I remember that I once had the displeasure, in one of the ‘X with the Sydney Symphony’ concerts, to be sitting in the second row of the circle at the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House. It wasn’t that I didn’t like where I was sat; rather it was who I was sat with that was the problem, for, in the row in front of me, there developed throughout the evening a bit of a spat between two strangers forced together by fate, destiny, and the Opera House ticketing system.
Just in front of me were a relatively young couple – probably around 30 to 35 – and the woman had a spare seat on her right, and on the right of that spare seat was a much older woman who had come to the concert by herself. Now this was a jazz concert, dear reader, and as such the decorum of the audience was a bit more relaxed than one might usually get at a performance of music of a more Classical-with-a-capital-C bent. Which is to say that there was a wolf whistle or two to be heard. Now, I don’t know if the young woman was doing any whistling herself, or whether it was someone else nearby, but the older woman was none too pleased with the ear-piercing sound, and after enduring it a few times, and, presumably unsuccessfully, trying to talk to the younger woman, she lashed out with her rolled up program. It wasn’t particularly violent what she did – it was more to get the young woman’s attention – but the young woman wheeled around on her, during the applause for the latest piece, and started screaming, ‘don’t you touch me, don’t you dare touch me!’
Conflict is good in a play on stage, but when it happens directly in front of you, it’s not so entertaining. Your faithful critic, amateur student of human nature that he is, lingered during the interval, and listened to the two of them sort it out. From what one can remember, an apology was given (‘I apologise if you felt that I had hit you’), but annoyance was still in the air. (‘Look,’ said the young woman as the older woman continued talking, ‘I accept your apology, but I have no desire to sit here and listen to your life story or get to know you personally. Goodbye.’) The point of all this digression being, dear reader, that one can only hope that program-wielding septuagenarian wasn’t at this latest concert, Idina Menzel with the Sydney Symphony, because there wouldn’t have been enough rolled-up programs in the world to batter loud audience members into submission.
The roar, you see, when Menzel came out on stage was quite remarkable – I don’t think I’ve heard anyone else get quite such a reception. Indeed, she had such a great reception that mobile phone companies should use her as a case study. The average age of the audience, too, had dropped a good 30 years, so no doubt that explains some of the fanfare, but Menzel has many an accomplishment that means many a thing to many a person – she originated roles in Rent, in Wicked, and, perhaps most importantly to some in the audience, has a recurring role on the TV show Glee. A Broadway star, in essence.
Conductor Vanessa Scammell led the Sydney Symphony, as well as some assorted inner-band members, through the songs for the evening as Menzel, barefoot and loving it – charging back and forth across the stage as she bantered in between numbers – charmed the audience. The lighting was standard for this kind of affair – a spotlight and plenty of multi-coloured splotches – and the sound mixing was, on the whole, quite good. (About the only thing facet of this concert that was disappointing was the rather slim $15 program, one of the more egregious program rip-offs in recent memory.)
‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ started it all off, with Menzel beginning the song backstage. ’The Wizard and I’ from the musical Wicked was next, followed by ‘Don’t Rain on my Parade’ and a song from one of Menzel’s earlier albums, I Stand. One of the highlights was her heartfelt rendition of a Joni Mitchell song, ‘Both Sides, Now’, which was followed by an extending period of banter where she reminisced about her early days as a wedding-singer and gave the audience a taste of the choreography her partner made her learn for a Michael Jackson song. Next there was a mash-up of Cole Porter’s ‘Love for Sale’ and that pop stalwart ‘Roxeanne’, then ‘At the Ballet’ and ‘What I Did For Love’, both from A Chorus Line, and both dedicated to the memory of her good friend Marvin Hamlisch. An original song that Menzel has been working on provided a fresher and rather lovely moment, ‘God Save My Soul’, before she moved into a medley that included ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ among others.
Lady Gaga entered the fray with Menzel’s apologetic rendition of ‘Poker Face’ (‘I’m so sorry for making you play this,’ she said to the orchestra), and then it was time for audience participation, with a song from Rent – ‘Take Me or Leave Me’. Menzel hopped off the Concert Hall platform and walked around the audience, explaining that it was a duet and she was looking for volunteers to help her sing it. As one can imagine, the audience was filled with musical theatre students, and so four of them – Kate, Nick, Alouise, and Elly – got to sing with their idol, and, more importantly (especially for audience morale) were rather good singers in their own right. (‘Thank goodness they were good!’ cooed Menzel as she made her way back up on stage. ’Sometimes you ask people if they’re good, and you get a surprise.’)
‘No Day But Today’ (from Rent again) came next, then ‘For Good’ from Wicked, the latter piece being sung sans microphone, sans orchestra, but not sans feeling. Often, in the cadenza of a concerto, one looks, in a soloist, for a kind of creation, a kind of striking back against the void. This rarely happens in concerts such as these, though, for all the amplification and machinery and orchestra and band can dull the effect. But here, in this final piece of hers, there was a flickering (but strong) voice being projected against the emptiness, and it was quite special. Indeed, Menzel is a joy to watch and hear on stage, and one was thoroughly entertained.
Encores came, first one, then two more: ‘Defying Gravity’ from Wicked, ‘You Learn to Live Without’ from a new musical in the works called If/Then, and ‘Somewhere’ from West Side Story. Then, an hour and 55 minutes later (without an interval, mind you) Menzel took her final bow. (One should note, before the end of the review, that the symphony was put to good use here, though some of the music was no doubt already suited to an orchestra anyway. It isn’t always a given that adding a symphony will improve things, but here it did.) Good stuff.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Idina Menzel with the Sydney Symphony
Sydney Symphony
Idina Menzel (singer), Vanessa Scammell (conductor)
Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
26 June
