\ud83c\udfad NEW! Cabaret Theatre Newsletter<\/p>\n
She brought us in with the gentle \u201cLove Makes the World Go Round\u201d (Carnival), which served as a musical theme throughout the evening, its melody intertwining cleverly with other songs. From there we went into \u201cWonderful Guy\u201d (South Pacific) with strikingly different arrangements from the original musical that played into her strengths as a singer. Patti chose a lovely selection of songs running the gamut of the spectrum of love. She did a slow and moving acoustic \u201cGod Only Knows\u201d (Beach Boys), which faded seamlessly into \u201cEasy to Be Hard\u201d (Hair). Patti again made that song her own, slowing down and changing the arrangements in parts and letting the lyrics breathe. She has the wonderful ability to take classic songs you might have heard a thousand times before and make her mark indelibly upon them, making you hear them with fresh ears, familiar as they may be. There were a few songs she sang from the original Matters of the Heart album that I hadn\u2019t heard before, one of which was the very funny \u201cShattered Illusions,\u201d about a woman\u2019s quest for the perfect man and her disappointments. Patti has impeccable comedic inflection and timing, and she had the audience guffawing. The funny moments in the concert were mostly subtle, like the theme from Psycho coming in for a few beats toward the end of a song where Patti played a spurned and angry lover, but their sparseness made them all the more effective.<\/p>\n
It’s hard to choose the most moving moments from the concert, as packed as it was with hits, but one of my favorite moments was Patti\u2019s very slow, deliberate rendition of \u201cAir That I Breathe,\u201d arranged with just the piano backing her. The melody of \u201cLove Makes the World Go Round\u201d were quietly called back at the end.<\/p>\n
![\"Review:](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CH11645061.jpg\" "\\"Review:")
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She closed Act I with a rousing \u201cBeing Alive\u201d (Company). We returned after intermission with Patti changed into a lovely deep blue dress. Again, it’s hard to choose thte best moments, but among my favorites were a moving, impassioned \u201cBack to Before\u201d (Ragtime), and\u00a0her bouncy, poignant \u201cHello Young Lovers\u201d (King and I), which ended on a belt so strong it had the audience leaping to their feet to give her a standing ovation.<\/p>\n
Towards the end of the show, Patti addressed the audience, saying she knows how hard it was with everything going on in the world today, but to remember that the driving force in the world is love. Patti ended by giving an impassioned speech in support of the Kennedy Center, which Trump had announced the day before he planned to shutter for two years and completely rebuild. She spoke to how important art and culture was to the country, and that we couldn\u2019t sit idly by and let him demolish the building. The audience cheered in support.<\/p>\n
LuPone exited the stage, coming back for a light-hearted encore with \u201cThe Way You Look Tonight,\u201d snapping photos of the audience with a disposable camera as she sang, a very funny nod to her infamous hatred of audience photography during shows.<\/p>\n
She dedicated the show to Dick Gallagher, the concert\u2019s original orchestrator. She pointed out Scott Wittman and thanked him for conceiving and directing the show. Joseph Thalken, on piano, provided music direction and arrangements. The wonderful Four Play String Quartet accompanying her consisted of Will Curry, Molly Goldman, Suzy Perelman and Jessica Wang.<\/p>\n
LuPone exited once more, coming back for a brief, fun Scottish drinking song, \u201cHaste Ye Back.\u201d The audience exited into the frigid cold, warmed by LuPone\u2019s singing and her simple message that love does have the power to change the world.<\/p>\n
Find Patti LuPone\u2019s upcoming tour dates and more information about her on her website at pattilupone.com<\/a><\/p>\n Find more upcoming shows at Carnegie Hall on their website here<\/a>. Learn more about the 2026-27 Originals series, which begins in October, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Reader Reviews<\/p>\n To post a comment, you must register<\/a> and login<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\ud83c\udfad NEW! Cabaret Theatre Newsletter Get all the top news & discounts for Cabaret & beyond. On Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-128183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}