LIZA MINNELLI at Roy Thomson Hall (60 Simcoe), Friday (October 28), 8 pm. $59.50-$199.50. 416-872-4255, roythomson.com. See listing.
Music Feature
Liza Minnelli
Still hungry after four decades in the biz
How does someone survive four decades in the brutal entertainment business? Song-and-dance legend Liza Minnelli – winner of Tonys, Grammys and an Emmy and an Oscar – has two secrets: never do the same thing twice, and trust your audience.
“I don’t think of the business as brutal, actually,” she says over the phone from her home in New York City, sounding so excited she can barely catch her breath. “I always think, ‘Oh, that might be interesting. Ooh, no I’ve already done that – let’s do it another way.’”
That’s the approach she takes to Confessions (Universal), her disc of standards, the kind of project that’s not so easy to pull off. It works because Minnelli’s voice is unique, riveting and smoky, still with that signature quaver but absolutely pitch perfect.
She makes each tune her own, she says, by rethinking the lyrics. A song like At Last, which Beyoncé seized on for her performance at President Obama’s inaugural ball, is completely transformed in Minnelli’s hands.
“Sometimes that song is sung in desperation,” she says. “At last,” she sings to me with an edge. “But I’ve never heard it sung, like, ‘Whew, this is great.’ She lets out a big sigh. “At last – with a calmness and a coolness and relief.”
The show she brings to Toronto Friday, which she says changes every time (she’s already made it to over 30 cities) will be an intimate one.
“When I put a show together, I’m looking at every single person in that audience,” she says, her tone eager and urgent. “There are wonderful stories for each song. Sometimes I tell them, sometimes I don’t. You can tell what an audience wants to hear. But you have to listen – you have to pay attention. It’s like a tennis game – back and forth.”
Minnelli’s always been acutely aware of how she’s perceived. She joined the cast of Arrested Development in 2004 as a woman struggling with balance, a self-parody, perhaps, since she’s always been seen as psychically frail. She says it was just plain funny.
“I knew it the minute I met the man who invented it (Mitchell Hurwitz) and we got along so well. The idea of her having such awful things happen to her, getting so dizzy and falling off camera. We came up with the idea together.”
Then there was her appearance in Sex And The City 2, in which she sings at Carrie's friend's wedding, a hilarious punchline to a guest’s question, “Can it get any gayer than this?”
Minnelli appreciates her queer audience but claims she doesn’t understand the term “gay icon.”
“I don’t get it, honestly. I guess it’s that they understand anyone who’s struggled in any kind of way. They’ve kind of gone through the same thing I have – trying to be heard on our own.”
She starred in the original version of the film Arthur with Dudley Moore, and didn’t bother seeing this year’s remake.
“People don’t seem to like the new version, so what’s the point of putting myself through that? I dismissed it because of my love for Dudley. I think it’s a mistake to try to recreate anything he’s done.”
And, no, she wasn’t too impressed with Rufus Wainwright’s idea of recreating her mother, Judy Garland’s, famous concert at Carnegie Hall.
“Why is a guy getting up there to recreate something that was so wonderful, so perfect? Is that really a tribute? I just thought, ‘That’s weird.’”
She’s always embraced her extraordinary pedigree, which also includes her dad, film director Vincente Minnelli (Gigi). Her voice, now that she’s in her 60s, sounds more like Garland’s than ever. And, like a filmmaker, she supervises everything about her show: the set, the costumes, the lights.
“I got my drive from my mom and my dreams from my dad.”
susanc@nowtoronto.com
“I don’t think of the business as brutal, actually,” she says over the phone from her home in New York City, sounding so excited she can barely catch her breath. “I always think, ‘Oh, that might be interesting. Ooh, no I’ve already done that – let’s do it another way.’”
That’s the approach she takes to Confessions (Universal), her disc of standards, the kind of project that’s not so easy to pull off. It works because Minnelli’s voice is unique, riveting and smoky, still with that signature quaver but absolutely pitch perfect.
She makes each tune her own, she says, by rethinking the lyrics. A song like At Last, which Beyoncé seized on for her performance at President Obama’s inaugural ball, is completely transformed in Minnelli’s hands.
“Sometimes that song is sung in desperation,” she says. “At last,” she sings to me with an edge. “But I’ve never heard it sung, like, ‘Whew, this is great.’ She lets out a big sigh. “At last – with a calmness and a coolness and relief.”
The show she brings to Toronto Friday, which she says changes every time (she’s already made it to over 30 cities) will be an intimate one.
“When I put a show together, I’m looking at every single person in that audience,” she says, her tone eager and urgent. “There are wonderful stories for each song. Sometimes I tell them, sometimes I don’t. You can tell what an audience wants to hear. But you have to listen – you have to pay attention. It’s like a tennis game – back and forth.”
Minnelli’s always been acutely aware of how she’s perceived. She joined the cast of Arrested Development in 2004 as a woman struggling with balance, a self-parody, perhaps, since she’s always been seen as psychically frail. She says it was just plain funny.
“I knew it the minute I met the man who invented it (Mitchell Hurwitz) and we got along so well. The idea of her having such awful things happen to her, getting so dizzy and falling off camera. We came up with the idea together.”
Then there was her appearance in Sex And The City 2, in which she sings at Carrie's friend's wedding, a hilarious punchline to a guest’s question, “Can it get any gayer than this?”
Minnelli appreciates her queer audience but claims she doesn’t understand the term “gay icon.”
“I don’t get it, honestly. I guess it’s that they understand anyone who’s struggled in any kind of way. They’ve kind of gone through the same thing I have – trying to be heard on our own.”
She starred in the original version of the film Arthur with Dudley Moore, and didn’t bother seeing this year’s remake.
“People don’t seem to like the new version, so what’s the point of putting myself through that? I dismissed it because of my love for Dudley. I think it’s a mistake to try to recreate anything he’s done.”
And, no, she wasn’t too impressed with Rufus Wainwright’s idea of recreating her mother, Judy Garland’s, famous concert at Carnegie Hall.
“Why is a guy getting up there to recreate something that was so wonderful, so perfect? Is that really a tribute? I just thought, ‘That’s weird.’”
She’s always embraced her extraordinary pedigree, which also includes her dad, film director Vincente Minnelli (Gigi). Her voice, now that she’s in her 60s, sounds more like Garland’s than ever. And, like a filmmaker, she supervises everything about her show: the set, the costumes, the lights.
“I got my drive from my mom and my dreams from my dad.”
susanc@nowtoronto.com
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