I want to look like that...

(fromhttp://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2008/04)

I went to see Bernadette Peters last night in Norfolk... and I absolutely have to say that I want to look that good when I'm in my 60s... I mean, WOW.

Not to mention, she is still adorable and remarkably charming. Her performance value has not decreased in the slightest. While it seems she needs to limit the amount of time she spends actually singing (the first half of the concert was just the Virginia Symphony Orchestra... made a handful of us in the audience pretty cranky to sit through a feature of the concert we didn't realize we had purchased), she still gives it her all.

She has the most striking stage presence. Her concert has a cabaret sort of set-up... she tells humorous stories between songs. For our concert, she brought up the housing market and kept throwing out hints that she was selling one of her summerhouse... It has a pool... It has six bedrooms and five bathrooms... and she'd throw out these details right after a song or a comment that was completely unrelated. You probably had to be there... and I love it when I have to say that. If you had to be there, that meant the stars aligned for one moment in time to make an esoteric funny for just us, those who braved the elements (Please, someone ask The Carpenter if those seven maids with seven mops could clear away all this pesky snow...) to see a great show.

Watch this clip: One of my favorite songs. This video comes from a different concert Peters gave pretty recently. While she did not sing this song during our performance, she sang another sultry tune from on top of the piano. She pulls off this great, slinky, flirty persona for this song... did I mention she's in her 60s!?

Sadly, she never sang what I was hoping most to hear... Sunday in the Park with George. I've always been so jealous of her for landing that part. Dot has always reminded me of myself... and the love one may have for an artist that inevitably breaks a woman in two. She mentioned her process for selecting her material during the concert and it specifically includes songs from musicals in which she did not perform. She did do a piece or two from Gypsy, but the majority of her repertoire derives from Sondheim and Rogers & Hammerstein musicals.

She pulled tunes more than once from Into The Woods (I did have the chance to hear her sing Children Will Listen... one of the wisest, most moving songs I've ever heard). She has a terrific rewrite of There is Nothing Like a Dame from South Pacific that was hilariously bawdy. Surprisingly, she sings a remarkably lovely version of Johanna (yes, that creepy song from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street). I definitely teared up... she produced this strong emotion with the song as though to say a lost little girl could be saved by the love of a mother, sister, friend.

Peters also supports a cause close to my heart. She has written books and donated funds from her book and cd sales to animal shelters. She sang a lullaby as her encore from a children's book she has written... and, while I didn't leave humming it, I found the tune and sentiments sweet and worthy of learning.

I'm even more jealous of this woman in her 60s than I was as a young girl wishing I was Dot. She's still beautiful (even if she's had "work done," she's done good work), still active in her art-form of choice, and is both in a position to help innocent animals and actually helps. She's kind of become my new hero...