Page "Elaine Paige" Paragraph 15

Paige transferred to the American production of Sunset Boulevard to make her Broadway debut at the Minskoff Theatre on 12 September 1996, staying with the show until it closed on 22 March 1997.

On the Sunset Boulevard set in Broadway, the staircase steps had to be raised six inches ( 15 cm ) in order to accommodate Paige's short stature, or it would have been hard to see her behind the banister.

Paige was welcomed to the Broadway stage with a long standing ovation from the audience, and received largely positive reviews for her New York performance as Norma Desmond: " The lush sound and the sheer power of her voice are, to put it simply, incredible ", wrote one critic, whilst another said " Her voice has great range, remarkable clarity and emotional force ".

Paige was the first Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard to sing one of the show's key songs, " With One Look ", which she did first at Lloyd Webber's wedding to Madeleine Gurdon, although at the time the song was called " Just One Glance ".

Lloyd Webber noted, regarding Paige's performance of one of the show's other prominent songs, " As If We Never Said Goodbye ", that it was " as good, if not the best, of anything I've ever heard of mine ".

Regarding the key lyric in the song, " This world's waited long enough.

I've come home at last ", Paige had sought to change the way the melody was sung, despite being fully aware of Lloyd-Webber's fastidious tendencies.

To her, the moment was not exploited to its fullest potential, so she approached the show's director, David Caddick, and expressed her wish to hold the word " home ", to which he agreed.

Although she had been disappointed when she hoped to perform on Broadway in Evita, Cats and Chess, Paige stated of her debut there, " It was just the most perfect time to go with that particular show ".

After Sunset Boulevard finished, she suffered from depression, commenting that the show's closing " was the most terrible feeling.

...

I'd felt I'd lost something so very important to me.

I thought it had died and gone away ".