Now there are six-alarm voices. (Merman topped out around a C; Idina Menzel belts an F in “Defying Gravity.”) Now, too, we acknowledge the male belting voice. And a debt to the Black singers who found the depth in a joyful noise.
To celebrate and explain the thrill of that sound, we assembled a chorus of 15 people who love the belt, including Lea Michele, Jennifer Hudson, Adam Lambert, Christine Ebersole and other stars and experts. We asked them to name a performer who might convert agnostics into fans, and to provide a Broadway or Broadway-adjacent song as evidence. Naturally, their testimony is dialed to the max: as loud and intense as belting itself. — Jesse Green
Barbra Streisand
‘My Man,’ from ‘Funny Girl’
“My Man” was a song that the actual Fanny Brice recorded, and it was a very depressing and dramatic song, but what Barbra did with it is she turned it into one of the greatest belter songs of all time. It’s not from the Broadway show — it was in the film. But fun fact: At her closing night on Broadway, she sang “My Man” after her curtain call, and I had to do the exact same thing after we did our bows at our final performance, and it was probably the greatest moment of my life. Fanny Brice walks onto the stage, and she’s all alone, and she dedicates this song (by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill) to the love for this man that will in some ways make her feel more alive than performing ever could, and not only is she able to just stand still, with her feet planted in the ground — which is something we don’t see very often anymore — but she’s able to belt and give the most pristine level of vocal ability that you have ever heard while crying at the exact same time. That is one of the greatest performances I have ever seen in my entire life and I have since tried to recreate it many many times.” — LEA MICHELE, singer and actor
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube
Ethel Merman
‘I Got Rhythm,’ from ‘Girl Crazy’
To find out how Broadway fell in love with belting, you’ve got to go back to the brassy broad who started it all: Ethel Merman. Voice like a trumpet, nerves like steel hawsers and the lung capacity of an Atlantic steamer, Merman made her Broadway debut in 1930 as the second female lead in “Girl Crazy,” which had songs by George and Ira Gershwin. The one that would become a signature, “I Got Rhythm,” starts out jaunty and tooting like a train whistle, and then shifts into taking up real space. In the second verse, Merman holds a C — somehow getting more powerful the more she exerts herself — as the band executes the melody under her. “I just stand up and holler and hope my voice holds out,” Merman said, and somehow it always, always did. Every belter who followed was blasting away in her nearly unfollowable footsteps. — HELEN SHAW, New York Times chief theater critic
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube
Jennifer Holliday
‘And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,’ from ‘Dreamgirls’
I was introduced to “Dreamgirls” through Jennifer Holliday’s voice. “And I Am Telling You” (by Henry Krieger and Tom Eyen) is Effie’s battle cry: her story, her pain, which so many can relate to. It’s earth-shattering. For me, seeing it via video, I could only imagine what theatergoers felt like while watching her. I wish I could be transported back in time, but 1981 was the year I was born, so I wasn’t able to see her do it live. Her voice is like thunder — it has a roar to it, it has the belly in it. It’s the type of voice you want to hear in theaters and arenas and stadiums, that can fill the entire space and probably shatter it too. By the time it was time for me to play the role in the movie, it was beyond intimidating, because there was absolutely nothing left. I remember saying, what am I supposed to do, stand on my head and sing it? — JENNIFER HUDSON, singer, actor and talk show host
