For those of us who know Idina Menzel only from her star-making performances in Broadway\u2019s \u201cRent\u201d and \u201cWicked,\u201d her Sunday night Smith Center concert was a revelation. We expected the electrifying belt in songs such as \u201cDon\u2019t Rain on My Parade\u201d and \u201cDefying Gravity,\u201d but who knew she is an artist of extraordinary depth?<\/p>\n
Her two-hour presentation (backed by about two dozen onstage musicians from Las Vegas and New York) included a lot of personal stories, including a criticism she once received as a student at New York University. She had begun singing for her teacher Cole Porter\u2019s \u201cLove for Sale\u201d but got out only a few bars before he stopped her.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you have any idea where this woman is coming from?\u201d he asked. \u201cShe lives on the street. She doesn\u2019t know where her next meal is coming from. She\u2019s desperate.\u201d It was apparently an epiphany for Menzel. She proved how well she learned that lesson by interpreting the number with the skill of a veteran actress.<\/p>\n
Whether tackling Joni Mitchell or Stephen Sondheim, she communicated a sharp affinity for lyrics.<\/p>\n
Her program was filled with what you would expect, as well as little-known pop songs and ballads. She exhibited an easy rapport with the audience.<\/p>\n
After sharing \u201cRent\u2019s\u201d \u201cTake Me Baby or Leave Me,\u201d she went down into the house in search of duet partners. It seemed every teenage girl rushed to be by her side. By the time she invited them onstage, so many began running to her that she yelled, good-naturedly, \u201cOh my God! No! Stop!\u201d Many of the kids, as it turned out, were fine vocalists. And they were not shy about showing it.
\nMenzel\u2019s formal look \u2013 a shoulder-baring white evening gown with elegant earrings \u2013 was offset by bare feet. She explained she had been wearing appropriate shoes, but they were uncomfortable. \u201cSo, I said, screw it, I\u2019m taking them off.\u201d She then flaunted her physical freedom by gliding about the stage like a child in a sandbox. She came across as a down-to-earth chummy girl-next-door.<\/p>\n
The 41-year-old Queens native shared touching stories about Jonathan Larson, the composer of \u201cRent\u201d who died at age 35 just after the show\u2019s first preview.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were really young, and the show was taking off at a time in our lives when it could have made us lose perspective. (After his death) the cast felt a responsibility to communicate his work.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also noted the irony of her \u201cBroadway diva\u201d concert running the same night as the Tony Awards, with all of us theater buffs having to miss the broadcast. She shared her own experiences about the anxiety of having been nominated and winning.<\/p>\n
But her singing was always the engine of the evening. She demonstrated not only overwhelming, bring-down-the-house power, but a softness and vulnerability in music, speech and manner that transformed her concert debut in the huge Reynolds Hall into an intimate get-together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For those of us who know Idina Menzel only from her star-making performances in Broadway\u2019s \u201cRent\u201d and \u201cWicked,\u201d her Sunday night Smith Center concert was a revelation. We expected the electrifying belt in songs such as \u201cDon\u2019t Rain on My Parade\u201d and \u201cDefying Gravity,\u201d but who knew 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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[28,6],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-28","tag-barefoot-summer-tour-2012"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-t","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","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=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":343,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}