I have to differ with you on this, Rob. I'd love to know when you saw the show. Bernadette's difficulties both prior to and immediately after the opening have been well documented. Since she opened right in New York, without benefit of tryout, I imagine she had to experiment with how to get through a week of performances. Rose belts out eight numbers in the show...three of which (Some People, Everything's Coming Up Roses and Rose's Turn) are balls-to-the- wall belting. Imagine your larynx after singing 64 throat-rattling numbers each week. Would you know how to pace yourself to get through such a marathon workout? Having seen her at a couple of post-opening shows in good health, she's getting through it in fine form these days.
Some roles just take their toll... Lansbury and Daly missed performances, or had to stagger through performances in an impaired state. Iron-lunged Betty Buckley went on for a week at Paper Mill and lost her voice. Even the great, impervious Merman blew a blood vessel singing Momma Rose and had to miss performances (and had to have the keys lowered). You hold the hoarseness you heard in Bernadette against her like it's some failing on her part...when all of her great predecessors have suffered the same fate at some point while taking on this role.
As for the purity of Bernadette's instrument, well...Is her voice as crystalline as it was in her teens and 20s, in Dames at Sea, On the Town, George M! and Mack & Mabel? No. A roughness around the edges seeped in during her 80s shows, giving her a sometimes gravelly, throaty sound. I think now Bernadette works it to her advantage, not being afraid to take a note or phrase and make it sound rough-hewn or grotesque for dramatic or emotional effect (Case in point: the cast recording performances of "We Do Not Belong Together" in Sunday and "Lament" in Into the Woods). Perfect notes, no, but right for those characters (and I've yet to see a Dot or Witch to rival Bernadette, though I imagine Julia McKenzie in the London Woods was something to see). Through it all, she is making smart choices as an actress (and in my opinion, she has never received her due as an actress).
As for Midler...she has the chops, the talent, the drive and the comedic skills to be a great Rose (with a somewhat hard-edged voice, that is a limited instrument with great character and color). And she's just running hog wild, out-of-control in that movie. I wonder what she would have done under the eye of Arthur Laurents, Sam Mendes or any other sympathetic director.
"Gif me the cobra jool!"
