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Regional Reviews: Florida - Southern Love Is Good: An Evening with Christine Andreas Also see John's review of The Count
Christine Andreas is best known for her musical theater roles. She played Margaret Johnson to great acclaim in the national tour of The Light in the Piazza, Carnival Center's inaugural production in September 2006. She has performed at The White House, New York's acclaimed Café Carlyle, Carnegie Hall, in Paris, London, Rome and Australia. Andreas received a Theatre World Award for her performance as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady and Tony Award nominations for Oklahoma! and On Your Toes; she played leading roles in shows such as Angel Street, Rags, Legs Diamond, Stardust, The Scarlet Pimpernel and Pal Joey. Andreas' "breathtaking" voice (The Sunday Mail) has been featured on numerous Broadway cast and solo recordings. She and Silvestri have collaborated on three solo CD releases: Love is Good; Here's to the Ladies, a tribute to the great ladies of the theater, recorded in London with a 45-piece orchestra; and The Carlyle Set (2003), a sophisticated set of contemporary standards recorded with a quartet of New York's most outstanding musicians. Martin Silvestri collaborated with Joel Higgins on the 1992 musical The Fields of Ambrosia, and the Off-Broadway musical Johnny Guitar which received four Drama Desk Awards and the Outer Circle Award for Best Musical. Silvestri and Higgins recently completed the score to a new musical set in the Storyville section of New Orleans in 1907, and are currently working on a new operatic version of Casanova. For this intimate cabaret performance entitled Love Is Good (after the name of a song Silvestri wrote for his wife), the Studio Theater has been transformed into the Studio Cabaret, a cozy jazz club setting with cocktail tables arranged around the stage, and food and drink available for purchase during the performance. Andreas celebrates romance with a collection of beloved standards and Broadway favorites by Rodgers and Hammerstein, George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, as well as songs by contemporary artists. Christine Andreas is an old fashioned song stylist, singing standards with a jazz feel even better than she does Broadway tunes. She uses dynamics, and vocal colors and textures to paint her vocal pictures. She and Silvestri are so much as one in rubato sections, that one can almost hear the piano breathe with her. There are traces of Keeley Smith and Lena Horne when she is singing standards like "Fly Me To The Moon." Her French is passionate and flawless in songs such as "La Vie En Rose." A well arranged Gershwin medley with some fresh tempos and interpretations is an audience pleaser. She closes with a song for Broadway fans which she originated in The Scarlet Pimpernel called "Storybook." Throughout the show Andreas shares enough stories of her life to bring the audience in closer. Certainly her love for her husband and his talent is clear, and is very fitting for a show called Love Is Good. Love Is Good: An Evening With Christine Andreas is scheduled to appear from January 29 through February 2, 2008 at the Studio Theatre in the Carnival Center For The Performing Arts in Miami, Florida. The Carnival Center includes the 2,400-seat Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House, the 2,200-seat Knight Concert Hall, a 200-seat black box Studio Theater, the Peacock Education Center, a restored Art Deco Tower, and the Parker and Vann Thomson Plaza for the Arts, which unites the Center buildings across Biscayne Boulevard, providing a magnificent setting for outdoor entertainment and informal gatherings. The Carnival Center serves as a venue not only for its four resident companies (Concert Association of Florida, Florida Grand Opera, Miami City Ballet, and New World Symphony), but also for many smaller South Florida arts organizations that perform in its theaters on a regular basis, as well as for the finest popular and classical performances from around the world. For information on the many diverse offering of the Carnival Center, you may contact them at 305-949-6072 or visit www.carnivalcenter.org. The Carnival Center is Miami-Dade County's largest ever public/private-sector partnership, comprised of an $150 million private capital campaign conducted by the Carnival Center Foundation and public funding drawn primarily from the County's Convention Development Tax revenues, as well as the City of Miami Omni Redevelopment District Community Redevelopment Agency. Greatly enhancing the artistic and educational opportunities in South Florida, Carnival Center for the Performing Arts also will have significant and long-term economic benefits for the city and the region.
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