Review: Sutton Foster and Kelli O'Hara Share a Memorable ONE NIGHT ONLY with the Boston Pops at Tanglewood

Tony Award winners Sutton Foster (“Anything Goes,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie”) and Kelli O’Hara (“The King and I”) – each acclaimed as a Broadway performer and song-and-dance artist of the first order – are also known for solo concert appearances, but the glitteringly gifted singers were together on July 18 for “One Night Only” with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops at Tanglewood, which showcased the talents that have made them two of today’s most popular Broadway leading ladies.

Inspired by the Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett special “Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall,” which aired on CBS-TV in 1962, O’Hara and Foster first performed this concert live at Carnegie Hall with the New York Pops in November 2023. The musical comedy outing was full of Broadway selections, opening with a medley that included “Real Live Girl” from Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman’s “Little Me,” “I Have Confidence” from “The Sound of Music,” “You’re the Top” from Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes,” Frank Loesser’s “There Once Was a Man,” used but uncredited in “The Pajama Game,” and “I’m Gonna Wash That Right Out of My Hair” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific.”

Foster and O’Hara acknowledged from the stage that they have been friends for some 20 years. The personal and professional relationship between Burnett and Andrews began on “The Garry Moore Show” in 1961, when guest star Andrews first worked with series regular Burnett. The episode also marked Andrews’ first televised performance of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s “My Favorite Things,” three years before she filmed “The Sound of Music.” In addition to their 1962 Carnegie Hall special, sometime Broadway performers Andrews (“The Boyfriend,” “My Fair Lady,” and “Camelot”) and Burnett (“Once Upon a Mattress,” “Fade Out - Fade In,” “Moon Over Buffalo,” and “Putting It Together”) also top-lined “Julie and Carol at Lincoln Center” on CBS-TV in 1971.

With Foster having won her second Tony as Reno Sweeney in the 2011 revival of “Anything Goes,” and O’Hara having starred in the 2006 revival of “The Pajama Game” and 2008 revival of “South Pacific,” the pair, with their numerous Broadway credits, were well matched to the music which included “Great Adventure” from Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Kimberly Akimbo.”

Backed by her accompanist Michael Rafter at the piano, Foster also sang and danced her way through a high-energy “Anything Goes” – joined by the surefooted ensemble of current Boston Conservatory students Bailey Reese Greemon and Liesie Kelli along with Luke Rands and Eric Sciotto – while O’Hara stilled the sold-out audience with her crystalline soprano on “If I Loved You,” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Carousel.”

Songwriters Dan Lipton, O’Hara’s music director, and David Rossmer co-wrote “How Do you Get to Carnegie Hall?” which was introduced through a comedy bit that found O’Hara and Foster as apron-wearing Macaroni Grill waitresses from different home states, but with the same musical dream. Lipton and Rossmer also collaborated on the lighthearted lament “They Don’t Let You in the Opera,” which garnered O’Hara over seven million views on YouTube and Facebook when her 2016 Orlando Philharmonic performance of it became a viral sensation. At Tanglewood, the high-stepping O’Hara donned a cowboy hat to make her musical point.

And while O’Hara originated the role of Clara, the daughter in the 2005 Broadway production of Adam Guettel’s “A Light in the Piazza,” at Tanglewood she chose to duet with Foster on “Fable,” a number sung by Margaret, the mother. O’Hara dedicated the song to her daughter, Charlotte, while Foster did the same for her daughter, Emily.

Foster and O’Hara ushered in the evening’s second half with a rousing “Big D,” from Loesser’s “The Most Happy Fella,” featuring strong support from Greemon, Kelli, Rands, and Sciotto, who provided spirited backing vocals, lifted Foster aloft, and assisted O’Hara on an impressive handsfree cartwheel.

Veering away from musical theater songs and standards, they gamely tackled, with mixed-results, a “’90s Mega-Medley,” featuring notable pop songs of that decade such as TLC’s “Waterfalls,” All-4-One’s “I Swear,” Mariah Carey’s “Vision of Love,” Hanson’s “MMMbop,” and Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy,” which had Maestro Lockhart joining in to sing “I’m too sexy for my shirt.”

Reaching back further to the 1970s, Foster wrung every emotion out of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You.” She went another decade earlier, continuing the tribute to the original Andrews and Burnett special, to use her powerful belt to full advantage on “Meantime,” Robert Allen and Al Stillman’s musical ode to resilience.

As the evening drew to a close, O’Hara and Foster blended smoothly on “Here’s to Life,” by Artie Butler and Phyllis Molinary, a song first recorded by Shirley Horn in 1992 and now a standard covered by everyone from Joe Williams and Patti LaBelle to Barbra Streisand.

A show-closing medley included “Goodnight Is Not Goodbye” from the Billy Goldenberg musical “Ballroom,” with lyrics by Marilyn and Alan Bergman, a wistful take on “The Carol Burnett Show” closer “I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together,” written by Joe Hamilton, and, for an encore, the beautiful ballad “Til There Was You,” from Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man,” which Foster, as Marian Paroo, performed in the 2022 revival opposite Hugh Jackman as Professor Harold Hill.

This was “One Night Only,” but it left you longing for more.

Photo caption: Kelli O’Hara, Boston Pops Conductor Keith Lockhart, and Sutton Foster together recently for “One Night Only” at Tanglewood. Photo by Hilary Scott.