(Ben Brantley’s article appeared in The New York Times, 5/12; via Pam Green.) 

Yesterday’s love goddess is looking lovelorn today. That’s not bad news, by the way. Because this same woman is wearing loneliness just as convincingly — and affectingly — as she once sported irresistible erotic allure. 

Melissa Errico, who dazzled New York in the otherworldly title role of the Kurt Weill-Ogden Nash musical “One Touch of Venus” in an Encores! concert production in 1996, has returned to the same stage 20 years later to demonstrate that she is equally at ease as an earthling. She is also providing a demonstration that time does not necessarily wither talent or presence. 

Portraying the abjectly unattached Leona Samish in the insightful Encores! revival of “Do I Hear a Waltz?,” which opened on Wednesday night at City Center, Ms. Errico would not seem to be naturally wedded to her part. As seen in New York musicals of the past two decades (“High Society,” “Amour,” “Passion,” “Finian’s Rainbow”), this singing actress’s usual persona might be summed up in a single word, “lovely” — as in of voice, face and manner. 

(Read more) 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/theater/review-passion-pursued-with-a-yawn-in-do-i-hear-a-waltz.html