It can be difficult for an established Broadway musical actor or actress to cross over to a career as a mainstream pop singer. That’s especially true when the artist creates or defines a memorable stage role, and audiences begin to view the performer and the role as one and the same.
In a relatively brief twelve-year Broadway career, Idina Menzel has already created two landmark characters – the bi-sexual performance artist Maureen in Rent, and her Tony Award-winning role as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West in Wicked. She’s also branched out to non-musical roles in television and film (most notably as Patrick Dempsey’s fiance in Enchanted).
The 37-year-old Long Island native performs this Friday, March 27 at 8:00 p.m. at Wilmington’s Grand Opera House. Her role?
Singer-songwriter Idina Menzel.
Menzel will certainly acknowledge her stage career, perhaps with renditions of Wicked’s “Defying Gravity,” or Rent’s “Take Me or Leave Me,” but expect the bulk of Menzel’s repertoire to be drawn from her own material.
This is not a case of a Broadway singer “turning pop.” Menzel’s professional resume as a singer-songwriter dates back to 1998, when she released her underrated debut album, Still I Can’t Be Still. The lively, wide-ranging mix of pop, rock, and soul showcased Menzel’s wonderful voice and knack for crafting memorable, somewhat quirky (in a good way) tunes, but failed to find a large audience.
Menzel was eventually dropped from her record label. She spent the next ten years establishing her stage career, but never abandoned her music. During that time she contributed to a few soundtracks and other albums, and in 2004 released a six-song EP entitled Here on the independent Zel Records label.
She was signed to Warner Brothers Records, which released Menzel’s latest album, I Stand last year.
Here's the "I Stand" lyric video:
Menzel worked with Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette, Shakira, Annie Lennox) who produced and co-wrote all but one of the songs on I Stand with Menzel. Featuring the singles “Brave,” “Gorgeous,” and the title track, the album is a strong mix of engaging, soulful pop and heartfelt ballads. Menzel’s powerful voice is in top form throughout, but the bigger surprise is the maturity of her songwriting.
In a press release, Ballard commented, “It's very rare when you have somebody with Idina's vocal skills who also writes so eloquently about what's important to her. I knew I was working with a first-rate writer. She has stories to tell and they're really worth hearing."
Menzel says she’s thrilled when fans dig deep into her lyrics and interpret her songs.
"Sometimes when people hear my new songs they take a completely different meaning from them than what I originally intended,” she says. “I just love that. As a songwriter, it means I've accomplished something bigger than myself."
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