It will be A Very Harlequin Christmas for Lady Gaga fans. The singer is announcing today that her long-awaited concert film “Lady Gaga in Harlequin Live — One Night Only” will arrive down fans’ digital chimneys on the night before Christmas, bowing at 4 p.m. PT on YouTube.
The reveal of the airdate comes on the heels of the project’s premiere at the Grammy Museum, which had Gaga participating in an in-depth Q&A with Variety‘s Chris Willman about the new film and the album that precipitated it, “Harlequin.” That late 2024 recording is currently up for a Grammy for best traditional pop album, on top of the seven nods her other recent album, “Mayhem,” collected going into the looming Feb. 1 ceremony.
The filmed spinoff of “Harlequin” was shot at the Belasco Theatre in downtown L.A. on Sept. 30, 2024, in a post-midnight concert that was received ecstatically by the small congregation of fans who gained entry at the time — and was documented in a very enthusiastic review from Variety, the only media outlet to cover the show. Then it never came up again before now, being held back just long enough to have nearly fallen into the realm of Little Monster myth.
She addressed the timing of this Wednesday’s surprise release in the Grammy Museum conversation. “I’m feeling like: Why not? We have this thing that’s so special to us, so we’re just really happy to share it with the fans,” she said. “It’s kind of a rebellious project. And, by Harlequin standards, Christmas is the perfect time to release something rebellious.”
Fans had wondered if the concert movie might’ve gotten lost amid the “Mayhem” of the past year, with that subsequent album and its massive arena tour following so quickly on the heels of “Harlequin.” Her plan, she said, had long been to bring out the much-anticipated film after some sort of pause. “It was interesting — when we first saw the footage, we said, ‘This is not the right time to put this out.’ And we collectively agreed that we would allow the lore of the Belasco performance to bloom with the fans, until it felt like time… And so this is like a Christmas present.”
It was just a few blocks from the Grammy Museum at the Belasco 15 months ago when Gaga and a hopping six-piece band performed her then-brand-new “Harlequin” album in its entirety. (Technically, it was actually the next morning, since the semi-secret gig started after midnight… though exact times were hard to measure, since smartwatches were locked up along with phones.) The raucous show was rapturously received by about a thousand fans who witnessed stripped-down and slightly rocked-out arrangements of songs like “That’s Entertainment,” “That’s Life” and “When the Saints Go Marching In,” along with a pair of originals that also appeared on the “Harlequin” album. The strange, very theatrical production design added a level of intrigueL Even though she was dipping into material that mostly dated back to the 1930s through ’60s, Gaga might never have given a more energetic performance in her career, dancing with wild abandon — while never losing her breath or her perfect pitch — and seeming to get as many frenetic steps in on a small stage as she soon would working the epic ramps with more structured choreography at Coachella a few months later.
But with not even any photos officially or unofficially released, there was little tangible proof that this veritable Bigfoot sighting of a concert ever happened. Variety‘s review ran under a highly promissory headline: “Lady Gaga’s Secret Late-Night Performance at L.A.’s Belasco Was Bonkers — and One of the Best Things She’s Ever Done.” And since then, you kind of had to take our word for it.
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Now she’s pleased to be letting the rest of the world into the early-morning “Harlequin” fever dream.”It was nice to see you all in here watching it,” Gaga told the crowd after watching the last part of the movie from the wings of the Grammy Museum’s 200-seat Clive Davis Theater — adding, as if she were as surprised as anyone that it’s going public, “I couldn’t believe it.”
What YouTubers will see Christmas Eve and beyond is a project that defies overly easy characterizations. Its closest kinship is obviously to the two albums she did with the late Tony Bennett — both of which won the Grammy for best traditional pop album, the category she’s entered in as a solo artist this time — and her long-running “Jazz & Piano” residency in Las Vegas, which also found her taking on pre-rock classics and standards. But the production design of the filmed concert performance could not be further away from the sheer elegance of those presentations. It presents her and her six-piece band in a shockingly disheveled-looking apartment setting, where the window blinds probably haven’t been straight in a few decades, and there’s unmade bedding on a mattress on the floor. The set dressing is messy and shadowy, and yet, performance-wise, Gaga has never seemed more exhilarated.
The idea for the production design for the filming sprang from a photo shoot that Gaga did for the “Harlequin” artwork. But it also sprang from thinking back on the days when she still counted as aspirational, at best, as a performer. The whole concept came together quickly when it was rather spontaneously decided to perform the entire album live.
“What’s so interesting is, I was meant to do that performance as three songs, as just kind of a celebration after the premiere of ‘Joker.’ And a couple days before, Michael and I were like, ‘What? We’re just gonna do the whole album’,” she said. “I had just filmed the ‘Disease’ video [for the ‘Mayhem’ single] a couple weeks before, and I just loved working with Marcell (Rev, the director of photography). He’s this incredible artist, and he gets like right in there. So after doing ‘Disease,’ we thought, ‘What if we worked with him on this?’
“And once everything came together with the production design, it really came together because of the album art that we shot in Las Vegas while we were there finishing the record, where it was all shot in this dingy apartment. And when I met the guys that I made the record with, some of them 20 years ago, I was living in a dingy apartment on the Lower East Side. That’s where I had all my crazy ideas about anything. So that’s how the emotional and raw quality of how we made it made its way into this performance.”
The fact that it was only at the relative last minute that they decided to perform the entire album instead of three songs didn’t mean Gaga felt anything but ready for that. “Before you sing one of these records in the studio, you gotta like really know it. You can’t be learning it. I learned that also from being in the studio one time with Tony and not being prepared. Big mistake! So now, I will sing these songs hundreds of times before I even record them. And these guys, we know the arrangements. So we kept a lot of it loose. We did, I think, two days of rehearsal before we did this. And the point of the whole thing was to capture it in its rawness with all of the fabric of emotional jazz music. So, no, we didn’t prepare that much. But in a way, I had been preparing for this for years.”
Although you won’t hear a huge amount of this in the music, Gaga revealed a perhaps surprising inspiration for the evolution of her jazz music, which she and other players found while sitting around in Las Vegas, after attending her trumpeter Brian Newman’s 1 a.m. club shows following her own residency gigs. In these wee-hours discussions, a different kind of influence came up. “We actually found our way into ‘Harlequin,’ I think, through guitar and our shared love of surf punk. And we sort of said, ‘You know, what if we were to kind of guide some of these productions in that direction?’”
This rawer approach to taking on the Great American Songbook is also symbolized in elements like having one of her band members do the whole set in a sleeveless tuxedo, baring his tatted-up arms. What would Tony Bennett have made of a wardrobe choice like that, we asked?
“Tony loved ‘Artpop,’ so I know Tony would’ve gone, ‘Wow. Yeah,’” Gaga answered. “Or, someone would’ve gotten fired!” she cheerfully added.
Although Gaga is being nominated for best traditional pop album on her own for the first time, without being in collaboration with Bennett, she isn’t thinking of it that way. “I’m not in the category alone, I don’t feel, because I guess I’ll always feel like Tony is with me in the category — and also all these musicians that I’ve been making music with for the last two decades are with me.” She noted some possible irony in the division the “Harlequin” album is entered in. “In the great American lexicon of these vintage pop songs, to me and to Tony, definitely this category would just be a ‘pop’ category — it wouldn’t be a ‘traditional pop’ category. It’s only over time that what that means changes. But it feels amazing to be nominated for this album, which means so, so much to me. We cared about this music so much and it was such an interesting process, creating it.”
The process was very different than with the two Bennett collaborative albums. “When we were in the studio, I was like, ‘Ben (Benjamin Rice, the co-producer of the “Harlequin” music), why don’t you bring in some trash cans and we’ll use them as a drum kit?’ It was like, what were the ways that we could kind of break the music? Because we were thinking about comic books and jazz, and how could we think about this with humor and with fun in an almost childlike way — almost immature, or, yeah, a little bit bonkers. That gave way ror some really exciting new renditions. The style of the record really came from a deep relationship that I’ve built with all of these musicians for the last two decades. And, approaching the music in this new way and without Tony there, it was different. Working with Tony, when we would plan stuff, we’d put suits on to go in the studio and be like, ‘Mr. Bennett, we’d like to play something for you.’ I’d lean into Brian (Newman, one of her co-musical directors) and be like, ‘Don’t fuck it up, Brian!’ So, this was different. He wasn’t there and it gave way for the album to be pretty rebellious. But he was totally there in spirit.”
Bennett is there in a little more than just spirit in the “Harlequin” film. As Gaga sings the set’s most understated song, “Smile,” while singing on that dilapidated mattress, the camera catches a tiny black-and-white TV at the bottom of the bed that is playing a repeating black-and-white tape loop of Bennett.
“Well, he loved ‘Smile,’” Gaga said of the homage. “And man, could he sing it, too — Tony’s version of ‘Smile’ was my favorite, after Nat King Cole’s. So, having him there, it was one of those wild moments in a stage performance where you’re bringing in a little bit of the real world, with a little bit of a wink. It’s an old video of him; it’s not a video of us together. It wasn’t meant to be a memorial or anything. It was meant to be more about who she might have been thinking about — which is most certainly true.”
Gaga sometimes spoke of her persona in the “Harlequin” concert film as if it were a character, using third-person terms like “her” and “this gal.” But she’s definitely not in character as Harley Quinn, despite the lineage that had most of these songs having been used, in very different styles and arrangements, in the “Joker: Folie à Deux” movie. In fact, it seems to have been important to Gaga to recast these songs for her album in a style that is purely hers. During the film, Gaga speaks to the crowd about her own life and feelings, so there’s no strictly Method acting going on. But she is possibly sometimes playing the role of a more innocent, pre-fame Gaga, as when she introduces “That’s Entertainment” by invoking her 9-year-old self, experiencing music in its most innocent and jubilant mode, without career expectations. It may be that 9-year-old that’s coming out when, at a couple of points, Gaga rips open the pillows on that unmade bed and throws the feathers around.
But things get very un-childlike for what is almost assuredly the most personal moment of the whole performance, when she sings “Happy Mistake,” one of two new and original songs from the “Harlequin” album. Except for the first 30 seconds, the entire song consists of one take, with the camera circling around her on stage as she belts out a number with deeper meanings for her than “That’s Entertainment,” bangs hanging over her eyes. Afterward, she is clearly teary… and clearly undistracted by the camera work happening in her immediate vicinity.
“That song, ‘Happy Mistake,’ was very much inspired by a time and an era in my life where… it felt like being happy would be an accident, it felt so impossible. And a lot of my decision-making for all the projects that I was taking on during this time came from a really deep, soulful attraction to wanting to help tell that story of what it feels like to be someone that’s misunderstood in that way. So that song is very meaningful to me. When you write something like that, when you just seem like you’re living in hell… I think the gift of for me in doing this performance was: I was so happy. … You are able to appreciate the writing in the song and you get to embrace the arrangement, but you’re not so deeply tormented by what you’re saying that you can’t get it out in that artful way where you can witness yourself.
“What that leads me to is, with the camera, I always feel very connected to Marcell when we work together. It’s not the relationship where I go, ‘Oh, the camera’s here, so I’m gonna point my face like this, because that’s a good angle.’ I don’t think about it that way. It’s more like we’re doing a dance, and we’re in it together, and I know where the lights are and I know where the fans are and I feel the music and I’m telling the story and he’s helping me tell it. So I’d say it’s just an unspoken companionship, and that happens in music, too. And I think I’m just really lucky. I’ve gotten to make some movies in addition to all the other things that I’ve done, and in making ‘A Star Is Born,’ even, it helps you figure out how to be aware of what we’re all at work to do — but also to give yourself to the moment and try to tell a story that will hopefully touch somebody. Maybe one person. It’s all that matters. Maybe it’s your mom.”
An audience member named Edith took the mic during an audience-questions portion of the Q&A, saying that even the sequencing of the songs in the “Harlequin” album and film seemed to tell a story she found personally moving. “I was there at the ‘Harlequin’ show and it was one of the best nights of my life,” said the young woman. “That album really means a lot to me, because often I feel misunderstood…”
Gaga offered an extensive and detailed answer to the woman’s ultimate question about how she sequences albums, saying she will spend months pondering the song order on every record to produce just the right emotional arc. But she hadn’t lost sight of the original crux of Edith’s question. Three minutes into this fairly technical answer, Gaga blurted: “Can I give you a hug?”
Gaga gave props to her fiancé and creative partner, Michael Polansky; on the “Harlequin” concert film, they share credit as its creative directors and executive producers.
“We have been working together closely for a while now, but this was our first musical project together, and it was amazing. I think what we all need the most is somebody that believes in the thing that we wanna say. And I think we also both have a soft spot for people that feel like misunderstood, and this album and this performance very much orbits this lady” who feels that way. “So it was an incredibly beautiful process — being in the studio recording, planning everything, putting this (film) together, every single aspect we do as a team… One of the things I love about working with Michael is that he has this closeness with me where he sees my artistry and my musicianship in its infancy, in its raw form. So whether I want to overthink it or someone else wants to overthink it, or somebody wants to come in and go, ‘What does it all mean? What’s the strategy behind it? How will we market it?,’ he will help in every possible way to make sure that the purity of it is not destroyed. And we do that together.”
On the lighter side, an audience member in the front row shared, “We had an amazing idea last night that, for your wedding, you should come down the aisle in Volantis, the flying dress” (a legendary outfit dating back to an “Artpop” event in 2013).
“That would be dangerous,” Gaga laughed, and that was all there was to say about that.
But there was plenty more to say about jazz, even as, at one point, minutes into an answer Gaga apologized: “Sorry to ramble about music” — before remembering that if there’s anywhere to go on a pure music ramble, it’s at the Grammy Museum.
There is more of it being created, even now, with the Mayhem Ball tour — which began five months ago — scheduled to resume Jan. 21 in Osaka and then finally wrap up at Madison Square Garden April .
“It is extremely helpful, wonderful, and amazing to have a partner that I can make music with. So we set up a studio in all the rooms that we’re in (on tour), and we record in the hotel. There’s a piano and mic, and so whenever it feels like it’s a good time to make music, then we just do it. I think when I was in my early twenties, I was this very Method human being where, with every project that I took on, I was always living in it 24/7. And I think some of my age and experience has taken me to this new time in my life where I feel like I can approach it as the creator and the artist and not be lost in it. So when I get on stage for the Mayhem Ball, I am fully in that for the two hours and 40 minutes I’m on stage. And every day I go in early to the venue and do unique arrangements for the show to keep it fresh and fun and interesting for the fans. But then when it’s over, I drop it. And that leaves a lot more space for me to then write something new, because it frees my mind up. So I take care of myself as much as I can on the road, and I’m finding that that’s leading to a lot of songwriting, which is the best.”
Taking stock of the setting again, Gaga said, “I’m feeling very grateful that the Grammys recognized this album that’s making me feel very celebrated, as a female in music. And this project for me is a really special way to gave my fans some insight into who I want to become, as a jazz musician. This will not be my last jazz record. So it’s just exciting to keep going. And I do feel no matter where music takes me, it’s the one thing that’s pretty insatiable in me — it will never be enough. Because even when I’m in my nineties, I will never have gone through every genre and figured it all out.”
“Lady Gaga in Harlequin Live — One Night Only” is a Morningview Production, with Gaga and Polansky serving as executive producers. The two share creative direction credit with Todd Tourso and Mel Roy of mtla.studio. Marcell Rev was director of photography Marcell Rév, and musical direction is credited Gaga and her band members Brian Newman, Tim Stewart, and Alex Smith.
From Variety US