Actor and singer Cynthia Erivo was two verses or so into a song on Friday evening at Tanglewood’s Koussevitzky Music Shed when she seemed to notice something had gone sideways. She signaled the show’s music director, Mark Meadows, who was seated at a piano. She hailed the conductor on the podium, Hollywood workhorse Anthony Parnther. The orchestra stopped playing. She caught her breath. Let’s take that one from the top, she said to her collaborators. Parnther cued clarinetist Christopher Elchico for the opening solo, and on went the show.
I’d be lying if I said I noticed anything out of place. I wasn’t familiar with the song, “What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life?” as made famous by Barbra Streisand. Erivo herself said that it was a new addition to her repertoire, and it was “for those who know” – in contrast to the other Streisand signature with which she opened the evening, the much more famous “Don’t Rain on My Parade.”
Maybe it was a minor stumble. Maybe it had all been about to unravel. Erivo wasn’t shrugging it off. Mulligan, please, she said. She got the mulligan, and nailed take two, and the crowd loved her even more for it, if that was even possible.
How bright a star is Erivo at the moment? Earlier this week, she caused a London arena’s worth of ecstatic fits when she made a surprise guest appearance at a show by her “Wicked” co-star Ariana Grande, where they sang the show’s tender eleven-o-clock number “For Good” together. And then, she spent two hours on stage with the Boston Pops and her backing combo while singing exactly zero songs from that blockbuster musical-turned-film, and making no apologies for that decision.
After all, the songs were all her choice; this is what she sings when she’s not in costume. “You’re indulging me,” she said to the audience with a sly smile, warning everyone that there’d be audience participation later.
Erivo’s indulgences of choice were mostly from the American songbooks of the ‘60s through early ‘90s. Some tunes, such as “Ain’t No Way” and “Feeling Good” (a la Nina Simone, a cappella first verse, scatted ornaments and all), were also on the setlist at her Pops debut at Symphony Hall last year. She’d brought some new tunes too – well, new to her, including Sting’s “Fields of Gold,” which will be transcendent once she’s solidified her intentions for it, and Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing,” which arrived fully formed. She’s probably been singing that one into her hairbrush since she was in grade school.
She started at center stage with the mic on the stand, but she’s more comfortable in motion. Five-foot-one in bare feet, her wiry marathon runner’s frame compulsively stalked around the stage, lunging and crouching into the money notes. Her almost 3-octave vocal range spanned from a practically subterranean low D to an explosive high C, and her voice has a startlingly girlish and sweet cadence – which is why she was able to play a convincing young 20something as Elphaba while Idina Menzel was not.
But that unique softness also meant that her “Feeling Good” a la Simone came off like cosplay, despite the vocally and visually stunning performance. By contrast, her “At Last” wasn’t trying to mimic Etta James, and so no one was anticipating James’s steely vocal mannerisms. I was drifting on Erivo’s pink cloud, lost in the moment and wishing my fiance could have shared it with me.
If she returns to the Shed – and I hope she does – she might be more intentional about scale. She indulged in a few extended improvisations without her microphone, which she cutely referred to as “misbehaving,” singing “can you hear me now” at one point. I’m not sure if the mics around the stage sent her voice out to the lawn (let me know!), but section 5 of the Shed heard much less of her sung banter, and much more ambient grumbling about not being able to hear her sung banter.
But she knew when to go for broke, and duly left nothing on the table at the end of the night. “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” which started with that audience participation she’d teased earlier and ended with her whirling through the aisles, barefoot in the dust; then a one-two punch of songs penned by Prince, with “Purple Rain” bringing out a sea of cellphone lights and “Nothing Compares 2 U” pulling in the full forces of the Pops. Then as the one and only encore, “Let it Be;” one part Beatles, one part Aretha, all Cynthia.
If she’s reading this: if you’d like to add to your list of marathon finishes, we have a pretty famous one in Boston too, and the 3:21:40 time you clocked in London this spring means you already qualify. Just saying.
A.Z. Madonna can be reached at az.madonna@globe.com. Follow her @knitandlisten.