Review: Jessica Vosk Brings Music and Mirth to Berklee Performance Center With SLEIGH

Jessica Vosk isn’t only a gifted vocalist – she’s also a quick-witted storyteller, as she proved recently when she opened her current concert tour with a splendid Celebrity Series of Boston appearance at Berklee Performance Center.

Sprinkled like cinnamon throughout a setlist of holiday songs from her 2024 album, “Sleigh,” and selections from her Broadway repertoire, Vosk’s stories brought forward her warmth and good humor while the music showcased the versatile soprano voice that has made her a popular concert artist.

Opening with Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas” – the 1970 release since covered by everyone from The Temptations, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Patti LaBelle to Sabrina Carpenter – the diminutive singer, clad in a flower-flocked red minidress, was in full command for the next 100 minutes, deftly blending seasonal songs like David Foster’s “My Grown-Up Christmas List,” George Michael’s “Last Christmas,” and Sarah McLachlan’s “Wintersong” with pop hits like Julia Michael’s “Issues.”

Her comedy chops were on the menu, too, as she told, and acted out, the story of her audition to be one of the Staggering Harlettes in Bette Midler’s “The Showgirl Must Go On” at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. She didn’t end up joining Midler’s Vegas residency but said the Divine Miss M continues to be one of her all-time favorites. Vosk also had praise for Joni Mitchell, citing the Canadian-born folk singer’s Laurel Canyon period as one of the best in music history before delivering a faithful, moving rendition of Mitchell’s classic “River.”

Vosk was in great voice in Boston and in good company, too, with her musical director Mary-Mitchell Campbell at the piano, Marissa Rosen on vocals, Rich Mercurio on percussion, Colin Sapp on guitar, Matt Aronoff on bass, and the Boston Conservatory at Berklee string quartet of Eunice Pak and Maya Leibowitz on violin, Emma Dandbothe on the viola, and Celia Mae Sieckert on cello.

Grammy Award winner Campbell – a music director, conductor, orchestrator, and arranger, now serving as music supervisor on the about-to-close “The Queen of Versailles” – has long been associated with Kristin Chenoweth, so it was no surprise that she smiled broadly when Vosk did a brief but spot-on impersonation of the Tony winner. Indeed, Campbell, a co-producer on “Sleigh,” proved a good-natured foil throughout, always at the ready as Vosk moved briskly from music to comedy for bits that included another brief impersonation, this one of Ariana Grande, and a longer recollection of playing Fruma-Sarah in the 2015 revival of “Fiddler on the Roof” – and, at one performance, stepping in as Golde for an unexpectedly concussed Jessica Hecht at the top of act two.

With Vosk having just last month wrapped up a year-long run as Alicia Keys’ mother, Jersey, in “Hell’s Kitchen,” it was not surprising that the musical theater fans in the house reacted very enthusiastically when Vosk lent her versatile voice to “Waving Through a Window” from “Dear Evan Hansen” and “Times Are Hard for Dreamers” from “Amélie,” as well as “Nobody’s Side” from “Chess” and “What Baking Can Do” from “Waitress,” both of which she did at the Muny in St. Louis, where she first met her now-husband, Dave Godar, in 2023.

While the New Jersey native has played several roles on Broadway, Elphaba in “Wicked,” which she initially played on the show’s second national tour, which included an eight-week stop at Citizens Opera House in Boston, is the one that made her name. Her New York run, 2018–19, earned her widespread acclaim as perhaps one of the best Elphaba replacements in the show’s now 22-year history.

It was only fitting, then, that after a stirring “O Holy Night,” on which she was accompanied by Berklee choral singers, Vosk closed out her latest Boston engagement with an encore of “The Wizard and I” from “Wicked,” bringing the near-capacity audience to its feet in appreciative applause.

Photo caption: Jessica Vosk is seen her during her recent Celebrity Series of Boston holiday concert at Berklee Performance Center. Photo by Robert Torres.