Paulo Szot
54 Below, NYC, February 28, 2025
Reviewed by Bart Greenberg
Operatic baritone Paulo Szot returned to 54 Below for a four-night engagement with a lush and glamorous show. With charm and good humor, the vocalist led the enchanted audience through an evening of Broadway standards that were beautifully sung and nicely acted. While there were no great surprises in his choices, a few of the songs had unexpected arrangements and showed various approaches. Adding to the lushness of the program was a seven-person band (considering the population of most theater ensembles today, this almost qualifies as an orchestra) under the fine direction of music director/pianist Luke Frazier. The strong connection between the singer and the musicians added a great deal.
Much of the evening was devoted to Szot’s theatrical role of Emile de Becque in South Pacific. After a spirited overture of mostly Cole Porter songs, he opened with his hyper-romantic version of “Some Enchanted Evening” and closed the show with an intensely interpreted “This Nearly Was Mine” (both by Rodgers & Hammerstein). The role of de Becque served as an anchor for other shows in which he had played, or wished he had. In the middle of the show for something different, he delivered a medley of songs from South Pacific mixed with tunes from Kismet (Robert Wright/George Forrest), all to a bossa nova beat and a heavy Jobim influence. Dramatically it made no sense, but it was lively and chaotic and evoked Carnivale. Much more traditional were Szot’s offerings of “I Have Dreamed” (Rodgers & Hammerstein) and “Song of the Sand” (Jerry Herman). “Lover, Come Back to Me” (SigmundRomberg/Hammerstein) was moved from the world of operetta to the jazz standard it later became.
Demonstrating his dramatic abilities, Szot movingly included the monologue that leads into “Man of La Mancha (I Don Quixote)” (Mitch Leigh/Joe Darion), which added greatly to the song’s impact. Szot’s take on “Being Alive” (Sondheim) was a brilliantly constructed one-act play delivered with a compelling complexity. His encore of “If Ever I Would Leave You” (Lerner & Loewe) brought him back to his trademark romanticism and left the audience begging for more. He delivered exactly what his adoring audience expected and that was more than enough to make this a very memorable evening.
The other musicians in this splendid band included Dilyana Tsenov (violin), Ina Paris (violin), Laura Sacks (viola), Maria Jeffers (cello), Robert Morris (guitar), Greg Watkins (bass), and Steven Picataggio (drums).
