Idina Menzel Responds To Criticism Of New Year’s Eve “Let It Go” Performance

Christina Lee | January 2, 2015 8:05 am

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Idina Menzel, Tony-winning Broadway singer and actress, became a surprise crossover star in 2014 for singing Frozen‘s “Let It Go” — one of the year’s biggest-selling singles. (The film’s official soundtrack also outsold albums by BeyonceTaylor Swift and One Direction.) As princess Elsa, Menzel hits her high note at the song’s penultimate line: “Let the storm rage on / The cold never bothered me anyway.”

When she performed the song during Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rocking Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2015, though, Menzel seemed to miss that note entirely. Viewers weren’t pleased. Some insisted that they saw the return of Adele Dazeem, not the beloved Wicked star. Others tried to come to her defense, insisting that no singer could actually deal with the cold like Elsa. The jokes wrote themselves.

So on January 1, Menzel responded to critics by posting a quote she gave to Southwest magazine a few months ago — see it below.

“There are about 3 million notes in a two-and-a-half-hour musical; being a perfectionist, it took me a long time to realize that if I’m hitting 75 percent of them, I’m succeeding,” she says. “Performing isn’t only about the acrobatics and the high notes: It’s staying in the moment, connecting with the audience in an authentic way, and making yourself real to them through the music. I am more than the notes I hit, and that’s how I try to approach life.”

Revisit Menzel’s New Year’s Rocking Eve performance below.

Get an eyeful of even more pop music coverage, from artist interviews to exclusive performances, on Idolator’s YouTube channel.

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