Christine Andreas

Spring, 1999

New York Times Review
by Stephen Holden

"{Christine Andreas} has a gorgeous theatrical soprano with a quicksilver vibrato that can make any romantic ballad seem loftier than it deserves."

From the New York Post
by Liz Smith

"Sexy songbird Christine Andreas...is everything anyone who loves romantic pop music could want -- simply sine qua non."

From Variety
by Robert Daniels

While it appears that every major cabaret entertainer in town is singing "Storybook" these days, the soaring waltz is never quite so thrilling as when performed by Christine Andreas...in her debut performance at the historic Oak Room in the Algonquin Hotel, Andreas spins beautiful dreams on her imaginary carousel...sung in perfect French, the singer recalls an image of fervent Piaf, caressing words of love and long with big, open-hearted allure.

New York Post Review
by Chip Deffaa
April 30, 1999

That Broadway leading lady Christine Andreas, now making a long-overdue Oak Room debut, has an exquisite voice is hardly news.  This twice Tony-nominated artist first impressed in the 1976 Broadway revival of My Fair Lady, and has most recently graced The Scarlet Pimpernel.  In terms of vocal technique, she is a finer singer than almost all on the cabaret scene.  She applies her pure tones to some wisely chosen numbers, including the rarely revived Jimmy Dorsey ballad, "I'm Glad There Is You," Robert Merrill's "Mira" (from Carnival), and Billy Joel's "And So It Goes."

Time Out New York
by H. Scott Jolley

What was Frank Wildhorn thinking? (No, I'm not talking about The Civil War).  How could he let Christine Andreas ever leave the cast of The Scarlet Pimpernel?  In the florid musical's first version, her gorgeously sung performance was the best thing on stage.  While Pimpernel's revamped production has vastly improved upon the original, Andreas's voluptuous voice has been sorely missed.  And now - joy! - she's back, not at the Minskoff but just down the block, lighting up the intimate Oak Room.  It's an incredible instrument, that voice of hers, with rich surges of power between soarding Streisandian trills.  

For her Algonquin set, Andreas sticks primarily to material from her 1997 CD, Love is Good.  Her signature song from Pimpernel, the waltzy "Storybook," gets an arrangement different from the usual overblown orchestration heart onstage and on the disc.  Here, it's just Andreas and the piano (expertly played by her significant other, Martin Silvestri).  Andreas knows this piece so well, delivering each not with a shining clarity.  And Piaf would envy the gusto with which she tears into the little-sung French chorus.

Andreas can glide from big show tunes to adult-contempo pop without making either sound false.  She takes the schmaltziest of sentiments - here a country love song from Clint Black - and limns it with sparkling beauty.  The words sound like a Hallmark card reject, but when she sings, "Love isn't something we have, it's something we do," the entire audience feels it, shivering in delightful recognition.  Although she gives other CD tracks equal time - Bart Howard's swoony "Fly Me to the Moon" and a spare, almost elegiac "Love is Good" (again, partially performed in ravishing French) have a dazzling emotion - Andreas doesn't merely revisit her studio session.  The singer offers a comically operatic number from Rodgers and Hart; her duet with her partner, Lerner and Loewe's funny "I Remember it Well," features Silvestri's best Maurice Chevalier impression.

Once though - just once - Andreas’s perfect performance is a little too perfect.  While the peppy “On a Clear Day” is technically proficient (she nails every note), it has a somewhat cold delivery.  You feel emotionally distant from her, even in the close quarters of the Oak Room.  But like the polished pro she is, Andreas immediately warms up again with a tender, mikeless rendition of Billy Joel’s “And So It Goes.”  Restrained and heartfelt, she truly connects with the lyrics’ emotions - and with ours.

By Gary Stevens, Syndicated:
Christine Andreas, a honey of a singer, tags her act, "Love is Good."  When amour is bon, it is tres bon.  All of which leads to rating Ms. Andreas as a caring soprano who brings clarity to song and intelligence to lyric interpretation...what was proven at the Algonquin was Christine Andreas's tried and true talent and that she and her accompanist-composer, Martin Silvestri, are as close as pages in a book.

Christine Andreas at the Oak Room
for Masquerade
by Catherine Tyrone

Did you ever wish your favorite musical theatre star would sing just for you in a quiet cozy comfy setting?  The Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City made that wish come true recently for a very lucky group of people when Broadway’s Christine Andreas made her debut there.  Having completed a year run with the seemingly indestructible Scarlet Pimpernel last September, Miss Andreas’ choice of the intimate and warm Oak Room to rejoin her fans allowed her the chance to be "just Christine" or  to momentarily take on a variety of characters as she moved easily through a varied repertoire of well-known classics,  some nearly forgotten gems, and several compellingly beautiful treasures written by Martin Silvestri, her partner.

Did you  ever hear a song and wish it could go on forever, letting you hold, out of time, that exquisite moment created by the voice and the heart of the singer?  Broadway is frankly up to its ears in talented people who sing well;  and Christine Andreas easily has one of the most beautiful voices around.  She could certainly be successful offering nothing more that that.  Yet, whether by choice or unconsciously through her own innately giving nature, she shares within a song, not only the sound of that rich warm voice, but the heart of the singer--a heart that knows love and joy, deep pain and sorrow, victory and defeat, inner strength and the sweetness of surrender.  She can carry the listener on wings soaring free and laughing joyously in the summer sun, or bring you to tears with overwhelming emotion and empathy. She is one moment a sexy, sultry chanteuse only to transform instantly into an impish, teasing pixie full of fun and devilish merriment.

Laced among her songs, Miss Andreas proved she can be a charming entertainer as well, whether poking fun at The Scarlet Pimpernel ("They cut it here, they slashed it there, and still we get another year"), sharing "mommy" wisdom ("That wasn’t what he was really asking--I’m a Mother and I know these things") or playing straight-man to Mr. Silvestri:

Christine:  This was the only song written just for me.
Martin:  20 years before I met you!
Christine:  (pained, shocked expression) Let me introduce you to the composer of that song, the man who has just stepped on my favorite fantasy!
Martin:  Truth be known, I DID write that song for Christine.  I just didn’t know it at the time.  When she sang it for me the very first time I presented it to her, I knew I had written it for her.
Christine:  (angelic, triumphant smile)
Audience (among themselves):  Nice save, Marty!

In keeping with the theme of her debut solo album Love Is Good released late in 1997,  the evening was a veritable love fest from many delightful perspectives.  Though Fields of Ambrosia was not a critical success in London’s West End, it is clear that  this show is near and dear to the hearts of its composer and star.  The hauntingly lovely "Too Bad", dueted with Mr. Silvestri, instantly recaptured the compelling power of this unique musical drama. As easily as she adopted Gretchen’s Viennese accent, Miss Andreas switched to the song she has made her own from The Scarlet Pimpernel, "Storybook" and Martin Silvestri’s  "Love is Good" with French so clear and perfect it is easy to assume she learned it as a child (she insists she doesn’t even speak the language). Hearing her rendition of "On a Clear Day", one can’t help but wish production of that show had been delayed until Christine Andreas was old enough to leave school, so real is the other-worldly quality she lends to Daisy/Melinda.  Rodgers and Hart’s murderously delightful "To Keep My Love Alive" brought a (hopefully!) unique viewpoint on fidelity in love and a wickedly merry twinkle to the singer’s eyes.  "I Remember It Well" allowed the two performers to share the spotlight in a duet at once touching and tender, teasing and delightfully funny. But, perhaps the highlight of the evening came with her second encore, the stunningly beautiful "Is This The Way It Feels", written by Martin Silvestri and Joel Higgins.

No helpless damsel in distress, Christine Andreas’ choice of songs provides a signature for someone who is strong and clear on who she is, where she is going, and what she believes.  Listening to the passion in her voice as she speaks of  one or another of her songs and even more so when she sings them, one is aware of being in the presence of a very ancient and highly-evolved soul who wishes more than anything to share through her eloquent and supple voice her understanding  and deep sense of peace with whoever can hear it.  

With all the magic of the musical theatre, did you ever dream of something even better than seeing a show with your favorite performer playing the lead role?  For the audience at the Algonquin Oak Room, Christine Andreas made that dream come true.

Spring, 2000

Christine Andreas
Oak Room at the Algonquin

New York Times Review
by Stephen Holden
March 14, 2000

When Christine Andreas sings a word like "thrill," the rapid pulse of her rich, rounded soprano races, and she finds a blend of lyricism and sweet sensuality that only the finest Broadway voices can conjure.  Ms. Andreas became a star playing Eliza Doolittle in the 20th-anniversary Broadway production of My Fair Lady.  A high point of her newest cabaret act, which plays through April 1, is a medley that includes two songs from that show, "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?", both executed with a supremely graceful finesse.  Ms. Andreas is so richly endowed with vocal gifts that the beauty of her singing alone can carry a show...

New York Post Review
by Chip Deffaa
March, 2000

Twenty-four years ago, as I waited in the St. James Theater for the revival of My Fair Lady to begin, I wondered if the "un-known" who'd been cast in the Eliza Doolittle role - Christine Andreas - could measure up to cherished memories I had.  For my love affair with the Theater had begun 15 years earlier, catching My Fair Lady at the Mark Hellinger in its original Broadway run.  But Andreas, so appealingly human and endearing, won me over.  The other night at the Oak Room, as Andreas eased brightly into a song from My Fair Lady - every word clear, crisp, warm and dancing with life - I jotted in my notebook with amazement: "24 years later she could still play the same role, the voice, the good looks, the spunk are all there!"  She also sat on the piano, Helen Morgan style, and carried off with aplomb a Morgan torch song.  And she gave "Is This the Way it Feels?" from a Broadway-bound musical, Storyville, a sterling debut.  I hope there may be a good role for her in that show - if not, she could always revive My Fair Lady!