Review: Ageless Chanteuse Liliane Montevecchi Defines Joie de Vivre With Valentine's Show at Feinstein's/54 Below

The indomitable Liliane Montevecchi revived her 25-year-old cabaret show Thursday night at Feinstein's/54 Below with verve, style, and the expansive flirting of a lifelong femme fatale. This time it's aptly titled Be My Valentine. Few can ad lib with so much beguiling heat. As the Cliff Notes of her extraordinary life are now familiar to most fans, this audience is here to experience the infectious joy of live performance.

Once a prima ballerina (still exhibiting grace, an impressive extension, and those fabulous legs), Montevecchi went on to a movie career, The Folies Bergère, musical theater (garnering Tony and Drama Desk Awards), and now hosts international variety shows in which she also sings. The dynamic, self-admitted octogenarian is booked till December 2017.

Montevecchi requests lights turned up while she weaves through tables to the stage. The performer likes to see and touch and connect. "You are, for me, formidable," she coos to one guest, launching into "Je Cherche Un Millionaire/Formidable" (Charles Aznavour.) Don't let her tell you she can't sing. (She might.) She can. Her voice, in French and English, is full and resonant, phrasing dramatic. Montevecchi can soar or purr with equal finesse. Listen for those lovely rolled 'r's. Vocals might internally vibrate or urgently take flight.

Sandwiched between French classics, "Sweet Beginning," Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley's romantic yearning expressed with colloquial images, stills the room. Montevecchi makes the song sound classier than usual. For her favorite number from the Folies, its star was not bedecked with rhinestones and feathers, but rather sat on a moon in a simple Pierrot costume singing "Le Dernier Pierrot-Les Temps" (by the performer). A lovely piano arrangement wafts beneath Montevecchi's poignant soliloquy as the character gazes down on Paris.

The 1916 torch song, "Mon Homme"--"My Man," (Jacques Charles/Channing Pollack/Albert Willemetz/Maurice Yvain), popularized here by Fanny Brice, was originally written for the French actress/singer Mistinguett (in the early 1900s, the highest-paid female entertainer in the world). Montevecchi's version manifests shattered pride.

Having played the icon in a Paris show, she was asked by Mistinguett to dine. An elaborate table was set with flatware purloined from The Paris Ritz. Montevecchi's story about the hotel's reaction is priceless. And oh, that laugh! Deep, throaty, sexy; somewhere between a bark and a bray.

While "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" (Juha Tapio) is resignedly grave, "Irma La Douce" (Alexandre Breffort/David Heneker/Margueritte Monnot/Julian More/Monty Norman) is delivered with theatrical pathos. As the naïve prostitute who feels she has no reason to live, Montevecchi sheds 50 years. Later, there's even a brief balletic turn displaying incredible, rather feline flexibility.

Grouped in sequence, "But Beautiful" (Johnny Burke/James Van Heusen)"--sung like she means it, "Ne Me Quitte Pas" (Jacques Brel/Rod McKuen)--with halting, recitative verse, and the powerful waltz, "I Don't Want To Know" (Jerry Herman) from the musical Dear World, create a kind of scenario that achieves swirling momentum.

"Bonjour Amour" (Maury Yeston) from Montevecchi's role as the aging prima ballerina surprised by love in Grand Hotel is ardent, moving ". . . because I have a man who is much younger than me . . . " "Folies Bergere" (Maury Yeston), written for her as the producer in Nine, is jubilant. One imagines a stage filled with stairs and bobbing headdresses.

Ian Herman's piano styling is lush, exuberant, playful, yearning . . . That he keeps up with every twist and improvised turn by this unique performer is a marvel.

There are almost as many songs as biographical snippets, some arriving with only four lines of lyric, eschewing medleys. The artist might rethink this next time. It's often frustrating.

Liliane Montevecchi is as petite as they come yet larger than life. Brava!

Other performances February 12 & 13, all at 7 pm. http://54below.com/

Photos by Stephen Sorokoff

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