The other day, my dear friend Joy happily came across some comps for a concert that I had decided initially that I'd have to pass up for scrimpin' and savin' reasons.
In the past couple years, I've seen several of my favorite singers/personalities live, including Christine Brewer, Bryn Terfel, Susan Graham, Debbie Voigt, Margaret Cho and most recently Kristin Chenoweth. It's all so surreal! To finally know they exist not just on CD or television. You're actually in the same concert hall/opera house/theatre with them!! I know this seems so gauche of me, but it's an honest feeling I get...
...and I got it definitely tonight at An Evening with Patti Lupone and Mandy Patinkin. They'd not worked together since their monumental performances together in the original Broadway production of Evita...and it was like watching two old friends collaborating as if twenty or so years really hadn't passed by.
What I loved most about the evening was that it didn't feel like a conventional concert. Patti and Mandy treated the evening almost as if it were a classical recital, except the repertoire was not Schubert, Debussy or Copland...it was of equal giants in the musical theatre canon: Rodgers & Hammerstein, Kern, Loesser and Sondheim. Groups songs by these composers were woven into almost a Liederkreis of sorts. We were given a story to watch. I was very touched by Mandy and Patti's recapitulation of the Carousel story, especially.
Of course, the evening also allowed for some solo turns. Patti came out and knocked 'em dead with two solos instrumental in her early career ("Don't Cry for Me, Argentina") and her most recent work ("Everything's Coming Up Roses"). Mandy gave an inspired, borscht-belt reading of "Buddy's Blues" from Follies. It was a little disappointing, though, that he nixed "Oh What a Circus" this evening. The duo closed out the evening with the delightful ditty "Coffee in a Cardboard Cup," which I now am determined to sing with a willing duet partner!
It all flashed by so fast, yet with such pacing, I was never left wanting more. A truly wonderful evening of song!
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