The sounds of protests and helicopters crackled in the air outside Los Angeles’ Music Center on Saturday, June 14, but inside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the show went on. One of the reigning queens of song, Renée Fleming, brought three friends from Broadway to put on a joyful soiree featuring old favorites and new tunes.
An appreciative audience eager for a respite from worldly strife was treated to a carefully curated cabaret-style potpourri performed with warmth and infectious enthusiasm by Fleming, Lindsay Mendez, Jessie Mueller, and Tituss Burgess. All except Fleming were making their debuts at Los Angeles Opera, which sponsored this special finale to the season.
Fleming, Mendez, and Mueller are truly old friends, having appeared together on Broadway in 2018 in a production of Carousel that Variety called “sheer bliss.” (Mendez won a Tony Award for her performance.) Burgess — recently seen in the role of Mary Todd Lincoln in the surprise stage hit Oh, Mary! — has been electrifying theater and television for two decades, with energy to spare and a silky tenor voice. Los Angeles pianist and vocal coach Doug Peck accompanied with quiet flair and impeccable artistry.
Led with maternal affection by the relaxed, poised, and gracious Fleming, the four singers took separate star turns and joined in various ensemble combinations in music by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and others. Together, the performers opened the program with a joshing rendition of Irving Berlin’s classic of vocal competition, “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)” from Annie Get Your Gun. Fleming added some improvisational one-upmanship (er, womanship), climbing to the top of her range to proclaim rightly that “I can sing anything higher than you.”
Mendez, whose most recent stage credit was the 2023 Broadway revival of Merrily We Roll Along, paid tribute to her Southern California roots before launching into a soulful but restrained account of “Nothing,” the theater trouper’s number from A Chorus Line. Later, she pondered her own new role as a mother in the sweet and simple “It’s You I Like” from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Fleming put down the microphone and showed her opera bonafides with the aria “that put me on the map,” the “Song to the Moon” from Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka. Her voice may have lost some luster and power with age but still retains a purity of tone and emotion that goes straight to the heart. In both Czech and English, her impeccable diction set her apart from her Broadway friends, who at times struggled to deliver lyrics clearly. They were not helped by amplification that (at least from the orchestra seats) boomed and reverberated, especially at loud volume, blurring the text.
In recent years, Fleming has transitioned to a wide range of popular fare more successfully than some of her operatic peers. She brought a wry wisdom and deliberate phrasing to “So Big/So Small” from Dear Evan Hansen. “So in Love” from Kiss Me, Kate soared with seamless long lines inflected with subtle shades of color and desire.
Mueller sounded equally at home in Peggy Lee’s quiet lullaby “Angels on Your Pillow” and the contemporary torch song “She Used to Be Mine” from Waitress. Her understated and tender approach to “Losing My Mind” from Follies rivaled Barbara Cook’s iconic version.
As the only male singer, Burgess brought welcome lower depths to his solos and to the ensembles. His voice moves seamlessly from low to high, creamy and bright, but he had trouble enunciating, particularly in the tricky patter of “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from The Little Mermaid. “I Loves You, Porgy” from Porgy and Bess proved a better fit for his rich timbre and sustaining power. In the second half, he steered Jason Robert Brown’s “King of the World” to a rousing affirmation of personal freedom.
But most special were the several ensemble numbers. Fleming and Burgess combined for a clever medley of two songs about bringing up children: “Children Will Listen” from Into the Woods and “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” from South Pacific. Burgess, Mueller, and Mendez teamed up for Cole Porter’s sassy “Miss Otis Regrets.” And for the grand finale, the performers drew on their shared history with Carousel in a set of songs concluding (no surprise here) with that legendary anthem of endurance, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Mendez introduced it as “a prayer for my home state.”
Encores followed. Fleming conducted the audience in a sing-along of “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady and then laid things down gently with “So Long, Farewell” from The Sound of Music.
By the time we exited the hall two hours later, renewed and refreshed by these committed and generous performances, the sounds of protest had faded, and the air was clear and almost still.
