Cabaret star Madelaine Warren, a classically-trained soprano, started her professional life as an opera singer. Her career changed direction when she and her husband, tenor Arthur Warren, decided to become a singing team called “The Warrens.” Their first venture was a summer playing the legendary Catskill hotels circuit. The Warrens were also in demand as guest artists on luxury cruise lines, in community concert series, stage productions and private and corporate events. As a single act, Warren created, produced and performed as soprano soloist in the Melody Arts Trio with pianist David Maiullo and cellist Elizabeth Kalfayan.
Then, in 2013, Warren entered a new kind of role for her as she stepped out onto the stages the intimate world of a New York city cabaret. Her first show, at the Triad, Street of Dreams, with Barry Levitt as music director and Peter Napolitano directing was a tribute to Tin Pan Alley lyricist, Sam Lewis. Success with that show led to three more shows with Christopher Denny as music director and Barry Kleinbort directing.
Warren reprises her latest show, Invitation on Sunday, November 17 at 7 PM at Don’t Tell Mama. Go to www.donttellmamanyc.com for more information.
NiteLife Exchange (NLE) asks Madelaine Warren (MW) Six Questions:
NLE: How did music become a part of your life as you were growing up, especially as one of nine children? Were you influenced by your family, or by musical experiences in school?
MW: Music was very much encouraged in my family and definitely influential in my future. In high school, having my talent recognized and nurtured by my high school music teacher changed my life.
I grew up in Avon, Ct, a very rural town at the time, six miles from Hartford. Surrounding our house were acres of woods. But despite being in the sticks, the Avon school system provided an excellent music program. Every teacher up to 7th grade held bi-weekly sessions where we learned all kinds of 
songs. A rather comical older lady routinely visited our class and taught us to read music by solfège—you know, do re mi! I began to sing solos in class, and often alto harmony parts. By sixth grade, my voice had gotten higher and I started singing soprano descants.
At home, on school days, at 6:45 am, my sleep would be invaded by my mother singing a bouncy tune downstairs in the kitchen—oldies from Tin Pan Alley or the big band era. Some of them I thought she made up, like “If I Knew You Were Coming I’d’ve Baked a Cake.” With nine children, my mother baked a lot of birthday cakes, so I just assumed. My mother and father grew up with the big bands, and danced to them firsthand when the bands toured in the summer. I can still hear my Dad saying: “They don’t write songs like they used to”! All of this sank into me. I tried to hear the songs the way he did.
Every one of us nine siblings had a good ear and could carry a tune. Altogether, we could make a roar, but we weren’t organized enough to be a threat to the Von Trapps! My three older sisters sang as a trio al a the Lennon Sisters. One of their favorites was “Harbor Lights.” I was deemed too young to join in, though I desperately wanted to. 
When I began piano lessons at age 12, I had already picked up a lot from my older sisters. The old upright Steinway in the corner of our living room became my refuge. Other siblings played guitar or keyboard and sang in rock bands. My older sister Maggie had a very pretty voice, but found it hard to keep up once she married and had children.
Starting in 7th grade and on through high school, music and performing became a bigger part of my life, due to a new music teacher, Joe Donato. He picked me out of our class for solos in chorus, leading roles in musicals (Carousel, The King and I, The Sound of Music), got me to take up clarinet so I could play in the high school band, and of course, recruited me for church choir too. When I was 17, I sang in the chorus of “Messiah” with the Hartford Symphony because Mr. Donato recommended me. That was an especially wonderful and challenging musical experience.
NLE: Your grandmother gave you a wonderful Sweet Sixteen birthday present. Can you share that gift with us and tell us how it influenced your life in the music business.
MW: First of all, speaking of grandparents, I only had a maternal grandmother. She was quite the matriarch and very wealthy. We were all afraid of my grandmother. There was a very critical side to her. And I don’t remember ever being hugged by her. YET, out of the blue, when I was 16, she invited me to accompany her on a six-week North Cape Cruise to Scandinavia, sailing out of NYC. A few years earlier, she had taken my older cousin Barbara on the same trip, but Barbara had the gift of the gab—I did not. Why me? The reason, so I was told, was I had a stellar scholastic record and deserved to go. Secretly, I think my mother was thrilled to get me away from my boyfriend.
The whole trip was fantastic, starting with the night before in CT, under the lilac trees, saying good-bye to my boyfriend and promising to write. But… I didn’t write, unless a single postcard from Lapland counts…!
On board the ship I made new friends, stayed up late, 
experienced the midnight sun, dressed up for dinner every night, was told I was pretty (!), longed to swim in the gorgeous blue Norwegian fiords, attended a ballet in Leningrad—my heart grew with yearning every day. Towards the end of the trip, my grandmother, who basically played bridge all day, told me I was as much fun as Barbara. I was so flattered to hear that, but the rest of her sentence was: (but) no fun at all! So when it came to the last night on board, the ship already in NY harbor, with a good view of the Statue of Liberty, I signed up for the talent show (I had brought some sheet music with me). I sang “Naughty Marietta” and “Make Believe” and received a standing ovation. I was astounded! And, suddenly, my grandmother thought I was “fun.”
It took me a few years to understand the value of that trip and how generous my Grandmother truly was. I had seen a lot of the world, and knew I wanted more. I had sung for sophisticated, knowledgeable people and they wanted more. As a result, that fall, when I entered my junior year in high school, I made the decision to continue on to a music school after graduation. Interesting to note that my various teachers, especially my math teachers, protested my choice—said I would be wasting my brain. LOL!
NLE: You graduated college with a music degree; what path did you take from there in your career? Were your early goals met?
MW: The truth is, I had no idea what I was in for when I moved to NYC after graduating from Boston University. My sketchy plan was to go to auditions, work with a voice teacher and buy a Backstage newspaper every week. I got a job at Lincoln Center as a tour guide. That was somewhat prestigious; we were all well-heeled young ladies with college degrees and a number of us were actors/singers. It was a fun job. All of us wannabe performers/tour guides exchanged information about the biz. In fact, I got into an opera company through one of the other singers. But the biggest perk of all was, we got tickets to everything at Lincoln Center: ballet, opera, theatre. This was very important for me to see all those live performances. There was so much to learn from them. I had a voice teacher and was also lucky to find an excellent accompanist, a wonderful lady whom I met with every week to learn repertoire. As an undergrad at BU, I hadn’t really challenged the upper reaches of my voice, or even worked on many operatic arias, like “Juliette’s Waltz” or “Glitter and Be Gay,” and now I was sailing on high. Now I had something to show when I auditioned. I’d say, my early career goals after graduation were met—slowly but surely.
NLE: As a performer, you worked the Catskill Mountain resort hotel circuit. What did that experience hold for you, especially “lessons” you might have taken on board that are still relevant today.
MW: My husband, tenor Arthur Warren, and I met singing together in a scene from La Boheme. For some years after getting married, we found quite a variety of singing jobs. But as freelancers, “what’s next?” was forever on our minds. We’d heard there were lots of shows at the Catskill Hotels during the summer. Arthur’s parents spent a week in the Catskills every July and felt certain we would be a hit. So we asked a friend of ours who knew Danny Leroy, the bandleader at Kutshers Hotel, to find out how t
o get booked. Danny said he himself would get us a date there, but we needed a 45-minute show with charts for fifteen players. That would cost at least $1,000.00, money we didn’t have. Arthur’s father—bless him—insisted on paying for the charts! The other stipulation from Danny was, once we had a show ready, we had to sing it for his wife Sally. If she kvelled, he would book us.
So it came to pass that we sang our new show for Sally in a small rehearsal studio at the Ansonia, and she kvelled. Our much anticipatd date at Kutshers on a dreary Tuesday was in the lounge bar for seniors with walkers. From that initiation, we were offered a summer contract by the Rapp agency—a guarantee of 40 shows in ten weeks. Our first show on the contract was in the big showroom at Kutshers, with the full band of fifteen, and Danny Leroy, our mentor, conducting and playing tenor sax. It went like a dream. The next morning the booking agency called with not a word of congratulations on our success the night before, but rather: “Tonight you’re at Fialkovs bungalow colony in Monticello; be there at 7:00 sharp for a band rehearsal.” We showed up early. No one was around in the big rec room where tables were set up with drink mixers. It was a BYOB situation and very possibly, not the audience for us. In the corner was an upright piano. A couple of guys wandered in, and we asked them if they knew where the band was. They said, “We are the band.” Arthur started getting music out … ”and we don’t read music.” “What instruments do you play?” I inquired. “Guitar and sax.” It might as well have been chopsticks and kazoo. We were sunk. Arthur lugged our big music bag with charts for fifteen back to the car. We knew walking out on the job was not an option, so we sat down with the two “musicians” and asked what songs they knew that we knew and came up with a flimsy line-up barely 35 minutes long. Then we donned our formal attire, and the show began. The audience proved to be quite appreciative.
Suddenly, to my surprise, halfway through the show, Arthur made this announcement: “Ladies and Gentlemen, we usually offer an operatic selection at this point in our show, but tonight we can’t because we have no one to play the piano.” That set off an amazing uproar. We were baffled, and a little frightened, until out of the cacophony, we realized they were all yelling: “Mrs. Rabinowitz plays the piano!” Without even glancing at each other, we silently agreed we had nothing to lose. Arthur beckoned Mrs. Rabinowitz to come to the piano. She was an older lady with a great deal of poise. She calmly sat down at the piano and looked over the music and asked us how long we hold the high note at the end. In short, she was perfect; the crowd went wild and at the end of the show, we got a standing ovation. According to the Rapp agency, it was the first standing ovation at Fialkov’s in anyone’s memory. And we thought to ourselves, “Thank you, Mrs. Rabinowitz!”
That summer contract changed our lives. We continued to take jobs at the Catskill hotels for almost ten years, between other engagements. We occasionally opened shows for comics. Comics ruled in the “skills.” One even complained to our mutual agent that we got too many laughs, and should just sing. We had a laugh over that! And so we built a whole new career that took us all over the world, singing basically Broadway songs and timeless favorites. Opera became a remote dream.
I learned from working in the Catskills that it’s important to adapt if something goes wrong,. The audience still deserves to get a show. Don’t expect praise from the booking agents. That’s not their job! Treat people behind the scenes with respect. Treat the band with respect. (Even when a conductor declares that if he counts off a tempo incorrectly, he’ll follow your cue. BUT, if you count off a tempo incorrectly, you’ll have to live with it). I learned to sing on a microphone! I got to sing with a band on a regular basis!
NLE: In 2013, at the Triad, you worked with musical director Barry Levitt and director Peter Napolitano for Street of Dreams, a compilation of Sam Lewis songs. How did you choose this lyricist to celebrate? Was the show a learning experience?
MW: My husband’s godfather’s uncle was Sam Lewis, a very successful Tin Pan Alley lyricist. Sam and his co-lyricist ,Joe Young, were the go-to guys for novelty songs in the late teens and 1920s. Mike, Arthur’s godfather, never stopped telling us that Sam wrote “Dinah,” “Five Foot Two,”,“Mammy,” “Rock-a-bye Your Baby,” “Laugh, Clown, Laugh” and “I’m Sitting on Top of the World” to name a few. Sam Lewis was also a founding member of ASCAP. I never ever dreamed I’d be the slightest bit interested in singing those songs, but when my husband decided to stop singing, and I had no idea what to sing next, I started searching out Sam Lewis songs and when I had about 80, I contacted Maestro Barry Levitt. He had also worked in the Catskill hotels, so we had lots of stories to share. It didn’t take long to whittle down the 80 songs to 17, designating “Street of Dreams” for the show’s title. I enjoyed bringing Sam Lewis and his songs to light. Barry Levitt was a delight, full of encouragement—and he always played up a storm.
Street of Dreams was my first full-length solo cabaret show. The style of the songs, the lower keys – all new to me. I had jumped off a cliff—that’s how it felt as I waited backstage the night of my debut. Well, the show went splendidly, but more importantly, I realized how much I loved the cabaret genre.
NLE: Invitation, your current show, is directed by Barry Kleinbort with music director Christopher Denny. What should your audience take away from the experience?
MW: Working with Barry Kleinbort and Christopher Denny is a joy. I love that they are both supremely creative and exacting. Invitation is my third collaboration with them. The songs date from 1919 – 1989, my patter is a good mix of humor and heartbreak.
I’d like my audience to leave feeling they’ve been transported back to a more elegant time, to experience nostalgia that they’ve only heard about, or seen in films. I deeply believe in live performance, when everyone in the room is sharing the same moment. My aim is for the audience to experience that connection. I’d like them to take away a renewed awe in our beloved American Songbook, and delight in songs they may never have heard before. Mostly, I hope the audience will leave disarmed, and open to accepting an invitation should it come their way; that they will be okay with the idea, to quote a lyric from Invitation: “If you fall, you fall.” Because that’s life—and if you choose, it could be beautiful.
Key to photos, top to bottom:
1. Invitation at The Laurie Beechman Theatre
2. At age 4
3. Avon High School band
4. In Junior High with sister Victoria at the piano
5. Senior Year High School
6. High School Mentor Joe Donato, years later
7. Age 16 aboard ship
8. Street of Dreams with Barry Levitt
9. Barry Kleinbort and Christopher Denny
