{"id":349,"date":"2015-10-22T22:05:37","date_gmt":"2015-10-22T22:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/?p=349"},"modified":"2015-10-22T22:08:55","modified_gmt":"2015-10-22T22:08:55","slug":"idina-menzel-at-wolf-trap-no-shoes-but-what-a-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/idina-menzel-at-wolf-trap-no-shoes-but-what-a-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"Idina Menzel at Wolf Trap: No shoes, but what a voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jessica Goldstein<\/strong><\/p>\n

People of the world who were married just over 20 years ago, check your wedding tapes.
\nSlightly younger people of the world who had their bar or bat mitzvahs in the 1990s, unearth that VHS from the archives.
\nFind someone, anyone, who still has a VCR. This may take a while.
\nWhen the band comes on screen, hit pause. Take a good look at the singer.
\nDoes she have a Long Island accent? Big hair? Really big hair? \u201980s big hair?
\nIf so, it is quite possible you got the best bang for your band-buying buck: Idina Menzel serenaded your party guests.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was in \u2018Wicked,\u2019 somebody brought me a videotape of their wedding,\u201d said Menzel, 41, who got her start as a teenager on the party performing circuit. She\u2019s impressed they knew it was her. \u201cI\u2019d be pretty unrecognizable,\u201d she added, in a voice that no longer betrays her New York roots.<\/p>\n

Back then, she would listen to the greats \u2014 Ella Fitzgerald comes most readily to mind \u2014 on her way to these gigs, \u201cjust to absorb them in a way. I knew I would never sound like them. You can emulate the great people because you\u2019re you, and it\u2019s never going to sound like that. [But] it gives you a new place to go in your vocabulary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s theater lovers likely listen just as closely to soundtracks featuring Menzel\u2019s insta-iconic pipes. Surely you\u2019d know her if you heard her belting in her breakout Broadway role as Maureen in \u201cRent\u201d (\u201cMOO with me! Come on, sir! Moo, moooooo, MOOOO!\u201d) or her voice climbing octaves like Spiderman scaling skyscrapers in her green-faced turn as Elphaba in \u201cWicked,\u201d or if you caught her on \u201cGlee\u201d playing the birth mother of Rachel Berry (Menzel doppelganger Lea Michele) and dueting with Michele on Lady Gaga\u2019s \u201cPoker Face.\u201d Soon she\u2019ll be heard as the voice of the titular character in Disney\u2019s upcoming animated feature, \u201cThe Snow Queen,\u201d based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn Evening with Idina Menzel\u201d will bring the star to Wolf Trap for just one night. Menzel will be performing with the National Symphony Orchestra, and she will be glammed out for the occasion from head to ankle.<\/p>\n

Just no shoes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I always like to perform barefoot, and I was choosing not to [on tour last year] because I was with all these symphonies, because I thought I had to dress up more,\u201d said Menzel. \u201cAnd one day I had no choice. I was traveling with my little boy,\u201d her 2-year old son. \u201cMy back hurt from carrying the stroller and the car seat, and I thought: there was no way I could perform in heels. So I threw them off and performed barefoot, and it was the best show I ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like many a woman who swaps stilettos for flip-flops, \u201cI just realized it was so silly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before you ask: yes, she\u2019ll sing \u201cDefying Gravity,\u201d her character\u2019s Act One-closing anthem from \u201cWicked.\u201d \u201c[It\u2019s] something people want to hear as dramatically and passionately as they can,\u201d she said. \u201cI think that people want to be taken back to that moment when my character was levitated above the stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to running through her standards, \u201cI like to be nostalgic and go back to songs that meant something to me in my childhood, and rearrange them. I feel like you can really see your growth as a person, as an artist and as a vocalist, if you pick a song like \u2018Tomorrow.\u2019\u201d She\u2019ll also perform two original numbers, a combination of \u201cSomewhere Over the Rainbow\u201d and Wicked\u2019s \u201cThe Wizard and I,\u201d and a Joni Mitchell song.<\/p>\n

And then when it is over, she will go home \u2014 either to New York or Studio City, Calif., where she and her family reside \u2014 to her son and husband, actor Taye Diggs, star of \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy\u201d spinoff \u201cPrivate Practice\u201d (Diggs \u2014 sad spoiler alert \u2014 will not be making a cameo in Menzel\u2019s show) and do. . .nothing? \u201cI\u2019m definitely a pretty reclusive person,\u201d said Menzel. \u201cI just like to be home when I can be home.\u201d<\/p>\n

There has to be something. \u201cI do like to watch \u2018The Bachelorette,\u2019\u2009\u201d she admits. \u201cThat\u2019s my guilty pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jessica Goldstein People of the world who were married just over 20 years ago, check your wedding tapes. Slightly younger people of the world who had their bar or bat mitzvahs in the 1990s, unearth that VHS from the archives. Find someone, anyone, who still has a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":351,"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":[2],"tags":[28,12,8,27],"class_list":["post-349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-28","tag-barefoot-at-the-symphony","tag-family-life","tag-wedding-singer-days"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/imwp.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-5D","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions\/352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}