Welcome to the Idina Menzel World Tour and therapy session, guaranteed to push your emotional buttons and allow the diva on stage to get in tune with all of hers.<\/p>\n
The \u201coriginal green girl\u201d of \u201cWicked\u201d was a little bit naughty, a little bit nice and a little bit nutty, but always entertaining in concert at the Benedum Theater Tuesday night. Each song, each story she told, was like unwrapping an elegantly wrapped package to see what surprise it held inside.<\/p>\n
After projected clips and voiceovers flashed through a sheer white curtain backdrop, the Tony Award-winning star of \u201cWicked,\u201d a nominee for \u201cRent\u201d and \u201cIf\/Then\u201d and the singer of the Oscar-winning \u201cLet It Go,\u201d emerged on stage 25 minutes after the scheduled 8 p.m. start. She was wearing black and gold \u2014 a black strapless dress with a black-and-metallic gold sheer sarong draped through her belt.<\/p>\n
Ms. Menzel let the audience know she meant business right away, singing two songs that only a certified diva should attempt: Her own \u201cDefying Gravity\u201d from \u201cWicked\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t Rain on My Parade,\u201d holding seemingly impossible notes for an eternity, something she would repeat or top throughout the night.<\/p>\n
Her setlist stayed strictly to the lists we\u2019ve seen from her tour, which includes stops in Japan, Southeast Asia, Europe, Canada and the U.S. Yet within that structure, nothing seemed overly rehearsed, and most everything seemed off the cuff, particularly her interactions with the audience. She threw off her gold heels, at first in favor of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle slippers, and then frolicked barefoot, and in the process made the 2,800-seat theater seem like an intimate cabaret.<\/p>\n
Possessing a voice that could be categorized as coquettish to flat-out belter and everything in between \u2014 and with a stage presence to match \u2014 she usually is labeled a mezzo-soprano. But why pigeonhole someone so intriguingly offbeat? Ms. Menzel interprets songs as much as an actress as a singer, and therein lies her connection to the music and her fans.<\/p>\n
Early on, when the audience\u2019s reactions seemed to her too tame, she declared, \u201cI\u2019m feeling loopy tonight, Pittsburgh. I wish you were feeling loopy with me.\u201d A loud \u201cI love you\u201d from the audience then prompted her to respond, \u201cI love you is nice, but doesn\u2019t anyone want to sleep with me?\u201d<\/p>\n
It was about that time she reminded the parents in the audience to cover the ears of the little ones, there to hear the voice of \u201cFrozen\u2019s\u201d Elsa sing the megahit, \u201cLet It Go,\u201d but also there when the singer\u2019s blue streak reminded us that this 44-year-old mother is away from home, and when mom\u2019s away, mom gets to play like an adult. I\u2019m sure the lyrics to Radiohead\u2019s \u201cCreep\u201d had a few parents taking the \u201ccover their ears\u201d advice.<\/p>\n
More often, though, Ms. Menzel was offering up the songs that have made her one of Broadway\u2019s brightest stars. Before \u201cFrozen\u201d made her an all-ages heroine, she got her start in \u201cRent\u201d as the bisexual performance artist Maureen. From that show, she pulled the duet \u201cTake Me or Leave Me,\u201d and to help her convey the message of \u201ctake me as I am,\u201d she called on fans to help her out. She made friends and earned hugs from four audience members who knew the words to her part and her partner\u2019s part, including the amazing Corey Spaw, 25, of Connellsville, who belted right along with her.<\/p>\n
She followed by sitting at the edge of the stage and singing \u201cNo Day But Today\u201d as a tribute to the late \u201cRent\u201d creator Jonathan Larson, who died on the eve of the show\u2019s debut.<\/p>\n
That was one of the show\u2019s quieter moments, but nothing compared to \u201cFor Good,\u201d a \u201cWicked\u201d duet with Kristin Chenoweth in the musical, but in Ms. Menzel\u2019s concerts, an a cappella, mic-less rendition. The only sound to be heard was the singer\u2019s clear voice singing Stephen Schwartz\u2019s words: \u201cBecause I knew you \/ I have been changed for good.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the middle of the set, Ms. Menzel delivered the mashup of \u201cLove for Sale\u201d and \u201cRoxanne\u201d by the Police. She explained that during her freshman year at NYU, she tried to seduce a teacher (whom she didn\u2019t realize was gay), with the Cole Porter song, and he had to explain that it was a sexy song, but other passions were at play.<\/p>\n
Next, she honored a fellow belter who she said doesn\u2019t get enough attention these days: Ethel Merman. The medley of \u201cThere’s No Business Like Show Business,\u201d \u201cAnything Goes\u201d and \u201cEverything’s Coming Up Roses.\u201d She may still be holding that final note.<\/p>\n
On an elegant, black and white stage, Ms. Menzel was backed by a 15-piece orchestra, including 10 local musicians on strings and brass, with her conductor and pianist, Clifford Carter, guitar player John Benthal, and bassist Sean Hurley, each called out for solos.<\/p>\n
The singer’s most recent Broadway gig, soon to be a national tour, is the musical \u201cIf\/Then,\u201d about a woman\u2019s choices and where they lead. Ms. Menzel noted that her professional life was on a roll but there have been challenges in her personal life recently (she didn\u2019t specify her divorce this year from actor Taye Diggs), and that her character in \u201cIf\/Then\u201d taught her lessons about regret. Her song from that show, \u201cAlways Starting Over,\u201d includes a lyric that sums up what would seem to be the performer\u2019s philosophy to putting on a show: \u201cWhat the gods have to give \/ I\u2019ll take, and I\u2019ll live, and be bold.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms. Menzel also called on the audience to do its part, and on \u201cLet It Go,\u201d she gathered as many children as were willing to sit with her on the stage steps to sing \u201cLet It Go\u201d \u2014 like the adults, they, too, knew the words.<\/p>\n
For her encore, the singer delivered a song not from her own Broadway successes, but one she said that she sang as a child \u2014 \u201cTomorrow,” from “Annie.” She toned down the usual histrionics associated and lent it an air of gravity. It was a change for good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Welcome to the Idina Menzel World Tour and therapy session, guaranteed to push your emotional buttons and allow the diva on stage to get in tune with all of hers. The \u201coriginal green girl\u201d of \u201cWicked\u201d was a little bit naughty, a little bit nice and a little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":504,"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":[10],"tags":[36,11],"class_list":["post-503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-36","tag-world-tour-2015"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/pittsburg.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-87","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503","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=503"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions\/506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}