Witches, Bitches and Divas Are the Most Fun! -

By Michael Barbieri****Who doesn’t love a witch, a bitch or a diva?! Let’s face it—when it comes to stage, screen and music, we all love the bad girls and the flamboyant, over-the-top superstars, because they’re the most fun!

In Witches, Bitches and Divas, singer Christina Pecce brought a panoply of these titular ladies to the stage at Feinstein’s/54 Below, and the evening was truly spellbinding!

Pecce is a classically trained singer-actress with an expressive mezzo-soprano range, able to span multiple genres: opera, musical comedy, jazz and pop. She has a Master’s Degree in Opera Performance from The Boston Conservatory and a B.S. in Music Education from Hofstra University. She has performed with Chicago Fringe Opera and Fort Worth Opera; appeared in Chicago Lyric Opera’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar, in the ensemble and as understudy to Mary Magdalene; and she premiered Witches, Bitches and Divas at Davenport’s Piano Bar in Chicago.

As if to prove that every good girl has a bad girl lurking under the surface, Pecce opened the show appropriately, with Lester Judson and Raymond Taylor’s “I Want to Be Evil.” She began with the sweet, good girl verse in an ad-lib tempo, but soon segued into the bouncy, jazzy refrain, during which she worked the stage, clearly having fun as she sang “I wanna be nasty, I wanna be cruel. I wanna be daring, I wanna shoot pool!” She followed that with two operatic numbers, “Habanera,” from Carmen, and “Quando M’en Vo,” from Puccini’s La Boheme. Both pieces showed off her training, particularly in her beautifully bright upper register. These numers also gave her a chance to interact and toy with the audience—all sly glances and playful attitude.

A clever medley combined “Feed the Birds,” from Mary Poppins, with “Little Girls,” from Strouse and Charnin’s Annie. The subtly hilarious tone of suppressed disgust she employed in the latter song convinced me that Annie’s evil Miss Hannigan is a role in which she’d be perfect some day! Speaking of roles she ought to play, Pecce also presented us with a selection of witches, bitches and divas created by Stephen Sondheim: a sharp-tongued Mrs. Lovett from Sweeney Todd; the Witch from Into the Woods, whose “Last Midnight” showed off Pecce’s clear, powerful vocal belt and Joanne from Company. And though her version of Joanne’s “The Ladies Who Lunch” wasn’t as aggressive and cynical as other famous renditions, her calmly biting tone was perfect.

As an added bonus, Pecce brought up to the stage Erin Willett, her college friend and a Final 8 contestant on Season 2 of NBC’s “The Voice.” The two treated us to a duet of Stephen Schwartz’s “When You Believe,” from Prince of Egypt, which began softly, built to a soaring crescendo, with their voices blending perfectly, then finished quietly and sweetly. Their long friendship and their past experience singing together gave the uplifting ballad a lovely personal feel.

Now, I’m not a Beyoncé fan, but one of the biggest surprises of the night was how much I enjoyed Pecce’s wicked, in-your-face take on Beyoncé’s “Drunk in Love,” which sounded less like a rap/pop song, and more like a smooth piece of cool jazz. The other surprise was a number from David Yazbek’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, called “Model Behavior,” essentially a collection of 27 frantic phone messages from Candela, an obnoxiously needy young woman, to her best friend Pepa. The runaway-train tempo of the song, combined with its crazed staccato wordiness, must’ve made this an incredibly challenging song to learn, but Pecce absolutely nailed it, with the audience cheering wildly at the song’s conclusion! Ironically, after that masterful feat of memorization and enunciation, she dedicated her next diva number, Celine Dion’s “All Coming Back To Me Now,” to all the lyrics she’s forgotten over the years. Still, she didn’t miss a word here either, and an extra helping of reverb on the mic accentuated her high-flying, over-the-top diva sound.

Before she brought the show to a close, Pecce introduced her band: Musical Director Matthew Stephens at the piano, Ulises Amaya on bass and Jack Goode on percussion. Together they created a sound that was textured and full without being overpowering. This could’ve been especially tricky for the drummer, being that he was so close to a solid back wall, which tends to reflect and amplify sound, but their levels were ideal. Kudos also to the club’s technical director, who kept the sound clean and crisp. Lastly, Lisa Asher’s economical direction took the slightly disparate material and gave it shape, while always allowing Pecce to be herself and give an honest, fun performance.

Pecce introduced her closing number by telling us that after years of auditioning, working, not working and hanging on with survival jobs, she was tired of waiting for permission to perform, so she did something about it—she created Witches, Bitches and Divas. She then launched into “Jenny’s Blues,” from the musical It Shoulda Been You, and her sassy, brassy delivery of lyrics like “Give me a break or get out of my way…I’m gonna live for myself” showed us she needs permission from no one!