Someone once made a remark about how the 70s-90s were dominated by belters (Lupone, Peters, others) but the 90s onward has shown a great revival of soprano. Luker was probably the first of this newer line. Kuhn was a sometime soprano (very good) but she also sang belter roles (Chess). Judy Kaye was another great soprano who could also sing alto (Ragtime), but she did not fit traditional "soprano" roles. More recently we have seen Audra, Kelly O'Hara, Laura Benanti, Sierra Boggess, Melissa Erico, and others. Great to see that Luker is still active.
oh she really is, she was even classically operatically trained as a soprano, not a mezzo, she has said so herself, she just has a very versatile voice! :)
Love Rebecca. I was in Camelot with her in college. I was just a page and in the chorus. I had one line,”Yes, me Lady.” Rebecca was wonderful as Guinevere. Somewhere there must be a video.
Beautiful singing in one of my favorite musicals.Its Barbara Cook song but other marvelous sopranos sang it tooRebecca,Judy Kuhn,Kelli O Hara, now Laura Benanti.Im happy that we still have these kind of singers not onlhy the belters like Peters,Lupone,Sutton Foster or Idina Menzel.
The last two times I saw Luker was in LITTLE DANCER and as a replacement fairy godmother in CINDERELLA. In the latter, she received the biggest hand of the evening singing a seldom performed Rodgers and Hammerstein gem THERE'S MUSIC IN YOU. Her voice was as pure and as strong as it had been years earlier in MUSIC MAN, NINE and MARY POPPINS. In fact I highly recommend giving C'est le Ballet from 2014's LITTLE DANCER: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XyOuzoq83T4.html. Hopefully the show will someday get a Broadway production.
I too am a great Rebecca Luker fan, and have been obsessed with that rehearsal footage of "C'est Le Ballet" ever since it first went up here. I so wish that LITTLE DANCER would go forward, either to Broadway or somehow in some other form. Also, I don't know why it pleased me so much, but it did, to learn that Ms. Luker and Danny Burstein are married. I guess I just love and respect them so much as artists, and I like the idea of them happily together (none of my business though it is, really--I remind myself of some long-ago, star-struck movie fan, reading those old Hollywood fan magazines).
Sadly the marveleus Rebecca Luker died in December 2020 at 59 from a terrible desease. ALS She was a Barbara Cook and Julie Andrews discípule and happily there were and are great sopranos like Luker.From.her generation the late Marin Mazzie Victoria Clark Judy Kuhn Christine Ebersole Christine Andreas and younger sopranos like Audra Mc Donald Kelli O Hara Laura Benanti Laura Osnes Sierra Boggess etc.Happily there are still sopranos on Broadway
My favorite version of this song., I have heard her sing Vanilla Ice Cream, esp the last part, reminds me of her singing Think of Me from Phantom., It was so good and funny, I wish it has a video of it.,
Will he like me when we meet? Will the shy and quiet girl he's going to see Be the girl that he's imagined me to be? Will he like me? Will he like the girl he sees? If he doesn't, will he know enough to know That there's more to me than I may always show? Will he like me? Will he know that there's a world of love Waiting to warm him? How I'm hoping that his eyes and ears Won't misinform him. Will he like me? Who can say? How I wish that we could meet another day. It's absurd for me to carry on this way. I'll try not to. Will he like me? He's just got to. When I am in my room alone I write Thoughts come easily, words come fluently then. That's how it is when I'm alone, but tonight There's no hiding behind my paper and pen. Will he know that there's a world of love Waiting to warm him? How I'm hoping that his eyes and ears Won't misinform him. Will he like me? I don't know. All I know is that I'm tempted not to go. It's insanity for me to worry so. I'll try not to. Will he like me? He's just got to. Will he like me? Will he like me?
|A beautiful performance of song introduced by hers and Laura |Benanti s idollBarbara Cook.Now BENANTI; \ is doing this roleI love these Broadway sopranos very much:Cook,Luker,Benanti etc
What production was this? I know of the original, the Judy Kuhn version, the Laura Ben. Version. And we mustn’t forget the Playwrights Horizon production with Sophie Hayden. So, where and when did Rebecca L do this?
