MUSIC Versatile vocalist welcomes challenge

Saturday will be the first time some Broadway performers share a stage.
By DEBORA SHAULIS
ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
If her career were to begin today, vocalist Christiane Noll says she wouldn't try to be such a versatile performer.
"It makes you a mystery," says Noll, who performs Saturday night in a Youngstown Symphony Orchestra Pops program. "People don't know what to do with you. They don't believe you can do so many things well.
"It seems that if you do one thing and you focus on one thing, then as a commodity, people know how to label you and then sell you. If you come in with a full hand, they get a little confused."
Noll is holding some good cards. One is her "lyric soprano voice that glimmers like rubies," a reviewer in Atlanta wrote.
She's also flush with work. Noll's local appearance will be a brief break from her starring role in the national tour of the Tony Award-winning "Urinetown, The Musical." She made her Broadway debut in "Jekyll & amp; Hyde" and returned to perform in "It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues" and Tommy Tune's production of "Grease!," among others.
Credits
Noll's credits include operas and operettas; the voice of Anna in the animated movie "The King And I"; orchestral collaborations from coast to coast; and three solo CDs -- one of Broadway songs, another featuring composer Ira Gershwin's music, the other a jazz recording with composer-pianist David Budway.
She always wanted diversity in her career.
"I sort of have a short attention span," she said during a telephone conversation from a tour stop in Michigan. "I like doing lots of different things. It keeps me interested. It keeps me flexible."
Noll has experienced some of that flexibility as a performer in producer John Such's "Bravo Broadway" program, which is what brings her to Youngstown. Noll has performed in various male-female trios in the "Bravo Broadway" series. While she has worked previously with her Saturday night co-stars, Debbie Gravitte and Jan Horvath, this will be the first time all three are on stage together, she said.
The women rehearsed around the Christmas holidays, when Noll had some time off from "Urinetown." She's pleased at how their voices blend. "There's a reason why the Andrews Sisters did so well -- that three-part harmony," she said. They aren't trying to imitate the Andrews Sisters, but "we'll utilize our voices like that."
Show's theme
The theme is "Symphonic Valentine," and the concert falls on Valentine's Day, but "There's a unifying theme in many pieces of theater -- love, or the search for it," Noll said. "It's not too difficult to find songs that pull at your heartstrings."
That's even true of "Urinetown," Noll added. But do audiences recognize it? When "Urinetown" played in Pittsburgh last November, the opening-night audience didn't seem to know how to respond to the modern show's playful approach at social commentary and good-natured ribbing of traditional musical style.
"We noticed that Pittsburgh was a bit perplexed as well," said Noll, who graduated from Carnegie Mellon University and performed in Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera productions. "Urinetown" finished a two-week run Feb. 1 in Cleveland, where "they got it right away. ... It's just how the masses react at a certain time."
Making it hers
Noll loves many aspects of "Urinetown": its inherent silliness; the writers' references to popular musicals such as "West Side Story" and "Fiddler on the Roof"; the way the music moves plot lines forward; and how much she's been able to shape her character, Hope Cladwell, the naive daughter of a businessman who runs a pay-toilet monopoly in a drought-stricken town.
"Vocally, it's kind of easy for me," Noll said. "It fits a great part of my voice." As she rehearsed, "I kept hearing certain places where I thought Hope should be singing higher notes." She shared her instincts with the show's musical staff, expecting them to talk her out of making changes, but "They let me keep everything. I really felt very blessed. I felt like they allowed me to create Hope in the way I would do her. So what you hear in 'Urinetown' is very unique and specific to me."
But "Urinetown" also brings her back to her original point, about versatility being both a blessing and a curse.
"It has made my career more challenging," she said. "I can sing operetta and blues and pop and traditional musical theater. My r & eacute;sum & eacute; reflects that."
Her role as Emma in "Jekyll & amp; Hyde" established her as a performer who could handle serious roles. Along came "Urinetown," and "Now people are perplexed that I can be funny," she said.
Noll expects this challenge to continue "until I don't do this anymore," she added.
shaulis@vindy.com