Lea’s new live-recorded album, The Broadway Concert, is proof of this. I have never heard Lea perform songs with as much expression as she does those included in the album. Of course, she displays the same level of intensity in the Miss Saigon soundtrack, but then that is her very own musical. Another thing I noticed is that she seems to be having so much fun. She is several Broadway divas rolled into one. She is alternately sweet, sexy, pathetic, powerful and funny. There were instances in her past recordings when I felt that Lea sacrificed emotions in favor of vocal perfection when she was all technique and no heart. But not in this one.
What I also find most interesting is her choice of materials. There are songs you can expect somebody like Lea to perform in an album of Broadway songs and these should be those she is closely associated with. But instead of offering the obvious, she chose to be different. Sure she starred in Flower Drum Song but she is certainly not singing A Hundred Million Miracles. Instead she does numbers she did not get to do in the show like I Enjoy Being a Girl and Love Look Away. A similar case is her decision to do Maybe from Annie instead of the usual Tomorrow.
Don’t Cry for Me Argentina is a triple too obvious but the track is her best. Looks like she really has her heart set on someday doing Evita. But there are other unpredictable choices. I Can See It instead of They Were You from The Fantasticks, Someone Else’s Story instead of I Know Him So Well from Chess, Nothing instead of What I Did for Love from A Chorus Line.
Someday I would like to see her stop the show with Rosie’s Turn from Gypsy but for the moment the lively You’ll Never Get Away from Me and Wherever You Go are quite all right.
The others included in the album are I’ve Never Been in Love Before from Guys and Dolls, I Don’t Know How to Love Him from Jesus Christ, Superstar, As If We Never Said Goodbye from Sunset Boulevard, Where is Love and As Long As He Needs Me from Oliver, Someone to Watch Over Me from Crazy for You, Someone Like You from Jekyll & Hyde, Something Wonderful from The King and I and Being Alive from Company and a lovely song written for but unfortunately had to be edited out of the final version of Miss Saigon, Too Much for One Heart.
Lea can spend her entire career just singing these songs. I can just imagine all that she should be able to do should she turn this album into a series. How about some more Stephen Sondheim like Send in the Clowns and Not a Day Goes By. How about those less known gems from Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein like What’s the Use of Wond’ring and No Other Love, or Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, like I Wish I Were in Love Again and so many others? She can have her forays into Disney animated flicks once in a while but she should always keep in mind that the music of Broadway is her reason for being.