Melissa Errico

“The Maria Callas of American musical theater,” as Opera News has called her, referencing both her silken voice and dramatic, expressive intensity, Melissa Errico is an actress, singer, and author. First known for her starring roles on Broadway, she has since become a concert, cabaret and recording artist as well; her 2018 album Sondheim Sublime was called by The Wall Street Journal “The best all-Sondheim album ever recorded.” Along with her many appearances singing and playing Sondheim, she is also closely associated with the music of Michel Legrand—having starred in his sole Broadway show, Amour, she was asked to write his eulogy by The New York Times, and was then invited to become the sole American performer to participate in the extraordinary two-day memorial to Legrand held in April 2019 at Paris’s Le Grand Rex Theatre, work that led one critic to announce that, “Errico is, and will continue to be, the premier interpreter of the musical legacy of Michel Legrand.” Her album of Legrand’s music, Legrand Affair Deluxe Edition, appeared in 2019.

In the past few years her gifts and ambitions as a writer have become increasingly expressed, with a series of much-talked-of essays in The New York Times, touching, with wit, wisdom and insider mischief, on the many unseen aspects of the theatrical profession, from the pleasures and pains of being a “terminal ingenue” to the ambiguities of auditioning to the sheer pleasure of being fitted for a costume, post-pandemic. She is currently at work on a memoir that will include and expand on these “Scenes from An Acting Life”, as the Times, in a rubric specially invented for her work, calls them.

Melissa has released several studio recordings including her debut on EMI Records produced by Arif Mardin entitled Blue Like That. Her 2018 album, Sondheim Sublime, was called by The Wall Street Journal “The best all-Sondheim album ever recorded,” and led to sold-out concert dates around the country–from Ravinia to Caramoor and Wolftrap–and in London. She has sung many concerts (of Sondheim music as well as other repertoire such as Rodgers & Hammerstein, Scott Frankel, film evenings with Michael Feinstein, and more) at the 92nd Street Y, Birdland Jazz Club, Feinstein’s/54 Below, Joe’s Pub, Carnegie Hall, Town Hall and Lincoln Center’s Allen Room.

Errico’s history with Sondheim began when he selected her to star as Dot in Sunday In The Park With George at The Kennedy Center, then as Clara in Passion at Classic Stage Company, and then in the New York City Center Encores! production of Do I Hear A Waltz? In 2020, she sang “Children and Art” in the Sondheim 90th Birthday Concert Take Me To The World, and was featured on PBS television in a documentary special in which she sang “Finishing The Hat” and discussed Sondheim and his lyrics with Adam Gopnik and Raúl Esparza for Poetry in America.

In addition to Sondheim, nothing in her work has been more constant than her association with composer Michel Legrand. Having starred in his Broadway show, Amour, she went on to collaborate with him on the iconic album Legrand Affair. After his death in 2019, she was asked to write an extended eulogy in the The New York Times and then to expand it (in translation) for La Regle Du Jeu, an esteemed political and cultural magazine in Paris. Melissa was invited to be the sole American performer in the two-night musical memorial to Legrand held in April 2019 at Paris’s Le Grand Rex Theatre. At that time, Warner Music/Ghostlight Records reissued her symphonic album, which Legrand arranged and conducted, as Legrand Affair (Deluxe Edition). The Wall Street Journal described her Michel Legrand tribute concert Amour & After; “One of the most moving and even thrilling cabaret shows I’ve ever seen. When Miss Errico sings the work of the late and much-missed Michel Legrand, you just want to climb up inside one of her songs and stay there for the rest of your life.”

In 2021, she also taught masterclasses for CUNY and HB Studio, joined a forum on Women In Theater (hosted by New York Theatre Barn), and moderated a program about gender for an international conference for The American Songbook Foundation. She performed summer concerts in New Jersey, Connecticut, Provincetown, and more. She has written a play currently in development for The Irish Repertory Theatre and is working on a book–expanding on her New York Times column–tentatively titled, “Terminal Ingenue.” An album titled Out Of The Dark: The Film Noir Project—inspired by the songs of film noir—is due February 2022.