[This article appears in the July/August 2021 issue of Boston Spirit magazine. Subscribe for free today.]
Live, outdoor cabaret this summer is something to celebrate. That the peerless Melissa Errico is bringing her crystal-clear voice, sophisticated repertoire and engaging stage presence back to Provincetown is nothing short of a gift.
Errico endeared herself to Provincetown audiences with concerts the Art House in 2018 and ’19 when she performed her acclaimed recording “Sondheim Sublime.” This time, she’s at the Crown and Anchor’s waterfront cabaret August 4 and 5 with “Amour & After,” a selection of French songs inspired by her collaboration with multi-Oscar-winning film-jazz-pop composer Michel Legrand, who died in January of 2019. Errico will sing classic Legrand songs from her CD “Legrand Affair” as well as the music of Charles Trenet, Cole Porter in Paris and even Sondheim painting in Seurat’s Sunday Park.
Errico has two other Massachusetts shows: She’ll perform at the Cotuit Center for the Arts August 6 and outdoors at the Maynard Public Library in Maynard on August 7.
She’s thrilled at the prospect of returning to live shows, especially in Provincetown. “I love being in Provincetown. The sea air, the unique vibe of openness to all kinds, the shops and even the omelets. I even get to go barking my own show up and down the streets, like a busker-girl from the 19th century!” says Errico.
“‘Amour & After’ was the show devoted to the music of my mentor, Michel Legrand, which I had just begun touring when the pandemic hit. I got to do one concert last March, at the Broward Center in Florida, and then the rest were postponed as we all locked down. But I like to think that Michel’s music is more apropos now in 2021 as the world reopens, even than it was in 2020. It’s all about renewal, passion, birth and rebirth. ‘Something New in My Life,’ ‘How Do You Keep the Music Playing?’—those are his anthems, and mine, and I hope these days everyone’s.”
Errico’s impressive Broadway credentials include Legrand’s romantic Broadway debut, “Amour,” which in 2003 earned her a Tony nomination as Best Leading Actress in a musical. “Amour” was the start of their extraordinary musical mentorship and friendship. Errico recorded “Legrand Affair” in 2011; it was rereleased as a deluxe edition with added material in 2019.
“I love singing in French, and I try to be as conscientious as I can about getting it right. I have a loving team of women advisors at [the French Institute/Alliance Française (FIAF)] who check every syllable,” she says. “I’ve been doing it for a long time, though. I made a bilingual version of ‘Once Upon a Summertime’ part of my shows forever, and Michel used to have me sing in French. There is one film song (‘Dis-Moi’ written by a great woman writer, Francoise Sagan) which is on my original Legrand album, and he arranged it to be solo voice with harp. I also recorded that song with Legrand alone at his piano, a track I released when he died. In it, I hope you can hear what a great teacher he was. Something about singing in his native language made that moment sweeter. I was (am!) a real devotee.
“Sometimes a French song also makes me feel like I’m playing the role of the lady at the supper club in a film noir movie, wiggling with her French jazz band and a sexy trumpet player!”
Errico curated a sold-out film festival, “The Summer of Legrand,” at the FIAF in Manhattan over the summer of 2019, singing her own tribute after one of eight screenings. It was such a success that during the summer of 2020, she recalls, “I got a phone call from my friends at FIAF. Let me explain: imagine an arts institution run entirely by marvelous, French, smart, funny, confident, brave, creative WOMEN. It’s incredible. They asked me if I could get on their stage just after the summer, and do a concert, with one suggestion: ‘Melissa, please make it about seduction. We love seduction, our audiences love seduction.’ We discussed that the pandemic might be lessening by spring 2021, and maybe another film festival would be fitting, too.”
Teaming with her performing partner and frequent lyricist, the writer Adam Gopnik, Errico co-curated a noir film festival at FIAF and performed three virtual concerts of noir songs. “I thought instantly—joking!—of calling them ‘Love, Sex and Murder.’ Adam changed it prudently, not to say prudishly, to ‘Love, Desire and Mystery.’ But we both thought of ‘Mystery’ as a chance to do the noir show. And tie it to a festival, which we have done, with screenings until July 5. I’ve been a fan of noir film and design since college days—I still have the picture book of costumes and cinematography I bought then—and this was a chance to do a kind of total performance, not just songs like ‘Laura’ and ‘Angel Eyes’ but with images of the city at night shining behind us and even a brand new voluptuous black dress. (I wrote about Eric Winterling sewing the dress for me in the New York Times! Complete with noirish photos.) So it was an entire ‘film noir project.’ All that femme fatale voluptuous sin and transgression and regret. I loved singing it and hope to preserve and develop it further soon.”
Virtual concerts kept Errico busy during the pandemic year but, like all Broadway actors, she mourns how devastating the closures have been for her community.
“It was unimaginable to think about Broadway shutting down, and it was heartbreaking—still is—to see the exodus of so many of my beloved colleagues back into the rest of the country, looking for work and a safe place during the pandemic,” she says. “With theaters reopening, you can almost feel the rush of performers coming home.”
After many iconic roles including Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady” and Dot in “Sunday in the Park with George,” does Errico have a wish list?
“Mine goes on forever and includes pretty much any part I’m offered—I’m a go-anywhere show girl at heart and by inheritance, with my great aunt having been a Ziegfeld Follies girl,” says Errico. “But if I had two parts to dream of, they’d be Desiree in ‘A Little Night Music’ and, believe it or not, Mrs. Lovett in ‘Sweeney Todd.’ As I said, there’s murder in my bones.”
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