“Let’s be glad for for what we’ve had/And what’s to come”

So, it seems, is everyone else, from such luminaries of the West End who shared the stage last night with last night as Elaine Paige and Sian Phillips, to Sally-Ann Triplett and Daniel Evans; while Alan Rickman, Michael Ball (otherwise engaged in performing at the Royal Variety Show) and Hugh Jackman were heard on tape. I’m thrilled to have played my own small part in delivering my own tribute last night, via a programme note – and for those who weren’t there, here it is!

“I may have missed Broadway’s so-called “golden age” that stretched roughly from the 40s to the early 60s, but at least I’m not missing Barbara Cook’s golden years. As the leading ingénue of her day, she was, of course, an integral part of that golden age, appearing in the original Broadway companies of such shows as Plain and Fancy, Candide, The Music Man and She Loves Me, as well as more collectable flops such as Flahooley, The Gay Life and The Grass Harp. But it was her reinvention, with a now-legendary Carnegie Hall concert in 1975, that ushered in a new era of appreciation of her extraordinarily rich talent that has turned her into the world’s foremost exponent and interpreter of the great American songbook, both classic and newly-minted.

That was her first-ever concert recital; but from that moment to this — and you will witness once again tonight — she utterly owned the stage. As critic John S Wilson reports in his liner notes to the CD of that original concert, she got a standing ovation that night before she had even sung her first note (and, no doubt, will do so tonight, too). “How do you build from an entrance like that?” he asked, and replied, “Glowing, hearty, clothed in a loose, flowing gown whose jaggedly cut sleeves made her look like a sun goddess when she raised her arms, Barbara Cook did it.”

But how does this goddess of song do it? It’s partly the infectious warmth of her southern-born charm (she was born in Atlanta, Georgia) and her still-shimmering and crystalline soprano; but even more importantly, it’s the personal and intimate investment she makes with every song she sings – and every member of the audience she sings them to. This is the essence of cabaret: the ability to shrink a room the size of Carnegie Hall to that of a small cabaret room so that an audience member feels they are being personally sung to, or expanding a room as small as say, the Café Carlyle in New York to make it feel like they are at Carnegie Hall, such is the thrilling sense of occasion of being in her luminous presence.

In the years since she made her London concert return at the Donmar Warehouse in 1986, I have seen her in rooms large (from the Barbican Hall and the old Sadler’s Wells to West End houses like the Noel Coward, Lyric and Haymarket Theatres, as well as New York’s Metropolitan Opera House, where in January 2006 she became the first-ever non-operatic star to have a solo recital at their invitation) and small (in 1998, she returned to the Donmar as part of the inaugural Divas at the Donmar season that I helped to initiate).

We are indeed privileged to have had Barbara cooking up a vocal storm for us so often over the years; and tonight, as we join her in marking the 80th birthday that she celebrated on October 25, let’s once again, in the lyrics of one of her trademark songs, join her as she invites us to ‘Sing a song with me to ease your worries/sing a song with me to touch your heart/sing a song with me to move the heavens/sing with me!’ As she makes good on each of those promises, let us both celebrate and honour a rare talent and a unique person.”