Mariah’s ready to rock Christmas as she charges ahead with a TV show and rumored new beau
URING the hour that Mariah Carey made the audience wait for the start of her Beacon Theatre Christmas concert on Wednesday night, a row of superfans could not be contained. As tunes ranging from Nat King Cole to Run-DMC came softly out of the speakers, her admirers grew restless for their sacred time with the Suffolk County siren. A curly-haired middle-aged woman in glasses finally couldn’t take it anymore. She threw her head back and yowled from the depths of her soul, “Mariiiiaaahhh!”
This moment of religious rapture turned positively convulsive when Carey, wearing a silver gown into which she had apparently been sewn, finally appeared onstage to sing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” The superfans shot out of their seats — dancing, screaming and embracing each other in a paroxysm of adoration, joy and desire.
One dancer, Bryan Tanaka, 33, rumored to be Carey’s new flame following the dissolution of her engagement to billionaire James Packer in October, escorted the singer as she walked down a series of steps to sing “O Holy Night,” the kind of showstopper that proves she still has what most singers don’t — her justifiably famous whistle register, the highest the human voice can achieve.
Carey’s glittering string of Christmas concerts in NYC — now in its third year and running through Dec. 17 — recall her 1990s glory, but the 46-year-old voluptuary is also looking forward by busily extending her brand beyond the stage. In May, she struck a deal with the Hallmark Channel to produce and star in three upcoming movies, and her first television series, “Mariah’s World,” debuted on E! this past Sunday.
“We started out and I got very protective,” Carey, who calls “Mariah’s World” a “tour doc” rather than a reality series, told The Post earlier this week at the Empire State Building. But she says she relaxed as she became better acquainted with the production crew.
The show follows the star from her home in Calabasas, Calif., to a yacht docked off Capri, Italy, and then on a multicity concert tour that kicks off in Glasgow, Scotland. Fans see her: doting over Moroccan and Monroe (aka “Roc and Roe”), her adorable 5-year-old twins with ex-husband Nick Cannon; working on arrangements with members of her band; and selecting dancers for the tour, including Tanaka.
The pair first met in 2005. “I was a young buck,” Tanaka says in the first episode. “I was this green rookie when I first worked with her. Like so many things have happened. I grew up. I turned into a man. And she’s
“I was this green rookie when I first worked with her. Like so many things have happened. I grew up. I turned into a man. And she’s gone through so much.” — dancer Bryan Tanaka (above) on working with Carey again
gone through so much.”
Carey has come to the Empire State Building in between concerts to switch on the red-and-green tower lights for the holiday season. In contrast to her Beacon Theatre performances, she is dressed casually. Seven-inch black platform heels by Azzedine Alaïa, who also did Carey’s snug black trousers. Awhite satin bustier by La Perla. Asimple red cardigan, cinched at the waist with a patent-leather belt, pulls the ensemble together. “Well,” Carey says, “I try to do some
thing simple.” Not simple at all is the stunning ruby chandelier necklace draped around her neck that gives new meaning to the phrase “treasure chest.”
“This is my Christmas necklace,” she says. “I wear it to Christmas dinner.”
It’s a stormy night up on the observatory deck. Outside, the wind whistles like Carey high notes. Inside, the singer leans against a window frame and poses for photos, receiving touch-ups from a hairdresser and makeup artist between each shot while her manager, the formidable Stella Bulochnikov, organizes interviews. Tourists who’ve come to the 86th floor to take in the dazzling views postpone their trip down to the lobby to swarm the star and take photos of her with their phones.
Ronit Roy, who is visiting New York from Sydney, Australia, explains the attraction. “It’s that time of year,” he says. “I don’t really listen to Mariah. But there is that Christmas album.”
There are actually two Christmas al- bums, “Merry Christmas” (1994) and “Merry Christmas II You” (2010), and the singer has used the holiday to bolster her career and help further her brand. In addition to the concerts, she starred in a Hallmark TV movie, “A Christmas Melody,” that proved so popular, the greeting-card retailer signed her to produce, star and write an original song for three more
films. The first is expected for Valentine’s Day 2017. She will be back home in Calabasas for the holiday itself.
“I cook a traditional dinner on Christmas,” she says. “And then on Christmas Eve, I do a linguine with white-clam sauce. It’s my dad’s linguine with whiteclam sauce [recipe]. He passed away a while ago. It’s one of the best things he gave me. I do Italian food, even though I’m not Italian.”
Carey’s guests at dinner will include a “mixed-bag family. People I’ve known since I was 15. People that are newer friends.”
Of course, Roc and Roe will be there. So what is Carey, who sang “All I Want for Christmas Is You” to her kids sitting in the audience at her Wednesday-night concert, getting the tykes for presents?
“They want a few big items, and it’s not that I don’t want to give them to them,” she says. “I try to teach them you can’t have everything. And I want them to write their letters to Santa because now they’re starting to read. I want to get the letters and save them.”
When Carey and her entourage prepare to leave, a young man emerges from the wings to escort her out of the building: Tanaka, the boyfriend she won’t talk about.
Carey will be back in New York on Dec. 31, singing in Times Square, for the first time since 2006 was rung in, when Dick Clark was still alive and hosting the ABC “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” show. She loved working with Clark and loves the feeling of being out there with the crowds.
“I love the confetti,” she says. And being in the center of it all.