Saturday\u2019s Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra concert with Idina Menzel brought an odd situation, one I never remember encountering before. The page detailing her concert had been torn from all the programs.<\/p>\n
An usher slipped me a bootleg copy. He explained: \u201cShe didn\u2019t want people to know what songs she was going to sing. She wanted it to be a surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n
If that was the reason, I liked it. I like surprises myself. And Menzel gave us plenty of them.<\/p>\n
Kleinhans Music Hall was packed for Menzel, known not only for starring in \u201cRent\u201d but also for her recent appearances on \u201cGlee.\u201d<\/p>\n
Big as the concert was, it had the feeling of a private party. Menzel, in a gorgeous yellow gown, skipped from the wings. She did at least as much talking as singing, and she was laid-back and funny, and the audience felt free to yell comments at her. And she ate it up. It was all a lot of fun.<\/p>\n
Once in a while a joke came up that I did not get and I realized it was because I am not in the \u201cGlee\u201d club. But I liked the show all the same.<\/p>\n
Menzel has a voice that seems to know no limits as far as range and flexibility. She laughed once about how she had dared to reach up for an octave, how we had given her courage. But she sounds as if she can do anything she sets out to do, as far as vocals go.<\/p>\n
From what I have seen of \u201cGlee,\u201d the show mixes up the music, and Menzel did that too. Cole Porter\u2019s \u201cLove For Sale\u201d was very affecting, preceded by a sweet, goofy story she told about how she fell on her face singing it in school. Her teacher, a man she had hoped to impress, had stopped her mid-song, and told her to think about what it was really about.<\/p>\n
And so Menzel, hugging herself on the Kleinhans stage, did that. Then, to everyone\u2019s surprise, she slipped into \u201cRoxanne,\u201d the rock hit about a call girl. You had to smile when she did that, but it wasn\u2019t because it was ridiculous. It wasn\u2019t. It was unusual, but she made it work.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo Day But Today\u201d from \u201cRent\u201d was poignant. So was \u201cI\u2019m Not That Girl,\u201d from \u201cWicked.\u201d Menzel has vulnerability that makes songs like that wonderful.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t Rain On My Parade\u201d rocked the house. We all went wild when Menzel, striking a hilarious pose, belted, \u201cBuffalo, here I am!\u201d<\/p>\n
This was no show for kids. Menzel\u2019s banter touched on all kinds of topics. She gave a bawdy account of how she met her husband, actor Taye Diggs, when they were both doing \u201cRent.\u201d<\/p>\n
I could have done without a song she wrote herself, not so much because it was political but because it was a lousy song. Menzel, like most singers, should leave the songwriting to the pros.<\/p>\n
With \u201cPoker Face,\u201d we had what I believe is a first \u2014 the BPO playing a Lady Gaga song. It seemed strange to go from Cole Porter to \u201cI\u2019ll get him hot\/And show him what I got\u201d\u2014but Menzel seemed to get the humor of it.<\/p>\n
She also kidded around with the BPO. \u201cNot only are they talented but they\u2019re doing \u2018Poker Face,\u2019 \u201d she squealed.<\/p>\n
For the concert\u2019s first half, Associate Conductor Matthew Kraemer gave us \u201cDay By Day\u201d from \u201cGodspell,\u201d sounding dated, and the overture to Bernstein\u2019s \u201cCandide,\u201d sounding shiny and new. Orchestral music from \u201cGypsy\u201d was perfect for the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saturday\u2019s Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra concert with Idina Menzel brought an odd situation, one I never remember encountering before. The page detailing her concert had been torn from all the programs. An usher slipped me a bootleg copy. He explained: \u201cShe didn\u2019t want people to know what songs she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[33,12],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-33","tag-barefoot-at-the-symphony"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-2j","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":313,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions\/313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}