Audra McDonalds' Way Back to Paradise

If the Old Testament teaches women anything, it is that ignorance, my dear, is bliss. Adam ponders the universe, but Eve, more interested in the secrets of the earth, gets them both "thrown out of Eden / for knowing too much." So, as composer and lyricist Michael John LaChiusa asks in his song, "Way Back to Paradise," the title track for Audra McDonald's debut album, what do we do to get back? LaChiusa suggests plotting and scheming, but LaChiusa should probably take a lesson in the triumphant uphill fight from McDonald.

Still a few years shy of thirty and already the recipient of Tony Awards, Audra McDonald's name is compared to such major voices as Judy Garland and Maria Callas. Although these comparisons are complimentary and mostly correct, they belie a difficult, painful road to stardom. As a student at Juilliard, her professional training was in opera, denying McDonald the musical theater she loved. After graduation, Broadway beckoned, and Audra easily became a star.

Fusing the precision of her classical opera training with a youthful, yet knowing, passion for life, for the stage, for the music, McDonald is a truly modern Broadway star. An educated, articulate black woman who not only sets fire to classic roles like Carrie in Carousel, but also recognizes and respects the talents of her peers, McDonald pragmatically uses her talent and newfound fame to showcase the work of contemporary composers and lyricists on her first album. Though some songs, like the upbea "Stars and the Moon," probably the most accessible song on the album, are distinctly modern, many of the composers choose to use Langston Hughes and James Agee poems as lyrics, placing the decades-old verse back into the popular consciousness.

McDonald has an uncanny ability to manipulate a voice that can linger easily on notes that would make Kathleen Battle break a sweat, then jump four octaves into a delicate, yet roaring, vibrato. She endows even mediocre lyrics and scores with a passionate, desperate, urgency - a talent that sets her apart from divas like Streisand and Minelli.

Unfortunately, skill like McDonald's is seldom matched, and on Way Back to Paradise singer and song rarely meet successfully. Her voice often seems trapped, unsure how to use all her abilities in such a small space. Though the album title promises a Way Back to Paradise, like Eve, McDonald knows a little too much, has a little too much passion, a few too many contradictions to simply float back. Instead she bursts forward, clearing the way for herself and those left standing, speechless and smiling, in her triumphant wake.

—Julia Dahl

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