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“You and the Night and the Music”
Feinstein’s at Loews Regency – January 13, 14
Anna Bergman is a gorgeous singer—gorgeous in every way: lovely of face and form, elegant in bearing and manner without being cool or formal—indeed, she can be emotionally very open—and with a voice that is a rich, luscious soprano. Her recent offering at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency gave abundant evidence to support this assessment.
The opening number was a pairing of “Something Tells Me” (Hugh Martin, Timothy Gray, from High Spirits) and Dietz and Schwartz’s “You and the Night and the Music.” Staged with Bergman walking through the room, singing to—and about—the audience, it established that the evening would be a shared experience and made for a very inviting start to the proceedings.
The show, which was directed by Jeff Harnar, was set against a backdrop of Bergman’s being the daughter of an American diplomat and having been raised in various world capitals. This, of course, meant the inclusion of music from other countries. She delivered a beautifully considered rendition, in French, of “Sous le Ciel de Paris” (Hubert Giraud, Jean Dréjac). Her interpretation of “Vilia” (Franz Lehar, Viktor Leon, Leo Stein, from The Merry Widow) was hauntingly beautiful, and her tender, poignant delivery of Sheldon Harnick’s English lyric was touching. Performed to perfection, “Quando m’en vo” (Musetta’s Waltz) from La Bohème (Puccini, Giuseppe Giacosa, Luigi Illica) made a splendid encore piece.
The theme also gave her license to do English songs in foreign languages. For example, after telling us that as a girl she listened to a recording of Dietrich singing American standards in German, Bergman sang “Mean to Me” / “Sei lieb zu mir” (Fred E. Ahlert, Roy Turk, German lyric by Lothar Metzl) in the two languages—and she was heartbreaking in both. Songs without international pedigree were credibly woven into the theme. Bergman brought more emotion to Adam Guettel’s “Fable” (from The Light in the Piazza) than I’ve ever heard before, and her rendition of Maury Yeston’s “Home” (from Yeston and Arthur Kopit’s Phantom) was simply glorious. She was backed by musical director Alex Rybeck on piano and Jered Egan on bass—a duo par excellence.
But there were times when Bergman, the artist, tried to be Bergman, the entertainer, and those were not quite so successful. Constructed of stock French words and phrases, Don Tucker’s “French Song” is very funny, and Bergman did a decent job on it, but she came across as trying a bit too hard to be a nightclub crowd pleaser. With the Gershwins’ “Embraceable You,” she started off giving a centered, affecting performance, then she undermined her good work by playing to the audience. After an amusing anecdote about a Prince who lavished extravagant gifts on his girlfriend—or was it his wife?—she launched into a “Prince of My Dreams” medley, which gave us a few bars each of eight songs that alluded, more or less, to being enamored of luxuries, and culminated with an extended extract of Leonard Bernstein and Richard Wilbur’s masterpiece, “Glitter and Be Gay.” I think the eight-snippet lead-in was meant to be funny; it was not—neither in concept nor in execution. However, her ebullient performance of “Glitter and Be Gay” was beyond terrific. How much better it would have been had Bergman ditched the medley and simply done the complete “Glitter and Be Gay”—I bet it would have brought down the house. She’s so marvelous at what she does best, I wish she would not try to do what she does only passably well.
There were a couple of other, relatively minor problems. Though the patter setting up Maury Yeston’s “New Words” was appropriate to the song’s sentiment, it didn’t jibe with the lyrics; the disconnect distracted me during the early part of the song as I tried to find the link. With its witty lyric, “Museum” (Addy Fieger, Francesca Blumenthal) is a good choice for Bergman; however, it was slightly over-“performed” [emphasis on slightly]: the song is so strong that Bergman needn’t “interpret” quite so much; in addition, the occasional lyric was spoken by Rybeck, and while his delivery was unimpeachable, the device pulled focus from Bergman. (Intra-song interplay between singer and accompanist can be tricky; it should be entertained warily and employed judiciously.)
If I’ve spent what perhaps is an inordinate amount of time on deficiencies, it is only because I admire her talent so much that I see no reason that an Anna Bergman show shouldn’t be 100% wonderful.
Roy Sander has been covering cabaret and theatre for over thirty years. He’s written cabaret and theatre reviews, features, and commentary for seven print publications, most notably Back Stage, and for CitySearch on the Internet. He covered cabaret monthly on “New York Theatre Review” on PBS TV, and cabaret and theatre weekly on WLIM-FM radio. He was twice a guest instructor at the London School of Musical Theatre. A critic for BistroAwards.com, he is also the site’s Reviews Editor; in addition, he is Chairman of the Advisory Board of MAC.
