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| Photo by Robin Wong |
Idina Menzel is spending her summer melting hearts throughout the world. Spurred by the success of her Academy Award-winning smash “Let it Go” from Frozen, Menzel has played venues from South Korea to New Jersey on a summer tour that hits Blossom Music Center Aug. 21.
“My ability to give an intimate performance is very important to me,” said the 44-year-old Menzel during a press conference. “I’m trying to connect with every single person in that audience.” The Broadway veteran talks Frozen and why you won’t catch her lip-synching.
Q: Do you expect your audiences to be any younger?
A: Ever since Rent, each defining project and role I’ve been a part of has garnered a very young audience. Between Rent and Wicked and Glee and now Frozen, I’ve always had to navigate around a wide demographic, which is obviously a very lucky thing but can also be tricky. It’s a challenging thing to reconcile.
Q: Were you surprised Frozen had such an impact?
A: I knew it was a beautiful song when they sent it to me to learn, but I had no idea it would become the kind of phenomenon that it’s become. It’s wonderful to have a song that’s heightened my profile and given me more opportunities. The best thing about it is as much as it speaks to young people, it also speaks to me as a woman and the things I think are important – the idea of not hiding those things that make us really powerful.
Q: Do you feel you have to introduce new generations to what a live performance is?
A: There’s no Auto-Tune happening here. What people hear in a recording is not what’s always going down. Yet live performance is stronger than ever. It’s those beautiful imperfections that make things more interesting. I’m certainly not going to lip synch … when people come to hear you live and see what you really can do, they get it.
By Barry Goodrich
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