INTERVIEW: Paulo Szot will have ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ at NJPAC

Tony Award winner Paulo Szot, beloved for Broadway’s South Pacific and his many roles on opera stages around the world, will play two intimate cabaret shows Saturday, May 6 at The Chase Room at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, New Jersey. Fans can expect a lively and eclectic journey through the American songbook with several Broadway staples, perhaps even a couple from South Pacific.

“I’m very excited,” Szot said in a recent phone interview. “It has been a few years since I started to do this kind of concert. It started at the [Café] Carlyle, and then it kind of developed into the other spaces in New York, 54 Below, and other places around the world. So every time I bring this show to a new place, I try to bring new things to it, so it’s not all the same. But people can expect to hear basically great songs, beautiful songs from the golden age of Broadway … and romantic songs with a great band, with a musical director, Billy Stritch, that everybody knows.”

Szot’s powerful baritone voice has been heard around the world. From his native Brazil to Poland to Italy to the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, the stages that the singer has graced are numerous. His Met performances, including his debut in The Nose, are legendary, and he has also collaborated with the New York Philharmonic and New York Pops.

For the NJPAC show, he’s excited to have an intimacy that cannot be achieved in a larger house.

“It’s very interesting because it’s a totally different sensation and a totally different performance from what I was used to do,” he said. “So, of course, I had to get used to that space and that distance from the people, and I started to really love it. I discovered so many great moments and great ways of communication with the audience. Having them so close to me and reading their expression while I’m there singing, it’s something that I have never experienced before when I was on an operatic or even on a Broadway stage. People are so far away, and with the lights, you can’t really see [them]. But here they are part of the show, and that makes it very exciting because every day is different.”

Choosing which songs will make the final set list is always a welcome challenge. There are so many options to pull from for the evening.

“It’s always difficult,” he said. “It’s so exciting, but it is a difficult process because there are so many great songs. You want to sing all of them, but then you can’t. So I try to rotate these songs a little bit as the show changes and as the years go and the places change. I try always to put new things, and unfortunately I have to take out some others. But it’s a rotation of songs. … And for NJPAC, it’s going to be a wonderful selection. We are rehearsing hard with Billy Stritch to present our best.”

Szot said he understands audience members still have fond memories for his Tony-winning turn in South Pacific, opposite Kelli O’Hara. The singer still has fond memories himself. That show, which was a production of Lincoln Center Theater and directed by Bartlett Sher, captured the hearts of many Broadway fans. For the cabaret show, he tries to honor some of the songs that have built his career.

“I try to give to them, of course, what they want to hear, and it’s a pleasure to sing the songs all over forever because they absolutely changed my life,” he said. “So I’m very grateful for these songs, for the show, and to be able to sing in these venues is very rewarding to me. So I do bring songs that people expect me to sing, so they can be happy for it and remember that moment, too.”

One challenge of a solo cabaret show is that there’s never time for him to leave the stage. He’s up there for more than an hour with no breaks and hardly a chance to catch his breath. At NJPAC, he’ll be performing back-t0-back shows, and that means he’ll be drained by the end of the night.

“It’s pretty demanding,” he said. “To put a show together and be there for the whole hour, it’s very, very demanding, not when you are on stage because you are in this kind of trance, but afterward, yes, very demanding. … Most of it is a physical thing. You give so much energy. You’re there performing, and there’s no break, as I said. But it’s great. It’s a tour-de-force all the time. Every night is a tour-de-force, and then I find it very exciting.”

He added: “When you’re in a show, you can have a routine. You can organize your life better, of course, because you’re in one place. That’s a great thing, but also there’s a time when you’re months doing the same thing. Your body just gets tired of the routine because it’s a very tough routine, doing eight shows a week. But I love it, too. When you’re not [in a show], when you’re on the road, of course, the traveling itself is not fun. Maybe it was fun when you’re very young, but traveling with suitcases from one airport to the other, that’s not fun. What is fun is to get to know different cities, different people, different audiences. That’s the fun part of it, but travel itself, I’m not so much a fan of. But it’s part of the job.”

For the foreseeable future, Szot, who began professionally working in Poland in 1989, is focused on building a calendar of events that is both challenging and varied. After NJPAC, he will sing on the Playbill river cruise at the end of May, offer his cabaret show at New York City’s 54 Below in early June and play Juan Perón in Evita at Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival this summer.

“I love working, and I love doing what I do,” he said. “I’m very happy at the moment with things, how my career has established itself, that I’m able to do opera. That was my first passion and job. Still keeping busy in that direction, and then doing musicals and these shows in between, it’s great. It is what I always dreamed about, of doing music without restrictions or without putting things in boxes and just trying to do good music and good shows and be on stage, to be a performer. I’m very glad how things are right now. I did My Fair Lady last year in Brazil for four months, and that was the second biggest musical show … after South Pacific. And this year I’m doing Evita in Pennsylvania at a Shakespeare festival, so I’m very happy for that opportunity, too. Of course, the operas. I was in Paris, Amsterdam this year, and these wonderful concerts beginning with the New York Philharmonic this year at the New Year’s Eve concert. … Carnegie Hall last night with the New York Pops was fantastic, celebrating Kelli [O’Hara] and Bart [Sher]. In a few days, NJPAC, so it’s great. I’m very happy.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Paulo Szot will play Saturday, May 6 at  the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s The Chase Room. Performances are at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Click here for more information and tickets.