Kelli O'Hara in Concert

I saw Kelli O’Hara in concert at the LA Opera on Saturday 2/1/25. Amazing show. I’ve been a fan of Kelli’s for years, so it was cool to see her in a live performance. Stellar renditions of many beloved theater songs. My favorites included “So In Love,” “Pure Imagination,” the “Cockeyed Optimist/Tomorrow” medley, and “What More Do I Need” (an interesting selection — she only sang 2 Sondheim pieces, and one was from Saturday Night. How often is that the case?). But really, the first act was incredibly strong. Every song, I thought, “well, there it is — my favorite song of the night” — and then she’d sing the next song.

Act two was less entrancing, but still good. I love when musical theater performers sing songs they’d never normally be allowed to sing, and she gender-bent a few songs in this act: “She Loves Me” and “This Nearly Was Mine.” She sang both songs beautifully, although she did do one of my biggest pet peeves: she changed all the gendered words in the lyrics. This is a huge pet peeve of mine because whenever singers do this, it almost inevitably messes up the wordplay/phonological complexity of the lyrics. “This Nearly Was Mine” passed unscathed through the gender-bending, but not the newly titled “He Loves Me.” There’s a line in the original — “I wonder how I didn’t want her” — that loses the pararhyme (everything but the stressed vowel matches) when changing “her” to “him.” 

I digress. She dedicated each song to a different significant woman in her life, including some of my favorite sopranos who I had no idea she considered mentors — Marin Mazzie and Rebecca Luker. It was interesting to hear her tidbits of information about how connected the Broadway world is — those were her mentors, and she and Kristin Chenoweth had the same voice teacher growing up. 

She had two special guest singers each sing one song with her. Her husband, Greg Naughton, sang a song with her that he wrote for his band. In the first act, Aaron Lazar, with whom she worked in Light in the Piazza, came out to sing “The Impossible Dream” with her. That was a really sweet moment. He discussed how his ALS diagnosis inspired him to record an album of hope — an album that’s actually up for a Grammy tonight (“The Impossible Dream”). I saw Aaron perform in The Secret Garden exactly two years ago. He’s a wonderful performer, and he sounded very confident and determined about overcoming ALS. 

There were two encores: “Beautiful City” from Godspell and “La Vie En Rose.” I particularly liked “Beautiful City.”

Overall, one of the best concerts I think I’ve been to, especially that first act. I was familiar with all the theater songs she sang (and “Not Funny,” which kinda counts as a theater song even if it’s not from a show), and that always makes for a nice show. A very good selection of songs that suited her voice very well. 

The LA Opera gave away a ton of their tickets to those impacted by the LA wildfires — the president/CEO said over 1000 people in attendance had been affected. They gave away free tickets to people impacted by the fires and to first responders. That was a nice gesture to offer some escape from the craziness of the world right now — that was the theme of the night, Kelli said: to escape and to find joy in music. I think that was well accomplished.