Many performers have “done” Marlene Dietrich, but none has offered her songs more richly, more movingly and with lovelier singing than a newcomer to cabaret, petite and elegant Janice Hall.

Janice’s debut show, Grand Illusions: The Music of Marlene Dietrich is no impersonation. The voice is Janice’s, a warm soprano that, starting with her first tones, draws you to her, then burrows inside you.

The voice, however, is not the show’s focus, despite the fact that Janice is also a busy, internationally successful opera singer. The spotlight is on the songs and their place in Dietrich’s colorful career, one that took her from singing in Weimar cafés to starring in motion pictures in Germany and Hollywood,  then to performing in clubs, including in Las Vegas, and finally to her late-in-life seclusion in New York.

The show’s songs – all once performed by Dietrich, some written expressly for her – covered a wide range. Included were many of her movie songs, with music by Friedrich Hollaender, such as  “Illusions,” from A Foreign Affair; “Lola,” from The Blue Angel; “The Boys in the Back Room” (lyrics by Frank Loesser); and “Falling in Love Again” (English words by Sammy Lerner). Other well-known numbers included “La vie en rose,” “Lili Marlene” and such American popular hits as “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,” “Honeysuckle Rose,” Cole Porter’s “The Laziest Gal in Town” and, presented with quiet drama, Pete Seeger’s anti-war song, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” In all her numbers, Janice stepped back from impersonating Dietrich to let the songs themselves, with their own inner beauty, take center stage, supported simply by a simply beautiful voice.

Backing Janice with just-the-right-touch music-making were Paul Trueblood, Musical Director and pianist, and bassist Ritt Henn. Director: Peter Napolitano. 

Janice returns to the Metropolitan Room on Dec. 8.

Peter Haas
Cabaret Scenes
November 13, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org