Music Review: Kristin Chenoweth at NJPAC

She comes in a tiny package but with a huge voice. Pretty as a picture and full of good humor, Emmy and Tony Award-winner Kristin Chenoweth was in top form strutting her stuff on the NJPAC (New Jersey Performing Arts Center) stage during her recent appearance.

Chenoweth is perhaps best known for her dazzling performance as Glinda the Good Witch in Broadway’s long-running hit show Wicked. Previously, she had wowed critics and the theater-going audience during her breakout role in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

I also fondly remember her in the short-lived TV series, Pushing Daisies, which earned her an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her comedic acting talents, along with the creative staging and visual design concepts, made this unusual fairytale memorable, and I was sorry to see it go after only two seasons.

A classically trained singer, Chenoweth has a huge vocal range, allowing her to perform classical operettas in addition to her pop and showtune repertoire. 

At the NJPAC performance, she delighted the audience when she stepped on stage wearing a black sequined mini-dress replete with long sleeves that engulfed her in feathers. Her sparkling microphone and matching stiletto shoes completed her outfit.

She immediately burst into the 1962 song, “I’m a Woman,” followed by Leslie Gore’s 1963 “You Don’t Own Me.” She toned down the “Woman’s Month” rhetoric with “The Way We Were” made famous in the eponymous 1973 movie by Barbara Streisand. Then, with a twinkle in her eye, she belted out the 1935 “Zing Went the Strings of My Heart,” which brought the house down.

Chenoweth was accompanied on stage by her longtime associate, Mary-Mitchell Campbell, on the piano, along with an ensemble of talented musicians. Campbell is well-known as a conductor, music director, orchestrator, composer, and arranger. Also on stage were two backup singers who were worthy of star billing on their own.

After “Zing,” Chenoweth explained to the audience that she was working with famous composer Stephen Schwartz on a new production entitled The Queen of Versailles, which will have a pre-Broadway world premiere in Boston this summer.

She then surprised the audience by inviting him to join her on stage to accompany her as she sang “Caviar Dreams,” a song from the production that had never been sung before in public. To thunderous applause, Schwartz took the piano from Mary-Mitchell Campbell to accompany Chenoweth before returning to his seat in the audience.

Schwartz not only wrote the music and lyrics for Wicked, but he also wrote the music and lyrics for blockbuster hits such as Godspell and Pippin, along with many more Broadway productions, Disney films, and operas. He has been inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. His awards include three Oscars, four Grammys, an honorary Tony, a Golden Globe, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The NJPAC performance hall is an engineering wonder with full-view seating from any of its tiers or boxes. It has true tonal sound quality and a talented and creative lighting crew, which is so necessary on a large stage bereft of design elements.

There was one song that required staging, and that was the Hanukah song that Chenoweth has made her own. The audience responded by waving their lit-up cell phones, turning the huge space into a festival of lights.

Of course, Chenoweth could not leave the stage without performing her signature song, “Popular,” from Wicked. It was as moving as when I first heard her sing it so many years ago on Broadway when that show was all the rage. Her rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,”  famously sung by Judy Garland in the 1938 film The Wizard of Oz, was as good as it gets short of the original, which lives in the hearts of all who love the movie.

The only negative aspect of the evening was that there was a torrential downpour all day long that did not abate before, during, or after the performance. It made getting to Newark, New Jersey and back home again a driver’s tour de force. Roads were flooded, and between the fog and rain, it was a nightmare.

But Chenoweth’s loyal, devoted fans were not deterred. Dripping shoes, coats, and umbrellas notwithstanding, the theater was packed with good-natured, albeit wet, fans cheering on their star. It was a testament to her popularity and fan affection.