This marked the second Pops concert I've attended, following one last year dedicated to Broadway in general conducted by Rob Fisher. That was the one where Kelli O'Hara was the guest soloist and she took the stage with "I'm Love with a Wonderful Guy." Charles Isherwood was in the audience and wrote that O'Hara topped his Nellie Furbish wish list - and the rest is history!
The evening was divided into two halves. Act One was pre-Rodgers & Hammerstein Oscar Hammerstein, featuring selections from stuff like SHOW BOAT, CARMEN JONES, MUSIC IN THE AIR, THE DESERT SONG, and other rarely heard goodies. Act Two, as you'd expect, was all R&H stuff, stronger material but stuff we know by heart. Weirdly, they decided to open Act One with the SOUTH PACIFIC overture. Isn't another venue a few blocks away playing that too? I found it interesting how hearing it at Lincoln Center with only 30 pieces (instead of the full orchestra at Carnegie) was so much more thrilling. Here, it felt more studied and out of theatrical context.
Sutton Foster, to me, is a glorified chorus girl. I don't think she's that pretty, and I don't think she's that great an actress or singer either. But she's decent. She's like a modern personification of Peggy Sawyer - a hard-working, imminently likable stage gal. Someone like Kelli O'Hara, on the other hand, has star quality. Even if her vocal performance at the event was a bit better an adequate, her acting was pretty genuine and credible, particularly with "I've Told Every Little Star" and "Mr. Snow," my favorite R&H ballad.
Aaron Lazar was another guest soloist. I'm a fan of his, but found his performance here to be pretty stiff, lending only his strong baritone voice to the material and not much else. The only point in the evening I felt him taking on any animation was when he got to do "Oh What a Beautiful Morning," which he did not perform in front of a stand-up microphone but instead got to wander across the front of the stage, as if in character as Curly.
OTHER QUICK REVIEWS
THE GONDOLIERS AT NYU - This was a Steinhardt production at the Frederick Loewe Theatre. THE GONDOLIERS was one of few remining Gilbert & Sullivan operettas that I had yet to see. (The only one left for me, not counting the incomplete THESPIS, is THE SORCERER, which I'm not likely to get to see anytime soon.) New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players are also doing GONDOLIERS in June, and I'll certainly check that out. Still, what I saw at NYU will definitely be better. The cast was fabulous vocally, and the full-size orchestra was strong. The book parts were flat, but this was mostly due to the piece itself, not the cast itself.
A WHITE HOUSE CANTATA - This was a well-meant concert revival of Bernstein's 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, which I guarantee will never receive a full revival. It has also not received a recording, and probably never will. The show is devised as a series of scenes involving different presidents in the White House, mostly told from a racial discrimination theme, starting with slavery and ending with minstrelsy. I'm glad that I caught the production, but I can't say I actually enjoyed the piece. It was also awkward to have a single male and female actress play all the presidential roles, though they were fine in the roles.