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 stacy122685
FAQ Maintainer
Registered:
7/1/2001
From:
MN | posted: 12/2/2001 at 12:26:58 AM ET
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/sanfran/s155.html
-This review is for the 1st night out of the 5 (or 4?)nights she performed.
This review is really good compared to other critic's reviews of her San Francisco concert(s). -(If anyone hasn't read them, well...they're rather mean.)
Take care,
Stacy 
| Anonymous
Anonymous Poster
From Internet Network:
152.163.204.x | posted: 12/2/2001 at 12:52:54 PM ET
Here's another review
PETERS GIVES A DIVINE PERFORMANCE
Pat Craig / Contra Costa Times (11/23/01)
The diva is in. And testifying before a congregation of long-time believers, the porcelain-skinned BP delivered the message Tuesday night from the books of Sondheim, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin and Jerry Herman, among others.
It was, even for non-believers who don’t live and die in the dazzle from the beads and sequins on Peters’ Bob Mackie gowns, a delightful evening of full-tilt diva- which is meant in the nicest possible way.
See, the diva thing is great if you can pull it off – the come-hither glances, the coy looks, the self-effacing bows and even the well-placed pouts, which all work wonderfully when delivered by a mster of the art like Peters.
It doesn't hurt to have 24-carat material, a velvet-and-diamonds voice and the sort of stage presence that makes you lovable from 100 yards away. That basically defines Peters, a tiny woman who looks better than any 53-year old deserves to, and takes command of a theater like the George S. Patton of Broadway.
She is talented and charming in equal parts and fills the theater with the sort of energy that could power the Las Vegas strip for about 17 months.
The tune [Some People] gave plenty of evidence that Peters will be stunning in the role that was created by Ethel Merman. . . her most memorable material was from her latest fling with Rodgers and Hammerstein.
She opened the second act with a R&H triple play, beginning, oddley enough with “There’s Nothing Like a Dame” from South Pacific and normally sung by lovesick sailors with gravel voices. From Peters’ pipes, though, the tune takes on an entirely different meaning as a sexy anthem to the absolute delight of dames.
The songs were excellent additions to the Peters' catalog, primarily because they have strong stories, like much of the other material she performs. And that may be the key to the diva's appeal. She is very much an actress as well as singer, so even fairly contemporary ballads become intimate and emotional when Peters wraps her voice around them.
She appears to actually think about what the lyrics mean, and give the tunes an intelligent interpretation. And that makes all the difference in the world
| Anonymous
Anonymous Poster
From Internet Network:
152.163.204.x | posted: 12/2/2001 at 1:10:19 PM ET
Yet another
BRASSY BABE BERNADETTE IS A BLAST
Chad Jones / Oakland Tribune (11/22/01)
Bernadette Peters promised us a whole new show. Now that she’s back in town for a brief run that ends Sunday, she has mostly delivered on that promise.
At Tuesday’s opening night performance ever disarming Peters premiered a “new” concert that, in the first act, treads familiar territory from her previous concerts here with the SF Symphony.
In the second act, Peters makes good on her word and brings out some wonderful new material, including several R&H tunes from a new album she'll release in March.
To complain about an overly familiar BP concert is perhaps a little like complaining that the Mona Lisa's smile never changes. Peters with her shapely figure draped in luscious, ever-so-slinky Bob Mackie gowns and her bouncy curls running riot around her lovely face, is as striking as ever on stage. She's relaxed, confident and funny, although director Richard Jay-Alexander would do well to provide her with more focused between-song patter.
A true original, Peters looks every inch the diva and then delivers the goods with a uniquely expressive voice that can be soft and tender or bursting with Broadway brass. Just like the Broadway legends of old, she can be funny, sexy and serious - sometimes all at once.
At Tuesday’s show, Peters’ voice had some rough spots as if the singer might have been fighting a cold. But she mustered her considerable energy and powered through 2 ½ hours of glorious show tunes.
Hitting other highlights from her nearly 40-year career with musical director Marvin Laird and 28-piece orchestra solidly behind her, Peters raises goose bumps with “Time Heals Everything”. Then blasts the audience with “Some People” from Gypsy, a show she plans to do in London next year.
The second act brings a trio of Rodgers and Hammerstien songs, including the most rousing version of “There Is Nothing Like a Dame” you’re likely to hear a woman sing. Peters delivers it as if she were about to launch into an old-fashioned striptease.
Even extennuating factors like the sound system or the rasp in the singer’s voice – fail to mar the experience of hearing Peters connect with her material, especially the Sondheim songs.
She gets on a roll in the second act and powers through “With So Little To Be Sure Of” Children Will Listen,” Being Alive” and Move On” with such emotional and vocal clarity that it’s no wonder she’s considered the premiere interpreter of Sondheim’s work.
Sentimental detours through “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” and “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” deomonstrate that Peters can be warm and cuddly when she wants to be.
But her new concert proves that Peters is definitely at her best when she’s fulfilling the role of Broadway Baby and making her ecstatic audience scream with delight.
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