Carousel and Hugh's The Soliloquy

[jo]

I remember a long time ago reading about Hugh singing a phrase from The Soliloquy for his daughter's christening party - he sang the bit which starts with " My little girl, pink and white as peaches and cream, is she..."


Now I found this bit while looking for something related to the Soliloquy from CAROUSEL --

There's a little bit in it which the lyric is: 'My little girl,"' he said before he started to sing the verse: "'My little girl, pink and white as peaches and cream is she.'

"And my daughter was in the crowd one night in San Francisco, sitting on my wife's lap and she started sucking her thumb and getting all shy. She thought I was singing to her. It was very sweet."

That was in April 2011 ( I went to the San Francisco shows). Ava must have been only 6?


Jo

[jo]

Of course the story which he talks about when he is about to sing The Soliloquy is the special memory of his Dad coming to NYC from Australia to see him sing at Carnegie Hall. Always a poignant memory!

I wonder why he dropped it from The Man The Music The Show?


Jo

[jo]

The very first time I heard him sing and talk about The Soliloquy, apart from the grainy clip of the concert at Carnegie Hall, was during his first appearance in Inside The Actors Studio.

He was telling a student how to approach singing it. It seems he took advice from fellow Aussie Philip Quast, who in turn was taught by Stephen Sondheim on how to approach the song. From whom did Sondheim learn to sing it? From a close family friend and mentor, the great lyricist Oscar Hammerstein. The Soliloquy is one of the greatest triumphs of Rodgers & Hammerstein!

Jo

[jo]

My best encounter with the song as sung by Hugh Jackman was in one of those performances of BACK ON BROADWAY.

I was seated second row and sat there enraptured as Hugh sang the song with full dramatic force! While other baritones or even high-baritones have sung the song with excellent notes -- nothing could have compared to how well Hugh acted out the piece...and I saw and heard it about a few meters from the stage!

And I wasn't the only one who was very, very impressed.

During intermission, the couple next to me started opening a conversation. The husband ( middle-aged, maybe more on the senior side of middle-age) said:" In all our theatre-going years and having seen so many versions of this musical, I have never heard and seen it sung as well as Hugh Jackman just did!"

Jo