Sierra Boggess – In Concert

Royalty came to Brisbane last night - that is Broadway and West End royalty -  the form of the brilliant and captivating young star Sierra Boggess. Not only is she Broadway and West End royalty, she is also a Disney Princess as well having created the role of Ariel in the stage version of The Little Mermaid animated movie.

Called the best ever Christine Daae by Andrew Lloyd Webber, having played the role countless times in The Phantom of the Opera and its sequel Love Never Dies, Boggess has certainly earned her stripes. Songs from all of her hit shows featured, along with some off-beat choices, in a cleverly conceived concert of musical theatre songs.

Boggess possesses one of the best soprano voices I have ever heard in musical theatre, clear as a bell and astonishing for its sweetness and strength at every level of her range, perfect for the lyric-soprano roles she has built her career on.

She opened in Julie Andrews-mode with “I Have Confidence in Me” and closed with a stunningly dramatic “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again,” and the title song from Love Never Dies. In between, she had fun parodying Britney Spears singing “Think of Me”, performed an aria from La Boheme sending up the coloratura trills, and got down-and-dirty in an all-out punchy-belt on “I Don’t Care”. “Part of my World” was heartfelt and emotional, as was the first act finale of “Come to my Garden”.

She displayed a quirky sense of humour telling stories of her family, her philosophies and  her affection for nature, especially water, which segued nicely into the wistful “How Come” (Tom Sawyer) and “Just around the Riverbend” (Pocahontas). Her grandparents’ love made for a tender background tale as she read their letters to each other during World War Two, culminating in a beautiful “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” to solo piano accompaniment followed by an equally impressive “You’ll Never Know”.

An invitation from Lloyd Webber to his country mansion to sing for Queen Elizabeth on her Diamond Jubilee resulted in the evening’s best anecdote and a simply marvellous rendition of “If My Friends Could See Me Now”.

Brian Hertz’s string-heavy arrangements for a six-piece group which included Boggess’s sister on Cello, were superb. They provided a Broadway feel on a small-scale that was imaginative and theatrical. The concert concluded with a lovely reading of the Disney standard “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes”, which was a royally appropriate and fitting finale for a true Princess of the theatre.

Peter Pinne