By Bart Greenberg***Cabaret veteran, singer and educator, Corinna Sowers Adler, began her show All That Matters in the most casual of ways. No introduction from the light booth; just her, standing at the back of the room of Don’t Tell Mama quietly saying “Hi, I’m Corinna,” and acknowledgin
g her music director, “And that’s Shane [Turner].” For a very intimate, self-reflective program, this was the perfect opening. Pinning her evening around the fact that she recently turned 47, she announced that she decided to throw away the things that no longer mattered to her. And those things were represented by little ducks that she gleefully flung around the room. Cute bit, though slightly larger ducks might have made it clearer from the back of the space.
Among the things she tossed away was her lack of physical prowess, as she charmingly related in “Last One Picked” (Dick Gallagher, Mark Waldrop), the first of several references to her adoring husband, Nicholas Adler. Later, she directly serenaded him with a touching “All That Matters” (Eliot Kennedy, Gary Barlow) and a clever mash up of “True Love” (Cole Porter) and “True Love” 
(Alecia Moore, Greg Kurstin, Lily Rose Cooper), which gave two contrasting sides of the same relationship.
As a special guest star, balladeer D.C. Anderson, joined Sowers Adler for a duet on the very moving “You Matter to Me” (Sara Bareilles). Music director Turner also had several chances to burn up the piano, adding to the electricity of the afternoon. And Sowers Adler showed a fine flair with comedy with such numbers as “What Did You Do to Your Face?” (Susan Werner) and “If I Only Had a Brain” (Harold Arlen, E.Y. Harburg), the latter with revised lyrics reflecting her occasional memory glitches now that she’s gotten to a certain age. The one adjustment she may want to consider is bringing some of her keys down as her vocal range has shifted with maturity. But her personality and excellent choice of material won the audience over.
