News : Ariana Grande joins Cynthia Erivo for special ‘Wicked: For Good’ performance

Ariana Grande welcomed her Wicked costar Cynthia Erivo to the stage during her London concert last night, August 16.

The singers delivered ‘For Good’, the central anthem from Wicked: For Good, alongside ‘Get Happy’ and ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ at The O2. The appearance took place during the second evening of Grande’s 10 show residency at the arena as part of her ‘Eternal Sunshine’ tour. Footage from the performance can be watched below.

According to Variety, Grande and Erivo previously sang the latter two tracks during a Wicked television special broadcast last November. Their version pays tribute to the closely layered medley Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand created for a television appearance during the 1960s.

The performance followed confirmation from Grande’s representatives earlier this month that she plans on “taking a step back from visibility” once her current ‘Eternal Sunshine’ tour concludes.

Grande also departed the forthcoming West End production of Sunday In The Park With George, which would have featured her alongside fellow Wicked actor Jonathan Bailey. The production was expected to mark her first West End role when it opened at London’s Barbican Centre next summer.

Earlier this month, during the opening night of her three concerts at Chicago’s United Center, Grande paused the show to “clear the air about a few things”.

She told the audience: “I heard that my fans were worried that negativity was ruining things for me, but I just have to say that could not be more the far opposite. This is not what that is. And I just want to be very, very clear: multiple things can be true at the same time.

“Boundaries need to be set, human beings can need a break sometimes and also, this can be and will continue to be the greatest experience of my professional and creative life.”

Explaining why she wanted to address the situation, Grande continued: “I needed to get out here and differentiate that from my truth for all of you because I love you and this tour has been the most healing, beautiful, corrective, magnificent, special experience of my life.”

Her announcement followed another wave of public discussion about her body and physical appearance, which increased online after she released the video for ‘Petal’, the title song from her latest record.

In its review of Grande’s first concert at The O2, NME gave the performance five stars and called it “brilliant business-as-usual before the singer takes a break from the spotlight”.

The review continued: “For much of the two-hour runtime, Grande’s setlist nimbly mixes gold-plated bops (2016’s dance-pop starburst ‘Into You’; 2019’s sleek R&B gem ‘Thank U, Next’) with vibey and sometimes less immediate deep cuts from ‘Eternal Sunshine’ and her latest album ‘Petal’, which dropped two weeks ago. The deftness of this blend really becomes apparent in the final section, when her new album’s clattering title track segues into the cathartic crowd-pleaser ‘We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)’. Grande’s overall message tonight seems to fall somewhere between ‘Thank U, Next’ and ‘Yes, And?’. She’s doing business as usual until she boxes up her stage costumes in September.”

In related news, Jeff Goldblum recently spoke with NME about working with “those wonderful, wonderful ladies from Wicked” and discussed their contributions to his recent album ‘Night Blooms’.

Goldblum, who portrayed the Wonderful Wizard of Oz alongside the pair, recalled: “While we were on the set, we got to singing and they said, ‘Yes, we want to be on the album’,” Goldblum said working with the pair as the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. “But before we shot a single frame of film, we got together and had this lovely Thanksgiving dinner with the wonderful Jon M. Chu [director], his family and some of the crew. There was a piano there, I sat down and started playing. They love music and they’re so masterfully gifted and accomplished that I was floating on air singing with them.

“Then on set, I was trying to do my job but couldn’t help but sing every song I knew in between takes. They knew every jazz standard and every Broadway show tune. We were singing and talking about what we liked, but I didn’t have any agenda about them playing with me.”

He continued: “I started to sing this one song ‘I Don’t Know Why (I Just Do)’, and Ariana said, ‘How are you singing that song? My grandfather used to sing that to me all the time’. I told them about our band and she said she’d love to record it. With Cynthia too, we found this song ‘We’ll Meet Again’ by Vera Lynn, and that’s how it happened.”