Last weekend, I went to an amazing concert! It was “A Night with Idina Menzel and Marvin Hamlisch,” at such a wonderful, unique venue, Wolftrap. For those of you unfamiliar with Wolftrap, it’s our nation’s only national park for the performing arts. It’s an outdoor venue with amazing acoustics and welcomes a variety of shows every summer. It’s really a staple of the greater DC area performing arts scene. My parents and I scored lawn seats for only $20 apiece. Sure, the lawn isn’t exactly up close and personal like the people who shell out the big bucks for real seats, but it has its benefits. For one thing, the picnicking. I told my mom to pack a picnic which would make all the other people there jealous. Boy, did she ever! While everyone else was chowing down on their Subway sandwiches and potato salad, we were feasting on an amazing picnic of homemade fried chicken, fresh mozzarella cheese, an array of fresh fruits, pita bread and hummus, and drinking some quality wine. Good job, Mom! As much as I’m sure you want to hear more about the picnic, on to the concert!
It was so hot out, and they kept having to re-tune the piano because of the humidity. The first part of the show was Marvin Hamlisch conducting the National Symphony Orchestra (my dad pretended to be outraged that they weren’t wearing tuxedos, saying that was wimpy to wear short sleeves just because it was 100 degrees outside) in an homage to great Broadway shows for women, including the overtures from Gypsy and Annie, Get Your Gun. It was fabulous. Listening to the National Symphony Orchestra play these songs really gave me some perspective on the recent controversy regarding the Broadway production of West Side Story cutting several violins and replacing them with a synthesizer, in order to cut costs. I know that things are tight these days for everyone (trust me on this one), but I think that a full orchestra is so integral to the Broadway musical. It’s part of what makes musicals special, and when shows scrimp on things like the orchestra, it shows. I’m no musical expert, but I want all the instruments there, not a synthesizer.
After a short break, it was time for Idina Menzel! It was amazing. I watched the whole thing through my dad’s binoculars. Idina was a total trooper singing in the heat, and she sounded amazing! She sang some awesome things, opening with Andrew Lippa’s “Life of the Party” (with an anecdote about how she doesn’t actually like parties), and also including “I’m Not that Girl,” an awesome mashup of Cole Porter’s “Love for Sale” and Sting’s “Roxanne,” introducing it as a song about prostitution, a wonderful arrangement of “No Day But Today,” and some original songs, including some she sings to her son. Since it was too hot to sing all these songs back to back to back, she took time between songs to tell interesting and funny anecdotes from her life and career. She told some great ones about meeting Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, having to sing “Tomorrow” from Annie at every family gathering as a child, and about how they told her she wasn’t allowed to use “four letter words” at this gig, so that meant she could still say “ass.” She’s hilarious, and I really loved getting this glimpse into her life and personality.
One of my favorite moments of the show was when she sang “Poker Face,” the arrangement from Glee. She introduced it by saying “this song has some interesting words in it, like muffin.” I think it may be the first time that “Poker Face” has ever been done with a full orchestra of the caliber of the National Symphony Orchestra. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I’m so glad that I was there for it.
When she said, “this is my last song of the night,” and then began to sing a wonderful arrangement of “Tomorrow,” I turned to my mom and exclaimed “NO! The program says she is going to sing ‘Defying Gravity’!” I was shocked! How could she tease me like that? It would be one thing if it wasn’t in the program, but I was promised some “Defying Gravity!”
However, there was an encore. Thank God. She came out, and Marvin Hamlisch noted that there was a certain composer she hadn’t yet done any songs from. So, the two did “What I Did for Love” from A Chorus Line, and it was lovely. Afterward, Mr. Hamlisch was like, “You know, there is still one song you haven’t sung yet…” and the crowd went wild. I turned to my mom and said “I told you!” And Idina sang, of course, “Defying Gravity,” noting that she’s going to be 85 in Vegas singing that song and mimicked her 85-year-old self doing the motions from the song. She absolutely slayed it, and it was the perfect cherry on the top of a fabulous evening which I will never forget!Wolftrap Website
No comments:
Post a Comment