“L’amour est un oiseau rebelle.”
This is Jean Stilwell’s Carmen.
By Susan Brown
“L’amour est un oiseau rebelle.” This is Jean Stilwell’s Carmen.
And yet, in her newest CD, “Carmen Unzipped”, Stilwell steps out of the opera hall and onto the cabaret stage, with all of her usual elegance, wit and aplomb.
Along the way, she unzips our perceptions of how a diva should sound ... or look ... or behave.
With utter honesty and disarming cheekiness, the singer and pianist-writer Patti Loach sing, play and laugh their way through a range of music that illuminates real life passions, delusions, loves and losses.
The songs come from sources as varied as a young cabaret song-writing team from Manhattan, “Marcy and Zina” ..
... to the haunting “Falling in Love Again” made famous by Marlene Dietrich; “Last Night When We Were Young” by Harold Arlen, and five achingly beautiful, new songs by New Yorker John Bucchino.
The songs range in emotion from poignant (check out Moose Charlap’s rarely recorded “I Was Telling Him About You”) to downright silly (“Taylor the Latte Boy”).
The final track on the CD is Stilwell’s blisteringly hot version of Georges Bizet’s Habanera, from the opera, Carmen. This aria is a perennial encore favorite for her audiences.
Jean Stilwell is famous, nationally and internationally, for her operatic performances and concert career.
Patti Loach has a passion for musical theatre, jazz and classical music, and her energy and skill at the piano make a thrilling complement to Stilwell's interpretations of musical theatre, cabaret, opera and jazz classics.
These are two performers who are joined at the hip musically.
All of the photographs above were taken by Peter Martyn at the premiere of Carmen UnZipped, April 2007.
“Carmen Unzipped" is a diverse collection of songs that is guaranteed to become a favourite in CD collections, everywhere.
Available on iTunes
To see what people are saying about the show, “Carmen UnZipped”, please see the PRESS and comments pages.
