Kelli O’Hara was a breath of fresh air reprising her show at the beautiful Café Carlyle for a second run. Perhaps it was a combination of new mommy warm and fuzzy feelings with a realization that cabaret required an intimacy unlike the Broadway stage on which she’d cut her teeth. However she arrived, the transition is stunning.  A gorgeous bell tone soprano, classically trained, can do anything.

Relaxed, casual and confident, her crystalline tones sparkled on “A Wonderful Guy” (Rodgers & Hammerstein) while offered more conversationally; Sondheim’s “Take Me to the World” reverberated with palettes of beautiful tonal color.  O’Hara felt so at ease, she took her shoes off for “The Light in the Piazza” (Guettel), once again mesmerizing with the clarity and beauty of her high tones.

O’Hara, also a songwriter, chose a family tradition and title, “I Love You the World,” to express the joy she is experiencing with new son Owen James. Once again, she brought the house down with “Opera-Country,” (Lipton/Rossmer), a concoction of her life that is clever, funny and all O’Hara!

Dan Lipton is Music Director/Pianist; Mark Vanderpoel, bass; Howard Joines, drums; Antoine Silverman, violin.

Catch this ‘warm up’ before she returns to Broadway starring in South Pacific.

Sandi Durell
Cabaret Scenes
September 16, 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org