Broadway legend Patti LuPone is on top of the world once again with a smoldering new CD, The Lady With the Torch, and another role of a lifetime -- as Mrs. Lovett in the smash revival of Sweeney Todd.

By Christopher Wallenberg

Although the word "diva" gets tossed around way too often these days, if you're going to apply the label to someone, Broadway superstar and musical theater icon Patti LuPone seems more worthy than most. Just don't try to tell her that.

"To me, the word 'diva' means doing ungodly things with a natural instrument [the voice] ... [But] when the word is applied, it's usually applied negatively to everybody -- from pop stars to journalists to Broadway people. So I would rather that they come up with another word and leave 'diva' where it originated -- in opera," says LuPone during a recent phone interview to promote her new CD of sultry yet reflective love songs, The Lady With the Torch, scheduled for release April 25 on Ghostlight Records.

Despite Ms. LuPone's reluctance with the label, gay and lesbian fans everywhere adore her as a Broadway diva of the highest order. The high homo standing for the feisty, strong-willed LuPone dates back to the actress' powerful breakthrough performance in Evita in the late 1970s and early '80s. Since then, the gay community has enthusiastically followed her legendary career from one earth-shaking role to the next -- Olivier Award-winning turns in The Cradle Will Rock and Les Misérables in London, capturing the coveted part of Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber's West End production of Sunset Boulevard over a series of bolder-faced names, portraying the ultimate tempestuous diva Maria Callas in Terrence McNally's award-winning Broadway play Master Class, and starring in the late '80s TV drama Life Goes On.

Now back on the Broadway boards for the first time since the comedy Noises Off in 2002, LuPone is earning rapturous reviews as sadistic meat pie maker Mrs. Lovett in the acclaimed revival of Sweeney Todd. Remarkably, this production of the Sondheim masterpiece marks LuPone's first Broadway musical since Anything Goes in 1988.

Despite a litany of indelible stage roles, the actress says she isn't exactly sure where her status as a favorite of the gay community stems from, but what she does know is she returns the affection in spades. "I'm always extremely grateful to the people who consider my talent worth celebrating," she says.

Yet the enthusiasm of gay audiences isn't what LuPone cherishes most about them. It's that they're more critical -- and, to her, that's a blessing. "They have better taste, a better sense of what is good and what is not... And they see more things," she explains. "I think there are those wide-eyed fans out there who are just wide-eyed fans. But when gay people who come to the theater to see someone or something, they come with a history and they come with knowledge of what they're seeing. And they expect more."

No doubt, expectations will be high for The Lady With the Torch, which grew out of series of intimate, cabaret-style performances that culminated in an acclaimed, sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall in March 2005. Conceived and directed by LuPone's longtime collaborator Scott Wittman and featuring orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick and musical direction by Chris Fenwick, the CD features an array of melancholy and mordant torch songs peppered with themes of lost love, unrequited love, heartbreak, longing, bitter regret and sweet revenge by such genius songwriters as Cole Porter, Harold Arlen and George and Ira Gershwin.

In selecting the music for the CD, LuPone says that Wittman wanted songs that would sound good in her voice, unfold in a story arc and provide a trenchant, acerbic immediacy. "Scott is incredibly brilliant at choosing music and then lining it up for a show," she says.

LuPone brings an actor's sensibility to the proceedings, finding the emotional heart of each song and pulling listeners along on the heart-wrenching journey. "As opposed to it just being a straight 'Why am I born, Why am I living?' CD, it has the feel that the woman is reflecting on the situation while she is in it," says LuPone. "I listen to it and think: My God, there is a story on this CD. I am so proud of this album and I'm usually not a big fan of me."

Audiences and critics are certainly big fans of hers, all raving over her deliciously devilish turn in Sondheim's Grand Guignol epic Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. And director John Doyle's darkly inventive, minimalist production -- a sort of baroque chamber version in which the cast doubles as the orchestra -- has also garnered a litany of glowing reviews.

Yet LuPone seems to take all the current praise she's earning for Sweeney in stride. "I say two things: 'Thank God!' and 'It's about time!'" she says with a laugh. "But [seriously], it's a total crapshoot. You just hope for the best. Even if you have a good production and the critics hate it and the audiences don't come, what can you do? ... This is my first and only experience that has been a critical, commercial, and cult hit. You only get a few experiences like this [in a career]."

When asked what attracted her to the character of Mrs. Lovett, LuPone says that she doesn't look at the experience in that way. "I'm so organic that I don't necessarily investigate it intellectually. I don't break it down to, 'I love this part because...' I love the whole experience. I love the experience of being on stage, being on any stage, really. I love to come to my dressing room and hang out with [the cast and crew backstage]," she explains. "So I think less about what appeals to me about the character than I do about the entire experience. And what appeals to me about this experience is: it's Sondheim, it's his masterpiece, it is the best ensemble that I have ever been in in my life, it's a production that is innovative and includes the audience in the theatrical experience, and magic is created."

The magic of this version of Sweeney partly stems from the fact that the 10 actors/singers also function as the orchestra players. LuPone even gets to lug around an unwieldy tuba, an instrument she first played in her Northport, Long Island, high school band. But truth be told, the tuba isn't what frightens her now, it's her other musical duties in the show. "[The tuba] is easier than the orchestra bells. I look at those things every night, thinking 'Oh, my God.' If you hit a wrong note there, that's a searing mistake."

Instruments aside, what LuPone really loves about this new production of Sweeney are ways that it challenges the audience. Acknowledging her own lightning rod personality, she explains, "Whether it's my looks or my attitude or my sense of humor, I have always been controversial. And this piece is controversial. It is not easy ... And if people have strong opinions about it, at least they have opinions -- rather than being lulled into mindlessness. You want to have a debate when you go to the theater. ... If it's vital, then we've done our job. If it makes one think, then we've done our job."

Despite the strong opinions that Ms. LuPone may engender, she, too, is nothing if not vital -- whether she's tearing up the stage in Sweeney Todd or burning up your ears on The Lady With the Torch.

But then again, she knows it's her job to deliver the goods to an audience. "That's what I'm supposed to do. I'm a storyteller. ...I'm supposed to give it away. It shouldn't be precious. I shouldn't be possessive about it. I think a lot of actors forget that. You've got a gift, and it's to be given away."

And her enthusiastic fans will no doubt happily lap it up.