Gaga, in other words, met the old master on his artistic turf, and together they made a compelling case for his musical and aesthetic values. But when this unlikely pair sang, swayed, schmoozed and otherwise reveled in the Bennett songbook at Ravinia, their work and chemistry proved as real and authentic as Bennett's music has been from the start. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in September and gone gold (500,000 sold) by December. It all might seem somewhat contrived and calculated to sell records, which it has done quite effectively, the duo's "Cheek to Cheek" duets album having debuted at No. In effect, as Gaga embraced Bennett's era, Bennett reached out to Gaga's.
Certainly some of the plumage on Gaga's gowns and headgear pointed to a 21st century pop diva idealizing the past, while Bennett's impeccably tailored suit and lean melodic lines exuded modernism, a delightful twist on expectations. Yet nostalgia rarely entered the picture, except when some of Gaga's many costume changes recalled eras that predated even Bennett's first heyday, in the 1950s. It was an evocation of a long-vanished era, a celebration of classic American songwriting and a reaffirmation that some tunes and ways of life transcend changing times and fashions. This wasn't just a concert that Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga unfurled (with considerable gusto).
Did an 88-year-old singer and a 29-year-old pop star really perform more than 30 songs without intermission, dance cheek to cheek onstage, whisper frequently into each other's ears and, along the way, convey a sense of Jazz Age romance more typically encountered in Hollywood movies of the 1940s?Īpparently so, for a capacity audience that crowded the Ravinia Festival on Friday night – notwithstanding a steady rain – was there to see it, hear it and, more than once, get up on their feet to applaud it.
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