Talkin' Broadway
Richard Connema
An Evening with Christine Andreas and David Burnham
The Bay Area Cabaret opened its fifth season with a grand evening of entertainment featuring twice Tony nominated Broadway diva Christine Andreas and the talented, good looking Broadway singer/actor David Burnham. 

Christine Andreas entered the stage dressed in a stunning pink chiffon dress accompanied by her husband Martin Silvestri at the piano. Her show called Here's to the Ladies is a tribute to great Broadway divas Ethel Merman, Gertrude Lawrence, Barbra Streisand, Helen Morgan, Mary Martin and Julie Andrews. She told the audience the first professional voice she heard was that of the legendary Mary Martin, and then flawlessly sang "I'm Flying" from Peter Pan. 

The chanteuse seduced her audience with a sincerity, veracity and even an aroma of sexuality with songs made famous by the Broadway heroines. This is a first class act. Christine Andreas was sublime singing Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin's "My Ship" from Lady in the Dark and with her lilting vocal chops she was wonderful on "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady and "A Wonderful Guy" from South Pacific. The artist showed she can go from a sensual rendition of "My Bill" from Show Boat to a heartfelt rendition of "If He Walked Into My Life" from Mame. Mr. Silvestri, who also arranged all of the music, suavely backed her up on the piano. 

Christine Andreas ended the evening with her signature song, the superb "Storybook" waltz from The Scarlet Pimpernel. 
(read the full review)

Talkin' Broadway
Richard Connema
Christine Andreas Captivates the Audience at Empire Plush Room
Broadway star and Tony nominee Christine Andreas, who was recently seen here in the national tour of The Light In the Piazza, captivated the patrons at the Empire Plush Room this month with her unique vocal cords.

Ms. Andreas, with her husband Martin Silvestri at the piano, started the 85-minute presentation called Love Is Good with a smooth, soft rendition of "Fly Me to the Moon" and segued into "They Say It's Wonderful." The artist showed a warm, vivacious soprano voice in these arrangements. She sailed into show tunes like "On a Clear Day" and a murderously amusing "To Keep My Love Alive" (A Connecticut Yankee) before moving smoothly back to contemporary pop songs like Hoagy Carmichael's "The Nearness of You."

The singer-actress talked about her trip to Italy and about her husband, who is of Italian decent, and then went into an enticing rendition of Mary Chapin Carpenter's "What If We Went to Italy." Martin Silvestri joined her on Lerner and Loewe's "I Remember it Well" from Gigi. The duet was poignant and affectionate, teasing and wonderfully funny. The artist reminded me of the great Edith Piaf when singing "I Love Paris," before segueing into "La Vie En Rose."

Ms. Andreas talked about being "released" from the cast of Peter Allen's flop musical Legs Diamond; however, she remained good friends with the composer until his death. She lovingly sang for us Allen's "Love Don't Need a Reason" and then went into a poignant rendition of "Cover Me," composed by her husband. As she became a star playing Eliza Doolittle in the 20th anniversary Broadway production of My Fair Lady, she sang "I Could Have Danced All Night" with a superlatively polished finesse.

Having appeared as Marguerite St. Just in the original Broadway production of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Ms. Andreas poked fun at the Frank Wildhorn/ Nat Knighton musical. She drolly talked of the slashing and cutting of the show so it lasted another year on Broadway. She ended the session with her signature song, the exquisite "Storybook" waltz from The Scarlet Pimpernel. Martin Silvestri's arrangement is different from the over-amplified orchestra of the original cast recording. For an encore she sang a new song written by her husband: "Is This the Way to Love." Christine Andreas is one classy woman.  (read the full review)

Stu Hamstra's Cabaret Hotline Online
June 25, 2006
Bill Stephens
For her first appearances in Australia, Christine Andreas chose to present an evening of sophisticated classic New York cabaret with "Here's to the Ladies," her tribute to the women who had inspired her career.  Not only songs introduced on the Broadway stage by Gertrude Lawrence, Mary Martin, Julie Andrews, Angela Lansbury, Barbra Streisand, but also by Andreas herself, with the haunting "Story Book" from "The Scarlet Pimpernel".  Her versions were not as originally performed, but completely new readings of the songs of Berlin, Gershwin, Weill, Kern and Rogers and Hammerstein, each one superbly arranged and beautifully played by her accompanist, Martin Silvestri, himself a noted Broadway composer. It was an evening of pure cabaret magic. 

In a draped black ensemble, every bit as beautiful as her publicity photos had suggested, Ms. Andreas was the personification of elegance and sensual glamour, as she nostalgically sat atop the grand piano, brandy balloon in hand, to salute Helen Morgan with "Bill" from "Showboat."  Later in the program, with "Love Don't Need a Reason," she paid tribute to Peter Allen with whom she appeared in the ill-fated musical "Legs Diamond," and then Edith Piaf with a soaring version of "La Vie en Rose".  Silvestri joined her in duet for Lerner and Lowe's "I Remember It Well," and for a song he had written, "Cover Me".  He even provided her with her lovely finale song, "Is This The Way It Feels To Love".  It was a class act from beginning to end and the perfect way to launch into the second week of the 2006 Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
 
The Sunday Mail
June 18, 2006
Matt Byrne
Christine Andreas is a class act. You will not see a greater female talent at this festival, or on any other world stage. Her stunning tribute to great music and Broadway's leading ladies was breathtaking in it's quality, precision, power passion and intimacy.

Andreas seduces her audience with an honesty, integrity, self-deprecating wit and scent of sexuality that would make anyone gladly fly to the moon with her. She can swing from sensual soprano to killer queen in a heartbeat, from the White House to the Great White Way.

Her heartfelt tributes to her Broadway heroines in Streisand, Andrews and Merman were thrilling, but what would we have given to see her in "The Scarlet Pimpernel"?

Superbly supported and joined by her husband, accompanist and happy guardian, Marty Silvestri, Andreas proves by her unforgettable presence that the cabaret festival has reached the pinnacle of the art form. She has to come back  next year and she will fill the Festival Theatre. I bet she and Mandy Patinkin would sing together very sweetly".

The Austrailian
June 19, 2006
Murray Bramwell
Among the pleasures in recent days is Here's to the Ladies, a bouquet of Broadway favourites presented by US soprano Christine Andreas, accompanied suavely on piano by her husband, the composer Martin Silvestri. Andreas, in excellent voice, opens with a flawless reading of Fly Me to the Moon, and it is all up from there. Songs from the great - Ethel Merman, Gertrude Lawrence, Barbra Streisand, Helen Morgan - are included. But it is the bell-like voice of Julie Andrews, which Andreas's voice resembles, that is most prominent. When she gets to My Fair Lady, the appreciative audience could have listened all night. 

From Variety
September 27, 2004
By Robert L. Daniels
As a sidebar to his popular "Broadway by the Year" series, producer-writer Scott Siegel opened the season with "Broadway Unplugged," an adventurous program of classic theater songs, sung by first-rate Broadway musical performers, with one major departure from tradition -- no mikes! Introducing a trip back to Broadway's golden age, before the advent of electrical enhancement, Siegel recalled a comment by a young Mel Brooks during an unmiked performance by Ethel Merman.  "She's too loud," the fledgling humorist reportedly told his companion in the cheap seats.  

Performing just prior to the close of the show was Christina Andreas, who first auditioned -- sans mike -- on the Town Hall stage at age 12.  When she starred in revivals of "On Your Toes," "Oklahoma!" and the 20th-anni production of "My Fair Lady," there were no body mikes; only floor mikes were used.  Andreas rendered an unforced and subtle performance of the Kurt Weill-Ira Gershwin "My Ship" from "Lady in the Dark," demonstrating that one doesn't have to be a belter to reach the top of the house with a velvety voice. Less is more, a credo Andreas made profoundly clear and sweetly sublime.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
September, 2004
By Terry Perkins
At St. Louis's Sheldon Concert Hall, Christine "combined acting talent and vocal skills to seamlessly meld classics from the great American songbook with tunes from country artist Clint Black and singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter."  She "wowed the audience with two sets of exciting vocal pyrotechnics and a large helping of charisma and charm."  (read the full story)

Los Angeles Times  
May 29, 2004
She's a Broadway baby at home with jazz: Christine Andreas transforms all types of songs in her West Coast nightclub debut
By Don Heckman

One of the first things Christine Andreas said when she walked onstage Thursday at Catalina Bar & Grill was that she had never before appeared in a jazz club. The two-time Tony nominee's usual territory is the Broadway stage, with occasional forays into cabaret.

But her debut West Coast jazz-cabaret performance suggested that this gifted singer needn't be concerned about musical boundaries. She's good enough to do almost anything she chooses.

Andreas sang familiar tunes from the Great American Songbook — "I'm Glad There Is You," "They Say It's Wonderful" and "In a Sentimental Mood" among them.

But she also added such offbeat numbers as Rodgers & Hart's "It's Got to Be Love" and Dave Frishberg's "Listen Here." Each was rendered in Andreas' gorgeous bell-tone soprano and interpreted with the insights of a born
storyteller.

Other selections displayed her unerring ability to find transformative qualities in her material.

Mary Chapin Carpenter's "What If We Went to Italy?" was a sunny, utterly entrancing anthem to serenity. "Alfie" became a poignant musical short story. And the combination of "How Insensitive" and "I'm a Fool to Want You" offered a devastating portrait of the darkened hues of love lost.

Andreas was accompanied in efficient fashion by pianist Bevan Manson and bassist Jeff D'Angelo.

Their jazz-oriented settings, mostly drawn from the arrangements on Andreas' latest album, "The Carlyle Set," stimulated some imaginative vocal paraphrases from the singer, enhanced by the warmly personal tone she
employed on her more intimate ballad interpretations.

Those qualities may not add up to a traditional jazz singer's, but they certainly indicate a vocalist with a distinct natural bent toward the individualized interpretations and the buoyant sense of rhythmic swing associated with the jazz vocal art.

In any case, Andreas' performance made it clear that she has every reason to feel at home in any jazz club she chooses to grace with her mesmerizing musical presence.

The Miami Herald
Feb 1, 2008
Treasure of Broadway shines in cabaret show
By Christine Dolan

In her cabaret show, Love Is Good: An Evening With Christine Andreas, she sings an eclectic collection of love songs as her husband, composer-arranger Martin Silvestri, accompanies her on the piano.

As is typical of such shows, Love Is Good is staged simply: Silvestri at a black grand piano adorned with a vase of crimson roses, Andreas standing at the piano's curve, her skin glowing alabaster in a spotlight that amplifies the sparkle of her jewelry.

What Andreas does as she sings, however, is anything but simple.

A lyric soprano with a distinctive, gorgeous voice, Andreas illuminates the mood and meaning of each song through her considerable acting skills.

Her opening number, Fly Me to the Moon, becomes an invitation to soar with her to a place where romance and connection are all. She explores the songs of the On Your Toes composer-lyricist team, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, first with a lovely My Heart Stood Still, then conveying all the murderous deadpan humor of To Keep My Love Alive.

There's a gorgeous George Gershwin medley, including the aching Someone To Watch Over Me, Fascinatin' Rhythm, Embraceable You, I've Got a Crush on You and a melancholy But Not for Me. Stephen Sondheim's Anyone Can Whistle segues into a regret-filled Send in the Clowns, making you wish someone would cast Andreas in A Little Night Music.

The sound system, by the way, reveals every nuance of her astute way with a lyric.

Her patter between songs, aimed at the audience and her hubby, reveals a smart, centered, down-to-earth woman. Before singing in Italian, she evokes the sights, smells and sun-dappled warmth of a family trip to Italy. When she sings in French, particularly as she delivers a haunting La Vie en Rose, you feel the spirit of Edith Piaf filling the room.

Andreas might have continued piling up Broadway credits, but her life took a different turn. She spent happy, challenging years raising her special-needs son, who is now grown. A real Broadway treasure has reclaimed her place in the spotlight.