Off-the-charts success hasn\u2019t changed Idina Menzel \u2013 but it has altered her set list a bit.<\/p>\n
The Broadway star, whose voice became ubiquitous thanks to \u201cLet It Go,\u201d the massive hit Menzel recorded for the smash Disney soundtrack \u201cFrozen,\u201d is still the same; the 44-year-old remains laidback and open. Her audience, however, has grown exponentially and is much younger than it\u2019s ever been, so a few modifications in her concert are necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying not to let it impact the show that much,\u201d Menzel says while calling from Hartford, Conn. \u201cBetween \u2018Rent\u2019 and \u2018Wicked\u2019 \u2013 even \u2018Glee\u2019 and now \u2018Frozen,\u2019 I\u2019ve always had to figure out how to negotiate, navigate around a wide demographic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menzel is no overnight sensation. It\u2019s been a steady climb for the singer and actress, who received a Tony Award nomination for her performance in \u201cRent\u201d nearly 20 years ago and won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her work in \u201cWicked\u201d in 2004.<\/p>\n
Menzel says she enjoys the Great White Way, but always wanted more.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to go as far as you can, and so much has happened with my career,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve been very fortunate with what has come my way. I\u2019ve recorded a number of songs and it\u2019s been a great ride.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I curse, I swear\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Menzel has an abundance of tunes to choose from when she performs Wednesday at the Red Hat Amphitheater in Raleigh. \u201cMost of the songs are from shows that I\u2019ve been in,\u201d Menzel says. \u201cAnd then there is the other music I want to explore. It\u2019s funny, although \u2018Let It Go\u2019 is my only hit radio song of my career, I sort of consider songs like (\u2018Wicked\u2019s\u2019) \u2018Defying Gravity\u2019 and songs from \u2018Rent\u2019 to be my other hit songs.\u201d<\/p>\n And now when Menzel performs, she has a new audience largely comprised of prepubescent girls clad in their Disney finery.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m … up there on stage and I curse, I swear about something and then I realize that\u2019s a mom in the front row with her little 8-year-old daughter in an Elsa costume,\u201d Menzel says. \u201cBut I have to be myself, too. That\u2019s a challenging thing … how I reconcile all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Let it Go\u2019 will happen<\/strong><\/p>\n Menzel can keep it relatively simple in terms of apparel, and she will pick her songs of choice, but there is no way she will leave the venue without performing \u201cLet It Go.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt about that,\u201d Menzel says. \u201cI love the song.\u201d<\/p>\n But Menzel never thought \u201cLet It Go\u201d would become one of the most popular tunes of this era.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew it was a beautiful song, but I had no idea that it would become the phenomenon it has become,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat people don\u2019t realize is that it\u2019s wonderful to have a song that has heightened my profile, but the beautiful thing about it is that it speaks to me as a woman, and as a reminder for myself about the things that are important and the things that I need to learn. For instance, the idea of not hiding the things that make us powerful and those things that might set us apart and make us extraordinary in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n More than \u2018Frozen\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Menzel has been plenty extraordinary well before \u201cFrozen\u201d hit the world. \u201cI\u2019ve accomplished a lot over the years, but it\u2019s about working hard,\u201d Menzel says. \u201cThat\u2019s how things have happened for me. Good things have happened, but you have to work hard in life to get to a certain place. I don\u2019t regret all of the work I\u2019ve done for a minute. My career has been so amazing and it\u2019s hitting another level now.\u201d<\/p>\n And she hasn\u2019t lost a bit of that impressive work ethic. Prior to the tour, Menzel started on her next album.<\/p>\n Menzel is also working on a television project produced by Ellen DeGeneres dubbed \u201cHappy Time,\u201d playing a woman in the public eye who doesn\u2019t want to pretend she\u2019s happy all of the time.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a new challenge that I\u2019m excited about. You have to keep pushing yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Off-the-charts success hasn\u2019t changed Idina Menzel \u2013 but it has altered her set list a bit. The Broadway star, whose voice became ubiquitous thanks to \u201cLet It Go,\u201d the massive hit Menzel recorded for the smash Disney soundtrack \u201cFrozen,\u201d is still the same; the 44-year-old remains laidback and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":522,"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":[36,11],"class_list":["post-519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","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\/raleigh.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-8n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519","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=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":525,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions\/525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}