Asked what she has planned for a rare Atlanta concert appearance on Sept. 28 with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Broadway star Bernadette Peters lists: “I’ve got my Sondheim, my entertainment, my jokes.”
Note that order. Although Peters has had a wide-ranging career in TV, movies, and theater, she is best known for her decades’ worth of memorable pairings with the great Stephen Sondheim, starring in “Into the Woods,” “Sunday in the Park with George,” “Follies” and other shows. The New York Times has called her “the premier interpreter of (Sondheim’s) work.”
“Most performers act and then sing, act and then sing,” Sondheim said of Peters years ago. “Like very few others, she sings and acts at the same time.”
“When he first said that to me, I didn’t actually understand what he was saying,” Peters says when reminded of the quote in a recent telephone interview. “But that’s why I sing, because I’m telling the story. And that’s why I love singing his music, because he writes for character.”
Photo courtesy of Atlanta Symphony Orchestra / Andrew Eccles
Photo courtesy of Atlanta Symphony Orchestra / Andrew Eccles
She’s been touring as a solo act since 2006, but very intermittently. Her set list doesn’t change much, she says. She’s got it figured out: about 85 straight-ahead minutes of classic show tunes, pop songs, snappy banter, and a little vamping, specifically lying down atop a grand piano for a cover of Peggy Lee’s “Fever.”
“The flow of the show is so good the way it is that mostly leaving it alone has a nice pace,” she says. She has perfected a version of “There is Nothing Like a Dame,” which is traditionally belted by a chorus of hot-and-bothered sailors in “South Pacific” rather than a petite solo female, as well as tunes from “Hello Dolly” and “State Fair,” and of course, Sondheim’s “Children Will Listen” and “Send in the Clowns.”
Peters has won two Tony Awards (and starred on soundtrack albums that have won four more), a Golden Globe, three Drama Desk Awards and several lifetime achievement awards from theater groups.
At 76, she still has the peaches and cream complexion and curly locks that she had in her 30s, which she credits to “good genes.”
“All my mother’s sisters, you know, they had skin without any lines; my father’s side, they all looked young because they’re Sicilian.”
“It’s not about how long you live. It’s about how healthy you can stay,” she adds.
She does stick to a healthy diet and follows a strong exercise regimen, which has been more complicated recently since she tore her meniscus tendon while rehearsing for a show in London.
“They do a preshow warm up, and there was some young girl putting her leg in all these positions. And I’m thinking, yeah, I could do that. And I pulled it. Oh, my!”
Many singers when they reach their 70s have to adjust their singing, sometimes dropping songs down a key or two from where they used to sing them. Peters has found she is somehow singing higher.
“Well, it’s bizarre,” she says. “A friend of mine was listening to old recordings, and my voice has gotten higher and not as husky. Maybe I’m more careful with it now. I’m not belting, but I’m singing more in my head voice.”
In 1999, Peters and Mary Tyler Moore cofounded Broadway Barks, a nonprofit to support rescue animal operations. She has two rescue dogs, Rosalie and Charlie.
“Rosalie is a gray pit bull that wears pink pearls,” she explains. “And Charlie looks like a big Muppet, a shaggy Muppet dog. And they’re totally bonded. They can’t be separated.
“I finally understood what a womanizer is, because I see a dog and I want them,” she continues. “I had to talk to myself because I fell in love with another dog. I was like, OK, you have to control yourself. And I finally realized I had a problem.
“But I mean, if you, if you’ve got it under control, it’s not really a problem. Two is nothing. Two is fine. One to each hand.”
And would it be fair to assume Rosalie and Charlie are spoiled rotten?
“Oh, my God, yes,” she laughs. “Rosalie has the easy chair in the living room. And she rolls over on her back, and her legs are up in the air, and she just rolls back and forth, and she sleeps like that. She likes it when the air conditioning is on her.
“Everybody wants to be my dog.”
CONCERT PREVIEW
Bernadette Peters
With the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. 8 p.m. Sept. 28, at Atlanta Symphony Hall. Tickets $59.50-$269.50. 1280 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta. 404-733-4800, aso.org
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