Toni Braxton and her lowered keys were a disaster, as was Michelle Williams, whose voice was thin and whose acting was horrendous. Of the celebrities they brought in, Deborah Cox, unsurprisingly, was the best.
Simone was a fierce vocalist (in a lot of ways the best), but she was a terrible actress. And she looked like Grandma Moses up there.
I enjoyed Maya Days a great deal, but she didn't have the "big" voice some of the others did.
Of the understudies I saw, Schele Williams was awful. Saycon Sengbloh and Nikki Renee Daniels were both very good.
I think heather headley delivering one of the most incredible singing/acting combination performances
imaginable, given who many songs and scenes she was in and the vocal difficulty of the songs
im so grateful to have seen her do it, over and over again, and every performance i saw was absolutely extraordinary
I think her performance and this show had more to do with reawakened my passion for musical theatre than anything else id seen previously as an audit, and my obsession for musicals and yearly journey to broadway to see all the new obc's each year....
JBradshaw said: "No Schele was amazing when she went on.
Thursday as awful.
Heather was Heather can't beat her amazing performance.
Maya was great. Her voice was totally different than heathers which people didn't like.
Simone was awful. She could sing but she came across so cold and old
T''Rea was pretty but bad.
Braxton - yes key changes - was enjoyable
Saycon just ewww
merle was fierce
michelle Williams sang the hell out of it.
Paulette Ivory was perfection.
Loved Cox.
"
I remember Days' performance being wildly divisive. She was the replacement for Heather (right after 9/11 no less), and her performance was significantly different from Headley's. It was a much quieter, subtle performance than Headley gave. She sang the role differently (her voice was strong, but nowhere near the knock it out of the park level of actresses like Headley, Simone, or Merle Dandridge).
I enjoyed her a great deal, but I know lots of people didn't.
I love Aida,while fully acknowledging it's flaws. The books is downright abysmal, with laughable dialogue and no character development. The score has to compensate for all of the shortcomings of the book, which it often does. I've always wanted to hear this score re-orchestrated with more traditional, less pop rock instrumentation; I know many probably like the wailing guitars and synthesizer, but I think I'd like it more without them.
The book was revised and improved for the tour and licensing, but it's still sort of the weakest side of the triangle. The score should have been sung through, I think.
Sorry to bump the thread, but I just finished listening to the score for the show in its entirety (more on that in a second) and want to share some thoughts.
When I initially found my way to the score for this show, I wasn't all that impressed by it, as I couldn't quite figure out the narrative through-line of the songs and was thrown off by what seemed to be the random shifting of focus from song to song. There were also moments that felt derivative of songs I'd heard from other shows.
However, after doing some research on both the musical and the opera that inspired it, I gave the score a second listen-through and have come away massively impressed.
There are still some parts of the score that feel derivative (Another Pyramid, for example, feels like it was melodically stolen from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), but that's really a minor issue when juxtaposed against songs like Every Story is a Love Story, Fortune Favors the Brave, A Step Too Far, I Know the Truth, and Not Me, all of which easily could and probably would have been the "featureed poece" in any other show, so the fact that they're all in the same score speaks volumes.
I love the score for The Lion King, but as good as that show's music is, Aida is several magnitudes better, and is one I would put up there with the likes of Les Mis, Phantom, West Side Story, and Beauty and the Beast, all of which make my Top 5 list of the best theatrical scores of all time (which is not something I would've thought would be the case given my initial tepid response to it).
Aida is definitely one of my favorite Broadway soundtracks. Adam and Heather are flawless and the songs are terrific. We must have seen the show 10 times when it was on Broadway- we saw Heather and Debra and Michelle and even Toni Braxton as Aida, always with Adam as Radames. We even went to see the show regionally several times, I would love to see it make its way back to Broadway!!
Lisa Simone was likely the best sung Aida during the run. Yes, her acting was wooden, but damn if she couldn't add her own power to that score. She did the same thing as Mimi in Rent. Just. Killed. It.
Lisa Simone was likely the best sung Aida during the run. Yes, her acting was wooden, but damn if she couldn't add her own power to that score. She did the same thing as Mimi in Rent. Just. Killed. It.
No one said she couldn't sing. Everyone, including me, acknowledges how well sung her Aida was. The problem was she was too old and her acting was awful.
I always felt that if the book got reworked & some songs deleted(Another Pyramid) and they add a new song this would've won Best Musical. If Disney ever opts to revive this, I hope it's put in the right hands.
A Chorus Line revival played its final Broadway performance on August 17, 2008. The tour played its final performance on August 21, 2011. A new non-equity tour started in October 2012 played its final performance on March 23, 2013. Another non-equity tour launched on January 20, 2018. The tour ended its US run in Kansas City and then toured throughout Japan August & September 2018.
broadwayboy223 said: "Wasn't Simone the original Aida in readings and workshops?
Yes. The show had a very different sound to it at the time. The way Simone sang the score was completely different from how she ultimately sang it onstage. The audios from the demos are a fascinating listen if you can track them down.
I think Aida is a very underrated show. Yes, the book has some issues and they sometimes missed on casting later in the run (Idina Menzel did not work as Amneris at all) but the score is brilliant and the story is touching. It's insane that it didn't get a Best Musical nomination in 2000.
adamgreer said: "broadwayboy223 said: "Wasn't Simone the original Aida in readings and workshops?
Yes. The show had a very different sound to it at the time. The way Simone sang the score was completely different from how she ultimately sang it onstage. The audios from the demos are a fascinating listen if you can track them down.
"
If anyone on here has these demos please feel free to PM me. I'm curious because Simone has a great voice and she sounded really good on the score.