Those lyrics from the song Home in The Wiz, like many from the Lyric Opera’s new cabaret concert performance, have taken on new meaning during the pandemic. One of thirteen pieces chosen due to its special significance to the performers, it came at the midpoint of an hour-long stream that premiered September 13, 2020 as part of the Lyric’s fundraising drive, featuring producer Renée Fleming and several rising operatic talents and guest stars from the world of musicals. The stream is now available to everyone for free, but donations to the Lyric are being matched dollar-for-dollar.
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Most of the selections are focused on exile, fond remembrance, and hope for reunification. But that is not the only timely theme, and the show opens with Solomon Howard’s rendition of Lift Every Voice and Sing. For this reviewer, his bass resonance would be nothing short of sublime even without the bittersweet backdrop of the Lyric’s warmly lit but empty house. Musical director Doug Peck accompanies Howard, as well as the subset of soloists who filmed in Chicago on the piano. We see what appears to be a private chamber performance. Yet we are in the cavernous Lyric space, which provides a subtle current to buoy each voice’s unique character. Howard returns later in the show to perform Man of La Mancha’s The Impossible Dream, transformed into both a civil rights anthem and an artist’s determination to soldier on even in the current theatrical landscape of pandemic times.For fellow fans of musical theatre, one of the big draws of this performance is the presence of Heather Headley. The originator of the role of Nala on Broadway in The Lion King, her reprise of the anthem Shadowland is haunting and defiant. If the show had streamed a week earlier, the song’s description of her country as a blasted, smoke-enshrouded landscape might not have seemed so literal, but with wildfires raging on our West Coast at the time of the first broadcast of this show, it resonated even more. She also leaves us with the notes of Finian’s Rainbow, as well as The Wiz, reduced to their hopeful essence by only a single instrument, the piano, accompanying them instead of a whole orchestra.
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