Lorna Dallas- Snapshots – Virtuosity
Lorna Dallas is a lady. This is not to say she’s distant – in fact, vulnerability is particularly appealing – or conservative, but rather that the artist is innately elegant. Her shows are like gourmet meals, carefully curated for sequence, aesthetics, taste, and overall message. Snapshots, with intermittent reference to particular personal photos=moments in time, is an intimate experience, sometimes moving, at others, winking fun.
(There’s) “Always Something There to Remind Me” (Burt Bacharach/Hal David) is made sophisticated with this arrangement and phrasing; more heartache than casual note. “Walking Among My Yesterdays” (John Kander/Fred Ebb): Was it really all that sweet/In that house, along that street…arrives as if recalling in real time with pauses while imagination paints.
Several jaunty music hall songs refer back to the artist’s British home. “London, Dear Old London” (Jerome Kern/PG Wodehouse 1922) is a variety number. Dallas strolls with casual flair, a boulevardier missing only her parasol. “Flash, Bang, Wallop” (David Heneker) dances in crisp and winking: Flash, bang, wallop, what a picture/What a picture, what a photograph… Um-tiddly-um-pum-um-pum-pum/Stick it in your fam’ly album…. Vaudeville lightly bobs and weaves. Christopher Denny adds to vocal.
Jerry Herman’s “Song On the Sand” intoxicates. The savored lyric feels personal. Audience collectively breathes more slowly. An infectiously ebullient “Waltz of My Heart” (Ivor Novello) segues into “Waltz in Swingtime” (Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields/Barry Kleinbort). Dallas’s luminous soprano has melodic acumen.
Also from Novello, “Paris Reminds Me of You” transitions into “The Last Time I Saw Paris” performed with indelible yearning. Filigree piano conjures fallen blossoms on wet streets. (Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II) From Travels in Vermeer, a musical-in-progress by Barry Kleinbort, we hear the debut of “Stillness.” : There she is, half a room away… What is it that draws me/Stillness, not emptiness/This stillness makes me feel alive…And I’m wondering what she’d say if we’d find a way…’Evocative, quiet, haunting; respectful.
“Stranger in Paradise” (Robert Wright/George Forrest), in crystalline English (like an aria) and showgirl German, alights with a droll anecdote about taking too many jobs at the same time. “Simple” (Maury Yeston) and “Take the Moment” (Richard Rodgers/Stephen Sondheim) combine as enduring wisdom. Dallas sings with the full weight of realized life. ‘Hear this!’ she almost articulates. Vocal thrills. “Once In a Blue Moon” (Jerome Kern/Anne Caldwell) contains the message of “Hello Young Lovers.” The artist shares with a full heart.
A beautiful show.
Photos by Alix Cohen
Lorna Dallas – Snapshots
Director – Barry Kleinbort
MD/Piano – Christopher Denny
ALSO NOVEMBER 3, 2024
Chelsea Table and Stage
152 West 26th Street