(Siri Vik in a previous performance at The Shedd; photo by Paul Carter)

By Daniel Buckwalter

She enters Set 1 wearing a short green dress, black tights with green glitter, white ankle boots and a necklace.

The makeup Siri Vik has on gives her the look of an aging showgirl who has seen it all, and perhaps done it all. She is gratified to have made it this far in life, and lets it be known with religious fervor in the 1960 R&B classic Saved, by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

I used to smoke, I used to drink
I used to smoke, drink and dance the hoochie, coo…

I used to cuss, I used to fuss
I used to cuss, fuss and boogie all night long .…

But now I’m standin’ on this corner
Ah, I know right a from wrong
Uh huh
That’s why I’m saved
(Saved)
I’m saved
(Saved)
People, let me tell you ’bout a kingdom come

And we were off and running at The Shedd’s Jacqua Concert Hall for a weekend with Vik and her magnificent talents — Siri Vik: Save for Later — which continues Saturday evening and concludes with a Sunday matinee, all of the pieces being favorites of the Eugene soprano that for varied reasons she had not yet brought to the stage.

There was a small problem with the microphone connected to that dress in Friday night’s Set 1, but Vik handled it with professional charm.

She navigated the tight turns through an eclectic mix of 19 pieces that ranged from R&B, Spanish and French, The Doors and Radiohead, Broadway and opera, all under the umbrella of existentialism that is a theme of all the pieces.

“I do have quirky tastes,” Vik said between songs in Set 1.

She has done deep dives through the years with her selections of composers, never afraid to embrace the sorrow, regret and despair that the characters in the pieces sing.

“There’s value in the messy, the out-of-control,” she told the audience.

It can be biting (Alto’s Lament by Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich), melancholy (Thieving Boy by Cleo Laine) as well as empowering (Pirate Jenny from Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill).

Is That All There Is? — another composition from Leiber and Stoller — offers a character who grows indifferent to the pains of life, to the loss of a home to fire, the loss of joy at the circus and the loss of love.

Is that all there is, is that all there is?
If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is …

The most poignant moment of the show was in Set 2 when Vik, unaccompanied by the seven-piece band behind her, sings Llorando.

Music fans know this piece better as Crying, co-written and performed by Roy Orbison. The Spanish-language version of the song was brought to the public eye by Rebekah Del Rio in the 2001 David Lynch film, Mulholland Drive.

Vik’s version is every bit as wrenching and brilliant. That alone was worth seeing.
And it will be well worth it for you to see Vik at her relaxed finest either at 7:30 p.m. Saturday (Nov. 20) or at 3 p.m. Sunday (Nov. 21). Tickets are at TheShedd.org.