Kelli O’Hara in her solo concert debut at Carnegie Hall on Friday.
A concert hall is not necessarily the ideal place to lend an ear to the lullaby of Broadway. The hip-hooray can sound a little staid, the ballyhoo less informally brassy than you might like. But at Carnegie Hall on Friday night, Rob Fisher, Kelli O’Hara and the New York Pops breezed through a half-century and more of American musical theater with warmth and personability that made the evening feel like a spontaneous family gathering around the living room piano.
Mr. Fisher, one of the country’s foremost conductors of the musical-theater repertory, played the helpful host, introducing the selections with anecdotes and tidbits of lore. His insights helped smooth the way through a program that, in theory, seemed haphazard and a little odd. Songs performed by Ms. O’Hara (and some surprise guests) were interspersed with lots of suites and overtures. Those suites and overtures — inevitable on a symphonic program devoted to Broadway music — can sometimes frustrate, whetting your appetite for dishes not on the menu. But what the program may have lacked in structural flow it made up in zest and variety.
The overtures alone allowed the Pops to sing in a variety of voices, from the lush warmth of Jerome Kern’s “Show Boat” to the brassy grab of Jule Styne’s “Funny Girl” to the lively bounce of Vincent Youmans’s “No, No, Nanette.” The suites were equally various and included a haunting précis of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” that had an almost Ivesian quality; excerpts from Leonard Bernstein’s “Symphonic Dances” from “West Side Story”; and a snazzy potpourri from John Kander’s music for “Chicago.” (A “suite” from “Chicago” sounds a little high-toned for that tastily lowdown show, but Michael Gibson’s orchestration made room for a little raunch.)
Ms. O’Hara was in radiant voice for what was her solo concert debut at Carnegie Hall. (She was a guest artist at Barbara Cook’s recent concert.) Her selections were eclectic and appealingly personal. She had an intimate connection with virtually all the songs she sang, and her interpretations were touched by a directness of feeling that matched her purity of tone.
Harry Connick Jr., her co-star in the recent Broadway revival of “The Pajama Game,” wrote the delicate, almost melancholy arrangement for “Make Someone Happy,” from “Do Re Mi,” and the gently syncopated one for “I Have Dreamed,” from “The King and I.” (Both appear on Ms. O’Hara’s forthcoming CD, which she gently plugged.)
Ms. O’Hara invited another former co-star, Brian d’Arcy James (they were both in “Sweet Smell of Success”), to join her for two beautifully sung duets, a surging romp through Cole Porter’s “From This Moment On” and a meltingly lovely “If I Loved You.”
That heartbreaker from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Carousel” was a special request from Ms. O’Hara’s mother, she sweetly acknowledged. (I hereby congratulate Mom on her fine taste.) And Dad was credited with the choice of the encore, “I Could Have Danced All Night,” a reprise of sorts from Ms. O’Hara and Mr. Fisher’s recent — and thrilling — concert version of “My Fair Lady” with the New York Philharmonic.
The evening’s other guest star was Ricky Ian Gordon, a composer whose work straddles the musical-theater and classical worlds, a tricky balancing act at a time when Broadway remains primarily a marketplace for the familiar. Ms. O’Hara starred in the Off Broadway premiere of Mr. Gordon’s “My Life With Albertine” (inspired by Proust no less). He accompanied Ms. O’Hara and the orchestra on an introspective selection from the show that illustrated his gift for hazy, interestingly textured melodies. (A pity about Richard Nelson’s prosy lyrics, though.)
Titled “Broadway: Then and Now,” the concert also included, from the limited repertory of the “now,” the tender, haunting title song from Adam Guettel’s “Light in the Piazza,” which she sang with an almost meditative grace.
Ms. O’Hara starred in the Broadway production of “Piazza” at Lincoln Center Theater, which will produce “South Pacific,” with music by Mr. Guettel’s grandfather, Richard Rodgers, next season. As it happened, Ms. O’Hara performed a song from that musical too. Storing away her rich operatic tones, she let a little supple Broadway sass into her voice to sing “Wonderful Guy” and did a wonderful job. She certainly sits atop my Nellie Forbush wish list.
