BWW Reviews: Six-Time Tony Award Winner Audra McDonald Returns to Celebrity Series

An Evening with Audra McDonald

Andy Einhorn, Music Director, Conductor, and Piano; Dave Phillips, Bass; Gene Lewin, Drums

Presented by Celebrity Series of Boston Sunday, March 1, at Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA; www.celebrityseries.org

The last time Audra McDonald took the stage at Symphony Hall in 2011 as part of the Celebrity Series of Boston lineup, she was a four-time Tony Award winner and had just completed her run in The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge. Thanks to her Broadway performance in that musical and her star turn in 2014 in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, she returned for her sixth appearance with the Celebrity Series on Sunday as a record-breaking six-time Tony Award winner. Accompanied by her music director Andy Einhorn on piano, Gene Lewin on drums, and Dave Phillips on bass, McDonald gave the sold-out audience a beautifully crafted program that filled every nook and cranny of the venerable hall with her unparalleled artistry.

Whether singing the works of the most well-known composers, from Rodgers & Hammerstein to Stephen Sondheim, Kander & Ebb to Lerner & Loewe, and Cole Porter to Jason Robert Brown, or introducing lesser-known lights such as Marcy Heisler & Zina Goldrich, and Adam Gwon, McDonald displays her vocal versatility and commitment to the different styles of each composer. As a Juilliard-trained soprano, she handled the demands of two selections from Gabriel Kahane's Craigslistlieder and Gershwin's "Summertime" with ease, but most of the set list consisted of a hodgepodge (her description) of tunes from Broadway and the Great American Songbook, with a musical bedtime story thrown in for good measure.

McDonald's interpretation of every song focuses on telling its story while capturing its emotional content. Exhibit A is Gwon's "I'll Be Here" (Ordinary Days), imagining one of the many heartbreaking stories of loss on 9-11, at the end of which the singer wipes away her own tears. She blew the lid off the house with her plaintive "Maybe This Time" (Cabaret), and implored the crowd by her sheer will and joy to "Sing Happy" (Flora, The Red Menace). It wasn't difficult to convince everyone to sing along on the popular "I Could Have Danced All Night" (My Fair Lady), and McDonald singled out a young woman in the first few rows to praise her vocal chops and encourage her to pursue her dream of being in the music business.

Words are insufficient to characterize the sound of her voice, but McDonald also takes ownership of a song by impeccable phrasing and her placement of emphasis on a lyric that makes it sound new and different. Two prime examples of this talent were heard in the penultimate "Make Someone Happy" (Do Re Mi), professing her mantra that love is the answer, and the big finishing number, "Climb Every Mountain" (The Sound of Music). She recounted her experience in the 2013 live television production as "the darkest Mother Abbess in history," and I was reminded that I had never fully understood the message in that song until I heard McDonald vocally explain it. Following a thunderous ovation, she received two gorgeous bouquets from fans down front and left the stage with Einhorn in her wake. Of course, we knew she'd be back.

For her encore, this amazing singer paid tribute to one of the greatest singers of all time who preceded her, the late Judy Garland. In introducing the selection, McDonald shared the historical note that Judy's death in 1969 coincided with and perhaps inspired the Stonewall riots that were a watershed moment for gay liberation. McDonald is a long-time advocate for marriage equality, citing how she benefited from the Civil Rights movement, and wished to "honor that movement, and love, and hope, and dreams, and Judy, Judy, Judy," with her heartfelt "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." It seemed a fitting ending to an evening that left us all somewhere over the moon.

Photo credit: Robert Torres (Audra McDonald)

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