Viewers commenting online focused on the duet’s balance. One fan praised H.E.R. And Groban for allowing each other room, calling it a true collaboration rather than a contest and admiring the blend of their voices. Another welcomed Groban’s turn as a Disney prince, humorously suggesting that his voice was capable of charming fish out of the ocean.

Both performers already had connections to Disney. For the 2017 live-action version of Beauty and the Beast, Groban sang “Evermore” over the end credits. H.E.R.’s association dated to childhood: at age 12, she competed on the Radio Disney program The Next Big Thing, entering with her original song “My Music.”

A year after the anniversary special, Groban moved from The Beast to the title villain in Stephen Sondheim’s musical Sweeney Todd. Speaking with Yahoo News, he compared The Beast with Sweeney Todd’s Benjamin Barker and described their central tensions as inverse versions of a similar idea: the divide between a human being and a monster.

Groban said the characters invite questions about how that division is created and which parts of them people may identify in themselves. In approaching either role, he found it more compelling to connect with the human presence within the character than to concentrate on an expansive, forceful depiction of monstrosity.