we need!

Doors open at 3:30, and the show starts at 4:00. The Met Room is a terrific venue, and you can make your reservation by clicking on this link or by calling (212) 206-0440.

Please join us! For one thing, Joel Grey, Madeline’s co-star in Marco Polo Sings a Solo (1977) just called to say that he’s finishing his memoir and won’t be able to participate. This means I’ll be the only Emcee in the room. Oh, well. That’s show biz, kids.

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Joyce Castle Works the Room at Café Sabarsky

Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!
Photo by WVM, taken with my phone, which I really don’t know how to use.

The program that Joyce Castle brought to the Neue Galerie’s Café Sabarsky on Thursday night started out aptly enough as a (sometimes tongue-in-cheek) tribute to Vienna, with Gershwin’s “By Strauss!” followed closely by a couple of operetta numbers by Oscar Straus. Soon enough, though, it became clear that simple Gemütlichkeit was hardly Joyce’s goal.

In so far as there was a theme to this cabaret act, it was simply this: what spells “fun” for Joyce Castle? And as she sailed through numbers by everyone from Flanders & Swann to Friedrich Holländer, she proved that what’s fun for Joyce is fun for the rest of us, too. She scooped us up in her arms, and together we followed her bliss.

Much as she did last year at this venue, Joyce demonstrated her absolute and utter command over the audience. Elsewhere in Opera World, probably only Anna Russell in her prime could compete with Joyce’s comic timing, and of course dear Anna isn’t around any more. Joyce had us in stitches merely by observing that “March is Women’s History Month.”

With the richness of her voice, scaled back for the tiny room, and with the clarity of her diction in English, German, and French — and with her frequent collaborator Ted Taylor on piano — she elicited both laughter and tears. I can’t tell you how she does it. I’m barely aware that she’s doing it, until I realize that she’s done it.

As Yvette Guilbert in Belle Epoque, Lincoln Center, 2004.

So mixed in with Yvette Guilbert’s saucy saga of the Boudins and the Boutons, we got three of Hanns Eisler’s Hollywood Elegies, troubling tales of nightmares in Dreamland. (Joyce sang both the Guilbert and two German-language Elegies in evocative English translations by Michael Feingold.) A Lied by Alma Mahler was cut short by a rendition of Tom Lehrer’s irreverent ode to Alma. And Weill’s lighthearted “One Life to Live” (from Lady in the Dark) met a haunting account of Poulenc’s “Les Chemins d’amour,” Joyce’s encore, which found the ever-inspired Ted Taylor drawing an array of orchestral colors from the keyboard.

Naturally, I loved the new act. And in my case, this was an occasion to reflect on the ways in which our tastes overlap, whether because of preexisting affinities (Kurt Weill!) or because I have been listening to Joyce long enough that her tastes have informed my own. Sure, I knew a lot of these songs, but several were songs to which she’d introduced me, such as the Guilbert song (which Joyce performed in Martha Clarke’s Belle Epoque at Lincoln Center in 2004). And it was Joyce who introduced me personally to the composer of “Lady Luck,” the great William Bolcom, clearing the way for me to interview him and his wife, the singer Joan Morris.

I started out on this path one lucky day in the 1980s, when I decided that Joyce Castle was intriguing, and I ought to go to hear her at the New York City Opera — and, ultimately, at opera houses from Boston to Fort Worth. She helped me to hear in a new way music that I knew well (notably Sweeney Todd, Candide, and Mahagonny), and to discover music that I might have missed (Menotti’s Medium and Consul, Britten’s Turn of the Screw), or might never have heard at all (von Einem’s The Visit of the Old Lady, Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale, both stunning).

In sum, I’ve been listening to Joyce work a room just this expertly for many years, no matter the size of the room or the material she’s performing. She may have been born with the instincts, but by now she’s honed them to precision. And she’s still casting new spells. After noting that younger singers exasperate her when they attempt Weill’s wry, almost world-weary “September Song,” Joyce herself gave it a whirl — for the first time ever, she told us.

You’ve got several chances in the coming months to catch up with me and to experience Joyce’s magic for yourself. She sings the Marquise in Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment at Fort Worth Opera this spring, alongside Ava Pine and Darren Keith Woods. Beginning in June, she takes up another signature role, Klytämnestra in Strauss’ Elektra, with Des Moines Metro Opera. In October and November, it’s Daughter of the Regiment again with Seattle Opera. And in March 2014, she’ll take on a new role: Mme Armfeldt in Sondheim’s A Little Night Music with Houston Grand Opera. With any luck, I’ll see you there.

As Klytämnestra with Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera.
Was this 2008? I think so.

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Charles Busch at 54 Below

The Laddie in Question.
He was striving for a look that summoned up the club Reno Sweeney’s in the 1970s.
Illustration by WVM©
Like so many things in life, this picture looks better if you blow it up.

Unlike Patti LuPone and Sarah Rice, the divas I’d seen previously at the New York nightclub 54 Below, Charles Busch is a performer known to me exclusively from his work in theater and film — until Thursday night. I had no idea what his solo act might consist of, whether he’d sing, whether he’d wear drag, whether he’d — oh, I don’t know — perform magic tricks and juggle. And how would he fare in what he called “this atmosphere of fake intimacy” that is a nightclub act?

As it happened, he did sing on Thursday night, and he did wear the drag that has made him one of New York theater’s most glamorous artists; and as for tricks, he juggled comedy with even more comedy, and his indisputable magic required no sleight of hand. A gifted writer whose plays don’t depend on his physical participation in order to succeed, Busch proved himself a gifted performer who doesn’t depend on a conventional (or even an alternative) theater.

Which isn’t to say that we didn’t get plenty of drama. In one sketch, Busch cheerily mashed up Mildred Pierce and Cinderella (“Yes, I killed my stepdaughter!”); in another, he ran through every conceivable cliché in the career of Golden Era character actress Gladys George, creating his own movie scenario. It’s always been clear that Busch knows his old movies, but at 54 Below he explained that he grew up on a steady diet of them, when Million Dollar Movie on New York’s Channel 9 used to run the same picture as many as 22 times in one week — and the young Charles watched every broadcast.

This immersion has informed his scripts — The Divine Sister, for example, throws together elements of every nun movie ever made, and that was just the start. And who but Charles Busch knew what Judith of Bethulia was, much less that it was ripe for mockery? At his best, Busch knows exactly how far to push the melodrama to make it funny. And as a performer, he lovingly assembles all the mannerisms and inflections that make an actress distinctive — and therefore a star.*

Busch as Judith of Bethulia.
I was lucky enough to see a limited engagement of this show last year. Who knew there was a silent movie of the same title, starring Blanche Sweet?
Charles Busch knew, that’s who.

Thus we got a side-splitting “she-said/she-said” showdown between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, based entirely on statements those ladies made during interviews on the subject of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? The Davis imitation would be lethal, if she weren’t dead already, and yet the Crawford imitation is more devastating yet: Busch brilliantly lays bare that lady’s cluelessness. She praises herself for her own genteel magnanimity even as she’s cussing like a sailor and insulting Davis, and she doesn’t seem to notice the difference.

When Busch granted a solo to his music director, pianist Tom Judson, I was inevitably reminded of a certain coloratura soprano who visibly had to restrain herself from checking her watch whenever Juan Diego Flórez launched into “Cessa di più resistere” in the Met’s production of The Barber of Seville. Busch didn’t really hand over the spotlight to Judson. Instead, he mugged from the sidelines — in a mix of bored approval and diva-like impatience to resume a rightful place at the center of attention — throughout an otherwise touching account of “Winter Was Warm,” from Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.** Really, the material in the show is drawn from everywhere.

As Madame DuBarry to Norma Shearer’s Marie Antoinette.
I may have run my college film society, but Busch’s expertise outpaces mine. I recognized Gladys George’s name but never could have picked her out in a police line-up.
Busch created an entire movie scenario around her.

Busch’s singing voice is less distinctive than his acting personae: though it’s a perfectly pleasant instrument and does what he needs it to do, he knows its limits. So when he made his entrance with the barnstormer “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” (as logical a choice for an entrance as Groucho’s “Hello, I Must Be Going”), he stopped abruptly and sang another, less strenuous and very funny song, about the kind of opening number he requires.

A special guest star, Busch’s longtime collaborator Julie Halston, took the stage for a few minutes, demonstrating her ability to read a wedding announcement from The New York Times absolutely verbatim while still wringing tears of helpless laughter from the crowd — which included the legendary Phyllis Newman and the playwright Douglas Carter Beane, whose adaptation of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, co-starring Ann Harada, just opened on Broadway.

The presence of such luminaries reinforced the feeling that I’d had all through the show: that I’d been transported back to the Golden Age of New York Night Life, where swanky stars hobnobbed with the hoi polloi while glamorous performers served up sophisticated material. If you’d addressed me as Dorothy Kilgallen, I’d probably have answered you.

Granted, Charles Busch has taken this act beyond the island of Manhattan, too — but I found myself thinking, “Only in New York, kids. Only in New York.” And for one who feels so often as if he missed out on the best of this city in its heyday, that was a precious gift, indeed.

There’s one more performance in Charles Busch’s current engagement at 54 Below: Thursday, March 14 at 9:30 PM. For more information and reservations, click here.

Busch’s plays don’t depend on his performing in them:
Such classics as Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, Die, Mommy, Die!, and his hit Broadway play, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (in which he didn’t perform at all), have enjoyed successful productions in theaters around the country.
He’s seen here in a publicity still from the film adaptation of Die, Mommy, Die!

*NOTE: I can’t imagine that cabaret performers 50 years from now will be vamping on Jennifer Lawrence, or even the more imitable Kristen Stewart. But time may prove me wrong.

**Judson is such a good sport about this that one supposes he’s borne the brunt of real-life, non-ironic diva antics.

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Sarah Rice at 54 Below

This and other photos from an earlier gig at 54 Below.

With her sparkling soprano voice and crystalline diction, Sarah Rice took the audience at 54 Below on a journey back in time on Sunday night, to the between-the-wars era of Downton Abbey and Gosford Park, as she’d promised. As it happens, this was also an era when sparkling voices and crystalline diction were absolutely necessary to perform the songs of English theater composers. I daresay Rice’s skills and artistry would be admired at any point in history, but back in the day, producers simply couldn’t mount a show at all without finding someone like her.

The Downton fad may fade — I’m still assessing the backlash to the Plot Development that ended Season 3 — but Rice made a persuasive case for the songs she brought to 54 Below. They’re important, they’re meaningful, and we’ve lost touch with too many of them. The sly wit and ever-present melancholy that pervade this music tell us what it’s like when the dawn of a new century begins to dim, when empires are smaller than they seemed, when the causes you fought for turn out to be something other than what you believed, and the victories you won make less difference than you hoped — and still you have to carry on. (Not that anybody in the United States in 2013 could identify with such feelings.)

So it’s to be hoped that the 54 Below gig was just the first of many for this act, with or without the Downton label. A welcome showcase for Sarah Rice’s voice and charming presence, “Glamorous Nights & Careless Rapture” is also an introduction to music that’s as enlightening as it is entertaining.

Noël Coward’s music, while very much occupying a niche of its own, is still heard from time to time, but the lion’s share of Rice’s program went to the work of Ivor Novello, a superstar in his own time now fallen into such neglect that Rice had to air-lift the sheet music out of Britain, with barely three days to prepare for her act.

Rice gave us a good sampling of Novello’s range, from “Keep the Home Fires Burning” (surely his best-known song) to the romance of “Someday My Heart Will Awake” and the comedy of “And Her Mother Came, Too” (cleverly updated as “And His Roommate Came, Too”), as well as several others, including the “Glamorous Night” and “Why Is There Ever Good-bye?,” a number from Careless Rapture, which together inspired the title of the act. Three numbers represented Coward: the perfumed “Zigeuner,” and back-to-back renditions of “If Love Were All” and “I’ll Follow My Secret Heart,” a profoundly poignant combination. Between numbers, Rice sketched the outlines of Novello’s career, with a special emphasis on his relationship with the younger, rather envious Coward.

A handful of songs by other writers elicited big laughs from the audience: Cole Porter’s “When I Was a Little Cuckoo,” as well as two kindred classics, “There Are Fairies at the Bottom of Our Garden” and “Nobody Loves a Fairy When She’s Forty.” A haunting Irish ballad, “She Moved Through the Fair,” suggested what the folks downstairs at Downton might have sung.

Not the first time Rice has worked
with young violinist Jonathan Russell.

Rice has been learning to play the theremin, and she favored us with the Doretta song from Puccini’s La Rondine (fondly remembered even by non-opera fans from the film A Room with a View, aptly enough another Maggie Smith vehicle). But not only in her theremin playing is Sarah Rice an atypical diva: she even invited another soprano to join her onstage, none other than the legendary Marni Nixon, who confided that, over the course of her distinguished career, she actually dubbed the sound of a theremin in movies such as Daughter of Horror. Who knew? The ladies’ duet, Novello’s “We’ll Gather Lilacs,” evoked tender sentiments above and beyond the context of the song, much as “One Last Kiss” (from Sondheim’s Follies) never fails to do.

A trio of excellent instrumentalists backed up Rice and performed the opening number: the theme to Downton Abbey, of course. Seth Weinstein commanded from the piano, and Maria Banks summoned up irresistible atmosphere on harp. Jonathan Russell’s nimble, flavorful violin playing was altogether admirable for reasons that have nothing to do with the fact that the kid is 17 years old.

Throughout the evening, Rice’s tone remained secure, beautifully placed and cleanly projected, and even in her highest registers (which are indeed very high), every lyric hit home. As I say, this material is an ideal fit for her, and even if crowds of other artists were singing it nowadays, it’s hard to imagine anybody doing it better. This occasion deserves further hearings.

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Interview: Sarah Rice on Her Glamorous Nights

As Johanna, the Demon Barber’s daughter, soprano Sarah Rice starred in the first show I saw on Broadway. She managed to project sweetness and lovely charm even when Johanna started to fly off her hinges, while singing Sondheim’s stratospheric vocal lines and teaching us all the meaning of the word “reticule.” It was a performance for the ages — and now, some three decades after Sweeney Todd, Sarah Rice is singing even better.

Catching her special holiday act for All Hallow’s Eve, last autumn at the New York nightclub Birdland, I heard richness, freshness, and brilliant authority in every note she sang. To the intimacy of the cabaret setting she frequents nowadays, she brings an eclectic taste in music, a prodigious amount of research, and a winning sense of humor. With her cascade of russet curls, she looks like a Victorian Valentine’s card — as painted by Titian. And then she brings out her theremin. She is nothing if not original.

Sarah Rice is bringing a new act to 54 Below this Sunday, a one-time-only sampling of “Glamorous Nights & Careless Rapture: The Music of the Era of Downton Abbey, Gosford Park & More,” featuring songs by Ivor Novello, Noël Coward, among others. I’m looking forward to seeing the show — and to seeing you there — but particularly since music at Downton thus far has consisted primarily of a single song from Shirley MacLaine, I asked Sarah to tell us a little more about what to expect.

As Johanna in Sweeney Todd:
Clearly, the Green Finch and Linnet Bird
taught her how to sing very well indeed.

Q: What about this era in music appeals to you? What draws you to Ivor Novello?

SARAH RICE: It’s some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard in my life. It has a lot of Puccini, those augmented chords that are so appealing, and the Ravel kind of scales and stuff, there’s a lot of that. Novello’s style is called “Ruritanian,” and it’s like it was of another era even when it was new. It’s incredibly beautiful, incredibly romantic, lush — and I’m lovin’ it!

It was really hard to get the music, because it’s just not published any more. Thank God, Steve Ross had a friend in England who collects this stuff, Noël Coward and Ivor Novello music, he’s got the original scores. A lot of this was sent from England just a couple of days ago, actually. Those beautiful orchestrations — I wish I had a full orchestra. I just have harp and violin, to kind of give a taste of it. But it’s just beautiful. I listen to it and it just transports me. I hope to do it justice.

Q: What other music will be on the program?

SARAH RICE: Noël Coward. I’ve got some Flanders & Swann. It’s sort of loosely of the era, because the actual era of Downton Abbey is very narrow, and Gosford Park is in the ’30s, so we’ve said, “And More,” to stretch it. It’s basically between the two World Wars. An era of elegance. There’s some British music hall, and there’s actually a Cole Porter song that was done by Bea Lillie. I’ve got a Tessie O’Shea song, “Nobody Loves a Fairy When She’s Forty.” I have a whole fairy section.

Ivor Novello led quite a colorful life. It’s interesting how Coward and Novello’s lives — they were always circling around each other professionally and socially. Noël was a little younger, but I’m trying to add into the show what their relationship was and all that kind of stuff. I have some good juicy tidbits. It was just a fun time.

What we’re trying to create is the feeling that you’re in one of those salons. And of course 54 Below is the perfect place for it.

Songwriter and matinée idol Ivor Novello.

Q: Your voice is in spectacular shape. What’s your secret?

SR: To quote Natalie Dessay, I work like a dog! I study twice a week with my teacher, and just try to remain as active as possible. We work very hard on trying to get bad habits away. And she teaches Barbara Cook, so this technique is very good longevity. As Claudia Cummings once said, if you’re in reasonably good health and you keep singing, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to keep it into your old age. It’s just that most people don’t want to work that hard.

But I think Jan Peerce sang every day, or at least vocalized. Robert Merrill, too. You just keep doing it, and take good care of your health. The studying, I think finding a teacher who works for you is very important.

Q: But Jan Peerce and Robert Merrill weren’t sopranos!

SR: Again, I think that with the airplane and everything like that, and the way people are scheduled today, it’s impossible to stay healthy. You’re in Frankfurt one night and you’re in Stockholm the next, going back and forth. People used to take the summer off, and you’d travel by ship, so it took you a week to get anywhere. I just think that today’s pace is very hard on people. But Anja Silja, here she is in her sixties, and she sounds fabulous! I heard that Rosalind Elias also sounded great in Follies. There’s no reason, again, as long as you don’t have incredible health problems — the opera companies may not want you — but there’s no reason you can’t sound good. And I love the fact that in cabaret, 80 is the new 40. It’s true!

Léon Theremin plays his invention.
Hollywood horror movies and old-time radio shows made abundant use of the theremin’s “otherworldly sounds.”

Q: You’ve recently started to play the theremin in your act. How did you pick it up?

SR: I was doing a concert at Tom O’Horgan’s house. I had taken a break, and when I got back to singing again, I was doing a concert called “The Other Side of Broadway,” Broadway composers doing classical music. Tom O’Horgan was directing, and we were rehearsing at his house. He had one of the original RCA theremins, from 1929 or something. I first heard it, and it was the most otherworldly sound I ever heard. The old RCAs sound like a cross between a woman and a cello. It’s the most unearthly sound you ever heard. I was just hooked by it.

But they’re not easy to come by, and it wasn’t until about eight months ago that I thought, I’d really like to do this. And so I borrowed a theremin from a friend while I was waiting for mine to come, and learned to play it. And now I have my own. It’s not an RCA, those are expensive, like $15 thousand. I hope to get one someday, but the modern ones are fine. I love it.

Precision theremin playing is a whole other thing. I don’t do spooky woo-woos. I play it as an instrument. It just had this otherworldly sound to it that’s fascinating to me. I use it like a singer. Whatever instrument you have played, you will play the theremin like that. Clara Rockmore, the goddess of the theremin and the muse of the man who invented it, was a violin prodigy, and she had to give it up because she had rickets in her bowing arm. The theremin for her was a lifesaver, because it allowed her to play her repertoire on the theremin. She played like a string player, her intonation and everything. It’s just beautiful. But I play it like a singer, because that’s what I bring to it.

It’s a fascinating instrument, and the people who play it are interesting. They tend to be outside the box. It draws a lot of different kinds of people, and a lot of really wonderful musicians. It’s a lot of fun.

In Victor Herbert’s Naughty Marietta:
Finding the sweet mystery of life.

Q: I heard you play it in your Halloween show. It lends a lot to the act.

SR: I’m a lot better now! A lot better with the pitch. The thing is that you’re just playing the air, electrical waves. There’s no frets, there’s nothing. You’re totally playing by ear. It just takes time.

When I was first learning it, the pitch would go a little wonky sometimes. It still does. A friend likes to say that it’s like being an ice skater: if your mind wanders for a split second, you can wind up on your ass on the ice. It requires perfect control, and then you’ve got electrical current that changes, which changes the pitch field on you. So suddenly it’s in a different place.

Q: You’ve played Victorian heroines and now you’re immersed in the Downton and Gosford world. How do you think Lady Crawley would react to the theremin?

SR: She’d probably be wigged. The truth is that the theremin was invented during that era and was commercially produced during that time. Technically it could have been around then, and the truth is that English aristocrats have their bizarre side. It probably would have been something that would have been fairly popular, if it weren’t so hard to play. It was supposed to be in everybody’s living room. It would enable anyone young or old to play. The truth is that it’s the world’s easiest instrument to learn how to play — badly. Because all you have to do is wave your hand in the air and you make pitch changes.

With a close friend.

Q: What else can we look forward to in your show?

SR: There’s going to be a lot of comedy. It’s not just beautiful music. A complete concert of Ivor Novello music would be like eating a dinner of Christmas roses. I have put the British music hall in there, there’s some funny Ivor Novello, some fun Coward. I’m hoping that it’s going to be heartbreaking and touching and funny. It’s not just going to be listen to the soprano yodel pretty tunes. And I have a lot of good gossip!

It isn’t going to be stuffy at all. It isn’t all just soprano high notes. There’s gonna be a little chili sauce in there, too. A little chili sauce on the Christmas roses, which I guess is a confection.

But tiaras are welcome — even for the women — and you don’t have to worry about getting home in time for Downton Abbey. And if you’re bereft from the end of the season, come, and this will restore your heart.

Sarah Rice: Glamorous Nights & Careless Rapture
Music of the Era of Downton Abbey, Gosford Park & More
Sunday, March 3, 7PM
54 Below
254 West 54 Street, New York
With Sarah Rice, Vocals & Theremin
Seth Weinstein, Piano
Maria Banks, Harp
Jonathan Russell, Violin
For more information and to place your reservation, click here.

The Divine Sarah

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CD Review: Racette’s ‘Diva on Detour’

Over the past few years, Patricia Racette has earned the reputation of one of America’s foremost sopranos. The first time I heard her, as the title character in Tobias Picker’s Emmeline, at New York City Opera, she won my admiration, and I’m always glad to hear more of her. Since then, with her searing theatricality and passionate, clarion singing, she’s gone on racking up triumphs, in repertory ranging from Verdi and Puccini to Janácˇek and Carlisle Floyd, particularly at San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and the Met. At the last company, she’s received notable acclaim for her Madama Butterfly and for a Tosca that helped to redeem Luc Bondy’s infamously ill-conceived staging.

Strangely enough, however, this Soprano Assoluta boasts a background in cabaret: in her younger years, she enrolled at the University of North Texas to study jazz, but wound up in opera instead. Hearing her at the Met, I simply couldn’t imagine her on a spotlit barstool by a smoky piano. Surely she was making this up.

Now GPR Records has released a CD that exuberantly proclaims Racette’s mastery of an altogether different idiom. While she brings to bear certain assets of concert singing — particularly extended range and breath control that permits her to hold notes far longer than the average chantoozy — she gives herself over freely to the demands of the art form, exploiting a gutsy chest voice, alert attention to rhythm, and expressive devotion to language. She manages Billie Holiday’s trademark, singing on consonants, and she belts as if she were born to do nothing else.

Doozy of a chantoozy: Soprano Patricia Racette

Looking over the playlist of pop standards, almost all of which are associated with legendary stars of the past, you admire not only Racette’s good taste but also her courage. How the hell does any “diva on detour” open her act with a medley of Judy Garland numbers? Well, it takes her about less than two bars to dispel any doubts you may have, and once she’s got you in her grasp, she’s not letting you go.

Even in a set of Piaf numbers, she catches exactly the right style. She doesn’t imitate so much as invoke the Little Sparrow’s gargles and growls, her moans and roar, not to mention her flawless French diction. The only time she isn’t completely convincing is, paradoxically, a rendition of “La Vie en rose” delivered in what we will call her Opera Voice: though you can’t deny her emotional connection, the song becomes altogether too plummy. It’s nowhere near as bad as Renata Scotto’s legendary “Over the Rainbow,” but nevertheless it’s a mistake she won’t make twice in the course of this album.

So big deal: Patricia Racette is not Eileen Farrell — a unique artist who could use essentially the same voice in both opera and jazz. Racette needs two different voices, and the great marvel here is that her cabaret voice is so persuasive, uninhibited, and stylish.

In a sense, Racette’s affinity for this repertory is only natural, since in opera, too, she sings roles that are closely associated with monstres sacrés like Maria Callas, every bit as titanic in her field as Piaf or Garland was in hers. Racette must make those roles her own, just as she must make these songs hers and not Garland’s or Piaf’s — or, for that matter, Jack Gilford’s, when she sings “I’m Calm.” She’s very funny, as it happens, not Jack’s way but her way.

Interpretation has become the abandoned child in pop music, where we put an almost exclusive emphasis on innovation. But in jazz as in opera, interpretation is the order of the day, and it’s Racette’s achievement that she finds herself and communicates with us in any music that she sings. She’s a “diva on detour,” perhaps, but she’s not slumming: she’s got integrity. She knows what to do, and she does it — beautifully.

The album was recorded before a live audience (invited, audibly appreciative, and pleasingly responsive), and it’s distinguished by Racette’s engaging between-song banter. Has any soprano in such circumstances ever sounded less like a conservatory recitalist? I doubt it. Craig Terry, her longtime collaborator, provides expert accompaniment on piano, exercising a kind of majestic yet unpretentious command that’s a perfect match for her full-throated delivery.

Diva on Detour is a priceless souvenir of one more facet of a great artist’s talent, and I look forward to listening to it and learning more from it for many years to come.

For more information and to purchase Diva on Detour, click here.

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Miss LuPone at New York’s 54 Below

The deity surveys the faithful.

If you ever doubted for an instant that this is Patti LuPone’s world, and we are just extras, hie thyself to her nightclub act. The great diva is the first headliner at 54 Below, a new venue in the basement of the old Studio 54, which several years ago reverted to its original purpose — theater — and has since become an important fixture on the Broadway scene, with landmark revivals of Cabaret and Assassins, among others, by the Roundabout Theatre Company.

Miss LuPone is the antithesis of Broadway’s current idea of a leading lady. Which is to say that she has her own, highly individual personality. You are never going to mistake her for anyone else who has ever lived. If you have cast her in your show, you are going to have great difficulty replacing her when her contract runs out and she is ready to move on to other conquests.

Now 63, according to the Times, Miss LuPone knows everything she will ever need to know — and more than anybody else — about working a crowd. Her Patti-patter is perfectly aimed and fired. Her voice is eccentric, but wide-ranging and artfully deployed: she’ll massage and pummel notes, diction, and pitch in her interpretative ardor, and yet, as my host observed, she’s rigorously faithful to the rhythm.

Our opinions may vary at times as to what is and is not appropriate material for her — I have avoided hearing her recent performances of Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins with the New York City Ballet precisely because I don’t think the role of Anna I is a good fit for her voice, and I didn’t quite find the material in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown worthy of her — but she’ll get no argument from me over the selections for her current act, an emotional rollercoaster entitled (as if it really matters) “Faraway Places.” She had me howling with laughter, gasping in awe, and — at one point — wiping away hot tears.

I cried for her.

My aforementioned host was Mark Adamo, and it’s always interesting to watch a composer’s reactions to other people’s music. Clearly, on this occasion, Mark was transported, giving his own (silent) performances in response to Miss LuPone. The truly curious thing is that Mark seemed to be under the misguided impression that Miss LuPone was singing to him, whereas of course we all know that she was really singing to me. She is that kind of artist.

She’s named after Adelina Patti, the legendary Italian soprano, but that background explains only a little her fearlessness in assailing classic repertory. She gave us a one-two punch of Edith Piaf, first with Bill Burnett and Peggy Sarlin’s “I Regret Everything,” offered as a hilariously irreverent response to the Little Sparrow’s “Je ne regrette rien”; followed by a heart-melting “Hymne de l’Amour” (in an excellent English translation). She made “By the Sea” (from Sweeney Todd) her own, superior to her own interpretation on Broadway a few seasons ago, and making me forget — for a moment — that I’d ever heard Angela Lansbury or Joyce Castle sing the song.

And, backed up by five musicians, her account of Weill numbers — a rollicking “Bilbao Song,” a ferocious yet ultimately haunting “Pirate Jenny” — nearly forced me to reconsider my resistance to her Seven Deadly Sins, which as originally written is in a key beyond her reach and backed up by an orchestra. But you know what? She’s Patti LuPone. She doesn’t need my approval.

Her prime has lasted a very long time, at least since Evita, but she’s in that prime right now, all right. She sounds better than ever, and she looks fit and feisty. If she’s had any work done, it’s impossible to tell, and really her comfort with who she is — her looks, her sound, her personality, her history* — is a big part of what makes her so irresistibly appealing.

The nightclub itself is a comfortable space, with great sight lines and sound. The mix of quasi-faux-Victorian décor and harsh overhead lighting (turned down, mercifully, during Miss LuPone’s act) suggested to me a cathouse after the police have already raided the place. But it’s a good room, as Milton Berle used to say, and I look forward to my return there — probably when Amanda Green and Ann Harada join forces there on Monday, June 25.

Looking around, you could get the impression that Miss LuPone doesn’t have a lot of female fans, or else the vast majority of thin, well-groomed men in the audience simply couldn’t find dates. Go figure. But I recalled that it was one of the great master strokes of Ugly Betty to cast her as Marc Saint James’ disapproving mother; as I’ve observed, her declaration that “I have no interest in knowing you,” was one that would drive almost any gay man in New York to despair and possibly suicide. We were secure last night that Miss LuPone does love us, nearly as much as we love her, and we hollered and cheered and leapt to our feet with each token she offered. It was a great night to be in New York.

Hold back? What does that even mean?
Why on earth would she — or anyone — hold back?

*NOTE: Miss LuPone even allowed that, had she not been an actress, she “would have made a great flight attendant.” “Turn off that phone! Who do you think you are?” she roared, and we roared right back in recognition and delight.

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Janice Hall at the Metropolitan Room

Portrait of a Cabaret Star.
Illustration by WVM©

As spring offers tantalizing signals of nearness, I rise some days prepared to sing “Oh! What a Beautiful Mornin’.” Luckily however — for anyone within earshot — I don’t have to sing it, because Janice Hall is doing it for me. It’s the opening number in her new cabaret act, “I’d Rather Be Doing This,” which I caught at its second performance at New York’s Metropolitan Room.

Janice gave us a preview in December at Urban Stages, a theater in midtown, but while Urban Stages’ proportions are certainly intimate, it’s not a cabaret: the new material felt right before, but it feels righter now in the sort of space it was designed to fill. An increasing sense of ease marks Janice’s each foray into this art form — which is not to say that she ever seemed uneasy.

But consider the ingredients of I’d Rather Be Doing This: a collection of some of Janice’s favorite theater songs and pop standards. In her previous show, Grand Illusions, Janice had a theme: the career of Marlene Dietrich, as charted in song.* In this new show, Janice herself is the Dietrich, if you will, the star around whom the show is built.

She brings to the cabaret stage a number of skills that have helped her transition so gracefully into this new repertoire. Among the most important, I realized while I listened to her on March 5, is rhythm — essential because cabaret is so closely linked to jazz. And baby, Janice has got rhythm, all right, delivering Nancy White’s tricky (and very funny) “Bet He Can Tango” and Porter’s “Too Darn Hot” with danceable flair. But she can slow down, too, and her mashup of Baghdad Café’s “Calling You” and Dimitri Tiomkin’s “Wild Is the Wind” proved astonishing, sung in one long outpouring of breath, her emotions seemingly torn in two opposing directions — that turned out to be one and the same.

Among Janice’s other great assets are her wit and the diction with which to express it. Intricate lyrics pose no obstacle, and with an assist from her director, Peter Napolitano, and music director, Matthew Martin Ward, she deploys impeccable comic timing — notably in Napolitano and Ward’s song, the title number, a paean to anything but making love.

Ward’s no slouch when it comes to comic timing, which he demonstrated with a hilariously deadpan running translation of the Italian pop classic, “Mala Femmena,” a furious curse on the eponymous “bad woman” who’s done the singer wrong. Here and in Piaf’s “L’Accordéoniste” (by Michel Emer), Janice made use of her linguistic abilities, though naturally they’re less central to this show than they were to the Dietrich act.

Another mashup really warmed my heart, the combination of Kurt Weill’s “My Ship” (from Lady in the Dark) and “Pirate Jenny” (from Threepenny Opera), connecting the yearning that’s in both songs with the festering, lethal resentment that marks most of “Jenny.” Every time Janice sings Weill, I go home fantasizing about the roles that she could play so beautifully, from Anna in Sieben Todsünden to Venus and beyond. With her ability to do justice to both aria and song, she’d be unbeatable in almost anything Weill ever wrote, actually.

It strikes me that, while Janice has played soprano leads in opera — the very definition of stardom — here on the cabaret stage she’s got no character but herself to portray, no personality but her own to charm us. It takes guts to do that, and I’m happy to say that Janice is succeeding magnificently.

The next performance of I’d Rather Be Doing This is April 18, at 9:30 PM at the Metropolitan Room. Be there.

Metropolitan Room
212-206-0440
34 West 22nd St.
Between 5th and 6th Avenues
New York, NY 10010
metropolitanroom.com

*NOTE: As a special treat in the form of an encore on March 6, we got a quick overview of Grand Illusions, for which Janice has been nominated for an Outstanding Vocalist award from the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs. She couldn’t include all of my favorite moments, but every one she did perform was a honey. Please note, too, that Peter Napolitano has been nominated for a directing award from the same organization.

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Interview: Janice Hall Would Rather Be Doing This

Kicking up her heels in Grand Illusions

Just when soprano Janice Hall’s brilliance was starting to seem almost routine (“Oh, of course she’s going to be sublime in that new opera, portraying 37 different characters and singing the Grand Inquisitor’s aria backwards”), she found a new way to dazzle us all, turning to cabaret. Most sopranos would fall flat in such a setting, let’s be honest, but few of Janice’s colleagues can rival her expressive musicianship — to say nothing of her impeccable diction, without which any cabaret number is just a plate of cold mashed potatoes.

Grand Illusions, her first complete cabaret show, proved a revelation, not only of this new dimension to Janice’s art but also of the personal need for reinvention. Dietrich evolved constantly, and so, too, is Janice evolving.

Her newest act, of which we got a preview of sorts at Urban Stages in December, finds Janice ever more assured, offering up a fascinating mix of numbers from Cole Porter to Stephen Sondheim. Directed once again by Peter Napolitano, with music director Matthew Martin Ward, I’d Rather Be Doing This opens at New York’s Metropolitan Room on Sunday, February 12, for the first of three performances over the coming months. Reached by phone in Savannah, Janice was kind enough to talk with me about the show.

WVM: The subject of your first show was an icon, Marlene Dietrich. The subject of your new show is also a legendary diva — yourself. It’s not as if you were hiding behind Dietrich before, but this change in focus really bespeaks a growth in confidence in what is still a new art form for you. How did you arrive at the point where you felt so comfortable in cabaret performance?

JANICE HALL: It’s odd – that kind of happened by itself. I decided after Marlene, I had lots and lots of concept ideas, but that was such an exhausting, intense process, immersing myself in the world of Marlene, that I decided to give myself a little bit of a breather and give myself a program of songs that I liked.

In the process, I discovered that it was kind of about me, though that wasn’t my intention. People who saw the first performance commented on that a lot, and even then I wasn’t aware of it until I watched the DVD and said to myself, “Yes this is very different.”


WVM: Do you feel comfortable now?

JH: I do, and when I go back now and look at the Marlene footage, I see — I think I tend to be overcritical of me — but I find it to be much more formal, let’s put it that way. And I was more removed from it. So I guess just by doing, I’m becoming more comfortable and more confident, as you say, about what it is that I’m doing.

WVM: It’s not that you were uneasy before, but there’s a different kind of ease now.

JH: Marlene was a little bit more studied. I wanted it to be perfect, so I was going for that, so it was scripted in a more formal way. I think it had to be, because if you’re trying to give the story of another person, there are certain facts you have to include. This one I was just on my own, and at first it was strange because I had such a form with Marlene, you’re kind of restricted in terms of what you say and how you say it. This was free-form, and at first I thought it would be simpler, and in a way it was not. Eventually a pattern began to emerge.

WVM: Was the process this time more like programming a recital?

JH: You know, I rarely ever did recitals. The answer to that is probably yes, but I can’t necessarily tell you that from my own experience. One of the reasons I never really wanted to do recitals as a Classical singer is that it really scared me to be out there and be me, without a character to hide behind. For some reason, with cabaret music, I became very comfortable with just that very thing. If I were to go back and program a Classical recital, with what I know about putting together a cabaret evening, I would find it easier. And in fact I’m thinking of doing that.

I also want to add about the structure of the show, that was one of the ways that my director, Peter Napolitano, was very helpful in looking at the overall picture and saying, “Yes, this works,” or “No, this has to go.” If anybody ever wonders why you need a director for a cabaret show, that’s one reason why.

“Lana Turner Has Collapsed,” from Madame X.
(Also known as the act I haven’t seen yet.)
Pygmalion Theatre Company, Salt Lake City, UT, May, 2011

WVM: I’m always struck by a kind of seamlessness in your vocal production when you sing cabaret, and that’s also an asset in opera, of course. Where does your Classical training help you in cabaret, and what’s been the biggest technical adjustment you’ve needed to make?

JH: I do get that comment, and it makes me very happy, because it doesn’t necessarily feel seamless to me. It’s becoming more and more so, but the biggest challenge I’ve had in transferring over has been not trying to go into what I call opera voice. You do have to go into your head voice at some point: I’m not a belter, I’m never going to be a belter.

I’m learning how to mix my voice in new ways, but I’m also sort of relaxing and letting my soprano voice come through, but I don’t want to do it in an operatic way. So that’s been the biggest challenge, moving smoothly from my chest voice to my head voice.

Now, in terms of how it helps me, my background, I think the discipline aspect of being a Classical singer is a natural advantage to me, in terms of doing this music. It isn’t something I think about: it’s just the way I’ve been trained, it influences the way I learn music.

Frankly, I don’t know how people who don’t have that training learn music, and I’m constantly amazed at people who don’t read music at all and yet they learn just fine. I don’t understand how that happens, because my process is very different. But for me, the discipline of having to be a Classical singer is very valuable for me in this.

WVM: The title of the act turns out to be a very funny song [by Napolitano and Ward], but it also suggests or advertises that you’re performing songs that are personal favorites. People are often surprised to discover that Classical musicians like pop songs, so can you tell us how you first discovered one or two of these numbers, and how you came to understand they might be right not just to listen to, but also to sing yourself?

JH: When I was a teenager, I was listening to all kinds of different music. I’m sure that a lot of people think that my incorporation of Piaf songs or Kurt Weill songs came from my years of being in Europe, but in fact, they came from my teenage years, when I discovered Lotte Lenya and Edith Piaf and all these strange European singers. They achieved a certain iconic stature later, but at that particular point they were pretty obscure. I just found this music and listened to it. I listened to the pop music of my generation, and I’ve always been a very eclectic music listener.

So some of these songs have been things I’ve had in my ears for years. In a couple of cases, they were songs I didn’t feel ready to tackle until now. One of them is “Pirate Jenny,” of course. It’s such a difficult song because people have certain expectations. And yet those expectations have become almost stereotypical, so to find something that’s original with the song or unique to your interpretation yet remaining true to the integrity of the song is a real challenge.

Fort Worth Favorite: Janice, with David Adam Moore,
in Eötvös’ Angels in America, 2009.

WVM: Darren Keith Woods will kill us both if we don’t mention that you’re still an opera singer — performing in Jake Heggie’s Three Decembers at the Fort Worth Opera Festival in the spring. What can you tell us about how you’re getting ready for that show?

JH: Actually, that process is going to start in full, as soon as I get back from Savannah. I’m going to throw myself into that. So far, I’ve read the libretto, I’ve listened to the recording, I’ve had my costume fittings now — we did a whole wonderful afternoon of costume fittings on Sunday. That is also going to inform me a lot, in how I go about this.

But the biggest challenge for me now is simply cabaret voice and opera voice. If I’m working a lot in cabaret voice, it’s like if you’re an Olympic athlete and you’re not quite working at that level for a while, you have to get back up to that level. Just singing in my daily voice, I’ve got to get back up to that point. Because you lose stamina if you’re not at that level.

So that’s the challenge, but it’s a fabulous character to be playing, and I’m very excited about that aspect of it — as well as the musical aspect!

Janice Hall in I’d Rather Be Doing This
Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd St.
Sunday, February 12, 4:00PM
Monday, March 5, 7:00PM
Wednesday, April 18, 9:30PM

Heggie’s Three Decembers
Fort Worth Opera Festival
May 13, 18, 20, 26, 31; June 2, 2012

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