Some enchanted evening, indeed.
Broadway leading man Brian Stokes Mitchell waltzed onto the stage at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis singing that standard from "South Pacific" on Sunday with elegance and ease. As he applied his booming operatic baritone to show-business and jazz standards, Mitchell's Orchestra Hall debut became a romance of heart and hearth, a valentine to family and country.
The two-act concert, backed by the Minnesota Orchestra under Sarah Hicks' alternately spirited and sensitive baton and featuring pianist Ted Furth and drummer Buddy Williams, easily could have been a preening session from one of Broadway's leading men.
After all, he is handsome and magnetic. Plus, if he ever wants to give the singing thing a break -- what a pity that would be for lovers of bravura performance -- he could use his pretty smile to sell toothpaste.
But instead of posing this way and that to show off the many sides of his glory, Mitchell, 54, injected his selections with character. He sang the songs and acted them, too, to the point where the show often seemed like a series of excerpts of key moments from musicals by the likes of Rodgers & Hammerstein ("Carousel," "South Pacific"), Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens ("Ragtime") and Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion ("Man of La Mancha").
On "Billy's Soliloquy," from "Carousel," Mitchell plumbed an unemployed man's hope as he learns he is going to be a father. Mitchell sold Billy's glee as he imagines raising a son, then the worry as he realizes he could also have a daughter and is less sure about how he would guide her.
Mitchell also got under the skin of Coalhouse Walker Jr., the father in "Ragtime," a character he memorably played on Broadway.
In between numbers, he spoke about his family and travels and cracked wise. Mitchell revealed that he was "a fat kid," a huskiness that heightened his social isolation in adolescence. He sat on stage left to sing "It's Not Easy Being Green," from the Muppets. Like everything else, it was very touching.
