As the show began, Arnaldo, costumed as a young femme in a strapless gown -- and not a bad-looking one at that -- reminded his audience that "the voice is real, the piano is real. All else is illusion." It was an illusion not difficult to accept in relatively short order, thanks to Arnaldo's stage presence and pleasing voice.

An established gender-illusionist in the Seattle area, where he began his singing career as a soloist with the city's gay men's chorus, he came to his New York cabaret debut with prior appearances up and down the west coast. The Duplex show was a tribute to the female vocalists of the 'thirties and 'forties who helped popularize what would become the Great American Songbook, focusing on songs of that era -- the 1928 Cole Porter "Let's Do It," the 1935 Rodgers and Hart "My Romance," Hoagy Carmichael's "Nearness of You" from 1940, and others. (He slipped in a few "outsiders," including a Philippine folk song, which was catchy enough to have the audience chime in, on cue, with the refrain.)

Arnaldo handled his material adroitly, affording appropriate and appealing interpretations to his songs. Only with Billy Barnes' tear-jerker, "Something Cool," did Arnaldo miss the mark and the pathos of the desperate, lonely single woman of a certain age.

Peter Leavy
Cabaret Scenes
February 11, 2007
www.cabaretscenes.org