The last time she played Pittsburgh, Idina Menzel covered Radiohead, belted out Broadway tunes and got into the crowd for a sing-along with \u201cFrozen\u201d-loving little girls.<\/p>\n
Expect more surprises and eclectic song picks Tuesday, when the Tony- and Grammy-winning Menzel returns to Pittsburgh, this time playing larger Heinz Hall, as part of a 50-city global tour.<\/p>\n
Along with pop and musical theater favorites, Menzel will sing songs from her 2016 album, \u201cidina.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving some new music is very exciting for me,\u201d Menzel said in a phone interview Thursday, sounding upbeat and relaxed while killing time in an airport terminal waiting to catch a flight to the East Coast.<\/p>\n
This tour has a few new arrangements and new covers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve tried to change it a bit to make it like a brand new show, without abandoning the songs and arrangements that people would expect,\u201d Menzel said. \u201cThat can be a tricky little dance to do. But I think we\u2019ve done it. It feels fresh and new but pays off for the audience. I think we struck a good balance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tour began March 29 in Japan, though there have been intermittent breaks to spend time with her 7-year-old son, Walker, who loves visiting parks and playing basketball.<\/p>\n
Menzel co-wrote nine of the 12 songs on the critically praised \u201cidina.,\u201d which she characterizes as the most personal and introspective of her five studio albums. Those songs took shape at a major juncture of her life, where her divorce to actor Taye Diggs had become final, as she was garnering the biggest success of her career as the full-throttled singer of the Oscar-winning, girl-power blockbuster \u201cLet It Go\u201d from the animated film \u201cFrozen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menzel said she didn\u2019t feel nervous about releasing an album with such raw emotions and vulnerability.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the only way I know how to write — be as authentic and true as possible,\u201d she said. \u201cThere were a lot of opposing forces going on in my life, with real professional success coming in a way I hadn\u2019t seen before with \u201cFrozen\u201d and that song. So from the personal level that was a lot to write about. My goal was to dig deep and be honest with the music. You can\u2019t be afraid to be vulnerable as an artist. That\u2019s kind of an occupational hazard we all take on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first finished album track, \u201cI See You,\u201d was sent to her and seemed tailor-fit for her mood at that moment. The chorus says, \u201cHere\u2019s to the lonely\/To the broken-hearted\/I want you to know I feel your pain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menzel said, \u201cI\u2019m not saying there that I\u2019m trying to save a bunch of people, but I am saying I know what you\u2019re going through. I know how you feel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another new song, \u201cQueen of The Swords,\u201d is pure female empowerment. Maybe it\u2019s her modesty or self-deprecating humor, but Menzel wonders if that song reached the level of ire she had aimed for when writing it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve tried to write a very vengeful, angry song but that\u2019s not what comes out,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve wanted to do that to get out my frustrations, but then my arrangers find a way to get the hope and the optimism out of me.\u201d<\/p>\n
That pesky optimism.<\/p>\n
Her tour band features her usual rhythm section, and she customarily has hired 10 musicians from whatever city she\u2019s playing to provide an orchestral feel.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut for this tour I thought I needed to bring more female energy in, so I have two female string players who also sing, and a backup singer who also plays guitar,\u201d Menzel said.<\/p>\n
Menzel\u2019s 2015 show at the Benedum Center found the Broadway star who originated the role of the witchy Elphaba in the smash-hit \u201cWicked\u201d doing laid-back things, like kicking off her high heels and switching to Ninja Turtle slippers to stroll into the audience, handing the mic to several fans to take the lead vocals on \u201cTake Me or Leave Me\u201d from another of her hit musicals, \u201cRent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though it\u2019s obvious on the phone, someone seeing Menzel headline a concert for the first time might be surprised she is so down-to-earth and un-diva like. She\u2019s comfortable enough in her skin to range her cover choices from Radiohead\u2019s \u201cCreep\u201d to the Joni Mitchell-penned Judy Collins hit \u201cBoth Sides Now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know, people who have supported me through the years have seen the pretty eclectic path I\u2019ve taken musically,\u201d Menzel said. \u201cI guess some might say, \u2018Wow, she\u2019s singing Led Zeppelin, and now she\u2019s singing some jazzy thing.\u2019 That\u2019s a testimony to my musicians and my arrangers.\u201d<\/p>\n
With her voice raising in a bit of girlish glee, she added, \u201cand maybe that\u2019s a little testimonial to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Did someone say \u201cGlee\u201d?<\/p>\n
Menzel broadened her fan base with a number of guest appearances on the Fox show \u201cGlee\u201d between 2010 and 2013, though her memories aren\u2019t completely happy from that time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had just had a baby, and I was feeling fat and old and they\u2019re like \u2018Hey, how would you like to play (star) Lea Michele\u2019s mom?\u2018\u201d Menzel said. \u201cSo I brought my baggage to the set. And when you\u2019re a guest star you never really feel comfortable, because these people are together all the time and like a family, and I get that from being in \u2018Rent\u2019 and \u2018Wicked.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Menzel said she didn\u2019t anticipate \u201cRent\u201d and \u201cWicked\u201d would become such major forces on Broadway.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never know these things most of the time. You\u2019re just an actor trying to get work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Even after a Tony nomination for \u201cRent\u201d and a Tony Award win for \u201cWicked,\u201d she wasn\u2019t able to just sit back and be choosy about the roles she was offered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not Julia Roberts,\u201d Menzel said.<\/p>\n
Though she\u2019s very proud of \u201cRent\u201d and \u201cWicked\u201d and holds fond memories of performing in both those shows.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fun for me to relive. I don\u2019t get tired of those shows or of finding ways to celebrate them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s always ready to celebrate \u201cFrozen,\u201d too, the highest-grossing animated film ever, for which she voiced the co-lead role of Queen Elsa and sang the humongous hit \u201cLet It Go.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get a good role in an animated movie, you take it,\u201d Menzel said.<\/p>\n
Menzel said she\u2019s not sure if she can pinpoint the moment where she realized \u201cFrozen\u201d had become a cultural phenomenon.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe it was that first Halloween, when I saw a million moms walking around with little girls in blues dresses,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to tell, because it happens in so many increments. I remember they said you\u2019re going to have to fly out to the Oscars to sing, and I was like really? Then you find out it has broken all these records. It was just unraveling these surprises all the time, and it felt great,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was the moment I had been looking for, where my theater and pop worlds found a way to merge together,\u201d Menzel said.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll merge again Tuesday in Pittsburgh, in a show certain to include \u201cLet It Go\u201d and songs from her biggest shows. But look out for some improvisations and spontaneity, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want each city to feel they got a show that was unique to them,\u201d Menzel said. \u201cCertain things can make it different. Maybe I\u2019ll sing something melodically different, or I\u2019ll be inspired to tell a story about the last time I was in that city, or about something that\u2019s going on in my life. I\u2019m not going to phone it in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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