Fast-Rising Cabaret Star in Tune With Music of ‘30s

On stage he’s debonair, tuxedoed, a retro dreamboat. Offstage, he’s . . . well, short. Bespectacled. He moans about having to shave.

Michael Feinstein, pianist and singer, is a bundle of contradictions. He’s the fastest-rising cabaret star in years, yet his training was limited to a couple of piano lessons as a kid. He still only barely reads music. He’s a man of the ‘80s in love with the music of the ‘30s.

Previews of “Michael Feinstein in Concert: Isn’t It Romantic” begin tonight at the Wilshire Theatre (as part of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera season), featuring the music of George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, Harold Arlen and others. The show opens Tuesday.

Sitting in his Hollywood Hills home--walls covered with glossies of his musical heroes; a signed photo of him with the Reagans; two pianos; a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs rug--Feinstein talks about the places where he makes his music.

“Ultimately, it’s not different singing in a theater (from in a cabaret or other venues),” he says. “But it is great to sing songs written for the theater in a theatrical setting.”

Although he prizes intimacy with his audiences, Feinstein, 32, proudly recalls performing for 17,000 at the Hollywood Bowl last year. “It’s wonderful that I have the opportunity to reach so many people,” he says in a sincere, almost reverent tone. “But if I were reaching only 25 people, it wouldn’t make it any less important. I didn’t make a choice to go for celebrity. I made a career choice: to perform the kind of music I perform.”

In spite of his current assuredness, “I never considered that I could make a living from music when I was growing up. It didn’t seem like a particularly realistic career possibility. If I did fantasize about it, it was maybe playing in a piano bar. But I never thought I would be able to make records (four so far) or anything like that--especially growing up in an era when the (popular) music was so far away from what I liked.”

After playing in nightclubs in his native Ohio, Feinstein moved to California. Between performing gigs and work as a piano salesman, he landed an introduction to Ira Gershwin. The meeting was providential: for the next six years (until Gershwin’s death in 1983) he was the composer’s personal assistant. Says Feinstein: “I think I filled a void in Ira’s life--not only professionally but personally.”

Feinstein believes that fate had a hand in their relationship: “It seems very clear that I was being prepared for the time when I would meet Ira Gershwin--and that I would spend the rest of my life taking care of George and Ira’s works.” He was named literary executor of Gershwin’s estate, an arrangement later contested by the composer’s widow.

Still, he cherishes the memory of that time spent with Gershwin.

“We played through stacks of unpublished songs he and George had written. Sometimes Ira would make lyric changes--or change a bit of melody. Sometimes we’d edit together. If there were different versions of the songs, I’d find them and we’d put them together. I love being able to sing some of those unpublished songs, bring them to the public. It’s wonderful to be an archivist, preserve material that way. Because a song is of no consequence unless it’s heard; otherwise, it doesn’t exist.”

Feinstein makes it clear that he is not the star of the show.

“When people applaud, they’re applauding for the material,” he said briskly. “It’s my job as a performer to do the best I can to bring through the wishes of the writer, interpret that as faithfully as I can. I think the reason I’m successful is, one, I love what I do. And two, I care so much about the material. I want it to be heard in a way that shows it off to its best advantage. I don’t ever want to be more important than the song.”

The performer admits he takes his job seriously. “It has to be taken seriously, because when you’re affecting millions of people by appearing on television, you’d better know what you’re doing--and why you’re doing it. I think music is one of the most healing mediums in existence. For me, music is joy, music is love, music is God.”

If music is God, then Liza Minnelli has been Feinstein’s guardian angel. Introduced a few years ago when he was playing at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood, the two were instant kindred spirits. “She loved the same music; we spoke the same language,” Feinstein recalls. “That night she said, ‘From now on, we’re joined at the hip.’ ” Soon after, Minnelli booked him on her 20-city European tour.

Lately, Feinstein (just returned from the 1988 Royal Variety Performance in Britain), has begun to realize the physical demands of a successful performing career. “You have to center your whole day around when you perform,” he shrugged. “You have to be at your peak energy level when you go out there. You’ve got to exercise, deal with business, allow time to rest. Sure, it’s hard to stay disciplined. Some days you don’t want to do it. You want to stay up late and you don’t want to eat good.”

Or you don’t want to sing a song for the millionth time? “Sometimes that happens,” Feinstein admitted. “I always try to find something new in a song, interpret it differently. There are very few songs I sing that I don’t love in some way. So maybe I’ll sing the chorus, or alternate the lyrics--or I’ll sing it to someone in the audience.”

Feinstein rejects the notion that his repertoire is anachronistic.

“Is Beethoven any less important today?,” he says rhetorically. “I don’t consider a Gershwin song any less important than Beethoven. And I think they have a lot to offer today. We still have romance, we still have love. I think that, emotionally, people want this material. We’re living in a time of crisis--in a world of AIDS, where people have had sex without love. Sure, a lot of what’s in (the songs) is storybook stuff, but people know that. I think it’s perfectly fine to escape into fantasy for the time being.

“People are appreciative of the quality and wit of those lyrics,” he continued. “Those lyrics are poetry. When you have something like, ‘But hang it, you’ll shout “encore” of our love/Ding-dang it , come on, let’s glorify love’ --they’re trick rhymes, inner rhymes, subtleties. Those songs were very carefully constructed, written for an audience that really knew how to listen to the words. Our generation has grown up in an era when people tune out music, don’t listen to it. It’s just noise in the background.”

Feinstein shook his head. “I’m not saying to anybody, ‘You have to listen.’ But of course, I feel that what I’m doing is important. I think anybody who does an entertainment is doing something important. And yes, it does feel like a mission sometimes. I don’t want to see this stuff neglected--or have people sing the songs in a way that wouldn’t (reflect) their essence. But even when I’m not alive, I don’t think these songs ever will die. They’re just too important.”