Melissa Errico “live” at 54 Below. Photos courtesy: Michael Hull
This was a triumphant return to New York’s finest cabaret and supper room welcoming back Melissa Errico: An effervescent bundle of energy proving yet again that this is where she truly belongs, on the cabaret and night club circuit.
A recent performance at 54 Below (27 to 29 May) with composer, jazz pianist and music director, Billy Stritch, had both complimenting each other with abundant fireworks of creative harmony.
The Streisand Effect, an homage to Streisand, had Errico and Stritch pay the ultimate respect with repartee, humour and pathos for sixteen perfectly orchestrated musical numbers.
As Errico made her entrance strolling alongside the tables of a packed room, cajoling with the audience and politely making it clear that the performance about to begin was defining the difference between a tribute and an homage…”this is definitely an homage…”
The Streisand Effect refers to a 2023 autobiography My Name is Barbra in which Stritch and Errico made reference to certain pages of the book including Streisand’s Malibu home and family roots from Brooklyn, to “The Prince of Tides”, to Streisand at 19 at Manhattan’s Le Bonsoir night club.
Errico equally told about her own formative years as an Italian-American growing up on Long Island, New York, of her grandmother moving from Italy to the Bronx and onto Brooklyn and other worldly fantasies her mother instilled in her.
In between songs she chatted with the audience as long lost friends, reminiscing about the Streisand Songbook, singing Sondheim favourites and noting affectionately Streisand’s creativity, perfectionism and collaborations with amongst other composers, Marvin Hamlisch. Alan and Marilyn Bergman and of course, Sondheim.
The selected song sheet was on-point from On a Clear Day you Can See Forever (Burton Lane/Alan Jay Lerner), The Way We Were (Marvin Hamlisch/Alan and Marilyn Bergman), Cry Me a River, a duo with Stritch (Arthur Hamilton) and Evergreen (Streisand/Paul Williams).
The room hushed to a silence when Errico gave us Sondheim’s Send in the Clowns from the Broadway smash A Little Night Music and tears to one’s eyes with a rendition of an emotional Papa, Can You Hear Me from the film Yentl (Michel Legrand/Alan and Marilyn Bergman).
The Streisand Medley brought the audience to their feet with a rapid four minutes of songs accompanied as always by Stritch and ranging from Second Hand Rose and Don’t Rain on My Parade (Funny Girl), You Don’t Bring Me Flowers, (Neil Diamond/Alan and Marilyn Bergman) and Enough is Enough, (Paul Jabara/Bruce Roberts).
Errico knocked it out of the park with Down with Love, an arrangement courtesy of Peter Matz, (Harold Arlen/Yip Harburg) and a Broadway show-stopper aka the 11 o’clock number when the Broadway curtain rose at 8.30 years ago, with Happy Days Are Here Again (Milton Ager/Jack Yellen), a passionate offering shared with musical guest of the evening, Michelle Johnson, a Las Vegas stalwart.
On Judy Garland’s US television series a very young Streisand performed alongside Garland with that very same song, a pivotal performance and a breathtaking moment back in time reimagined for us.
Errico is an all-round entertainer and an accomplished writer & author having appeared on Broadway in the revival of My Fair Lady, Les Miz, concerts in London, The Hollywood Bowl, Singapore, Paris, Montréal, New York’s Carnegie Hall and a proud Tony Award nominee.
Band members Andy Ezrin, David Flinck & Eric Halverson together with Music Director Billy Stritch are the perfect artistic combo for Melissa Errico at this three-night concert. The energy and talent on stage was palpable throughout the seventy minutes of unadulterated musical magic