devil take the
So just back from seeing Love Never Dies at the Capitol.
Still reeling from that ending. I said to the Aunt: "We have to stop going to see musicals on my birthday. The last one we went to see was Les Miserables. People keep DYING in musicals on my birthday!"
I think that was really quite cruel, to kill Christine off like that. It seemed so horribly random, all that hard-earned long-denied happiness so close and then just snatched away. Most of me feels disappointed and deeply saddened --- but then I've been sad all day --- and yet a tiny part of me knows that yes, this is a tragedy, it was always going to be a tragedy and I just happily forgot in the delirium wish fulfilment of all my dreams and stories coming true onstage in front of me.
The production surpassed everything I could have hoped for. I mean, the sheer technical achievement of so much moving set, that revolving stage, those quickly dropped backdrops, the extraordinary rigging of moving catwalks and so much dazzling trickery with mirrors. Fucking fantastic set. I like to think even Robert Helpmann would have approved. *beams*
And the score. Gosh, it was so complex. The Aunt and I were discussing how much we both concentrated because the whole thing was so new to us and we're used to knowing Phantom by heart, enough that we can afford to ignore the main action for a bit to focus on a side thing. Here, because it was all so new to us, we had to focus a hundred per cent of the time. Apparently the Aunt didn't get all of the lyrics. Me, I realised at one point I was listening so hard, so totally focused that I hadn't moved and was all tensed and coiled. The Aunt said she barely blinked, her eyes were even drying out. *lol* I didn't quite have that problem, I don't think.
I could see how people wouldn't like this, though. Aside from the utterly shocking and devastating end. I could see how people could protest the melodrama and all but then if you don't like melodrama, you really shouldn't be watching anything Phantom-related.
My fellow Phanatic had already told me there was one bit that quite eerily echoed a bit in my fic. I'm not entirely sure which bit she means --- I'll have to ask --- but my god, there was so much that had me grinning silently in the dark. The whole dissatisfaction with Raoul, the whole rediscovery of her voice. And dude, I so totally guessed about lil Gustave.
Can't wait to get the DVD that comes out in four days. And I'm totally dying for the cast recording but unfortunately the only one out at the moment is the UK version, and both the Aunt and I really want our own Aussie version.
Because my god, those voices were astounding. Madame Giry was a bit off but the others? Flawfuckingless. And I was sooooooo delighted that we got both principal leads. Someone said to us recently that you usually get the understudies at matinee performances and I practically spat nails at that. Mind you, I had enough time to resign myself to the very real possibility and console myself with the fact that I had no knowledge of this production or the story or the score so I had no expectations and no preconceived notion of how the parts should be sung. I told myself I wouldn't mind the understudies so much.
But I did so very much want to see Ben Lewis after hearing my fellow Phanatic rave on about him.
He was magnificent. He was everything I could have hoped for. Tall and gorgeous and lean and graceful and skilful. Romantic and lustful and yearning and vicious and manipulative and heartbreaking. Okay, a few times he was a leetle too melodramatic but then so was Christine and hallo, melodrama, remember? And his voice ... my god, it was spellbinding. The sheer range of it ... not in terms of octaves, I mean, but in terms of styles ... how he could do tender, do screaming, do powerful, do deep and dark, do the sweetest heartwrenching tremulous notes. Do all that and still negotiate all that tricky movement about the revolving stage in between so many moving objects. He was marvellous, an utterly ravishing Phantom.
But then omg, Anna O'Byrne as Christine. Admittedly, I've never seen a bad Christine but she ... when she sang the title song and the melody swelled so loud and her voice soared so loud over it, matching decibel for decibel, note for note ... dear god, I was in chills and chills and chills. And she was so beautiful, passionate and tormented and strong and sweet too. The Aunt found her very tall indeed, perfectly suited to Ben Lewis' height. I thought she carried those exquisite costumes so well, always looked perfectly natural in them.
Bloody hell, she had at least one lightning quick costume change. And Sharon Millerchip as Meg had not one but two instances of performing a damned energetic song and dance number and then going straight into a song with Madame Giry. Extraordinary talent, that girl, I think we saw her in Chicago. She very nearly stole the show for me, I swear.
I loved all the shades of grey in this production. No one was all good and no one was all bad. It was wonderful direction, wonderful characterisation. Even Raoul who was totally demonised in the first half, making me wince for all the Raoul/Christine shippers in the audience, was quite touchingly made sympathetic in the second half.
That score really was fascinating, all those little riffs and repeated motifs and melodies from Phantom. Thrice the actual words but soooo many incidences of the same melodies to different words or the melody just a shade different. I can't wait to get a cast recording and learn it so I can fully compare.
I did think it was very interesting tonally because with just one step wrong, it could have gone paedophiliac with the Phantom's focus going from Christine to Gustave. So many times it could have gone that way but they never did, reined it back just in time.
I can't wait to listen to The Beauty Underneath over and over again. It was so electrifying, that heavy metal guitar and the sheer dizzying glory of all that grotesque visuals. Oh man. I kept thinking: "I have GOT to get shaula82 to see this. First Phantom, then this. She's going to freaking LOVE this scene."
Bloody marvellous, ALW. Really and truly. It was unashamedly ambitious and unapologetically fannish and yet ruthlessly its own creature as well. Holy mother, what a decision to make, what a thought to even have. "What about we kill her off?" Zomg the mindboggling audacity. But then I suppose they have the fiendish satisfaction of seeing audiences stagger out, shellshocked, every night and twice on Saturdays. :p
Oh man, I think I want to see the whole thing again. Whether onstage or on DVD is the question now. Heh.
Still reeling from that ending. I said to the Aunt: "We have to stop going to see musicals on my birthday. The last one we went to see was Les Miserables. People keep DYING in musicals on my birthday!"
I think that was really quite cruel, to kill Christine off like that. It seemed so horribly random, all that hard-earned long-denied happiness so close and then just snatched away. Most of me feels disappointed and deeply saddened --- but then I've been sad all day --- and yet a tiny part of me knows that yes, this is a tragedy, it was always going to be a tragedy and I just happily forgot in the delirium wish fulfilment of all my dreams and stories coming true onstage in front of me.
The production surpassed everything I could have hoped for. I mean, the sheer technical achievement of so much moving set, that revolving stage, those quickly dropped backdrops, the extraordinary rigging of moving catwalks and so much dazzling trickery with mirrors. Fucking fantastic set. I like to think even Robert Helpmann would have approved. *beams*
And the score. Gosh, it was so complex. The Aunt and I were discussing how much we both concentrated because the whole thing was so new to us and we're used to knowing Phantom by heart, enough that we can afford to ignore the main action for a bit to focus on a side thing. Here, because it was all so new to us, we had to focus a hundred per cent of the time. Apparently the Aunt didn't get all of the lyrics. Me, I realised at one point I was listening so hard, so totally focused that I hadn't moved and was all tensed and coiled. The Aunt said she barely blinked, her eyes were even drying out. *lol* I didn't quite have that problem, I don't think.
I could see how people wouldn't like this, though. Aside from the utterly shocking and devastating end. I could see how people could protest the melodrama and all but then if you don't like melodrama, you really shouldn't be watching anything Phantom-related.
My fellow Phanatic had already told me there was one bit that quite eerily echoed a bit in my fic. I'm not entirely sure which bit she means --- I'll have to ask --- but my god, there was so much that had me grinning silently in the dark. The whole dissatisfaction with Raoul, the whole rediscovery of her voice. And dude, I so totally guessed about lil Gustave.
Can't wait to get the DVD that comes out in four days. And I'm totally dying for the cast recording but unfortunately the only one out at the moment is the UK version, and both the Aunt and I really want our own Aussie version.
Because my god, those voices were astounding. Madame Giry was a bit off but the others? Flawfuckingless. And I was sooooooo delighted that we got both principal leads. Someone said to us recently that you usually get the understudies at matinee performances and I practically spat nails at that. Mind you, I had enough time to resign myself to the very real possibility and console myself with the fact that I had no knowledge of this production or the story or the score so I had no expectations and no preconceived notion of how the parts should be sung. I told myself I wouldn't mind the understudies so much.
But I did so very much want to see Ben Lewis after hearing my fellow Phanatic rave on about him.
He was magnificent. He was everything I could have hoped for. Tall and gorgeous and lean and graceful and skilful. Romantic and lustful and yearning and vicious and manipulative and heartbreaking. Okay, a few times he was a leetle too melodramatic but then so was Christine and hallo, melodrama, remember? And his voice ... my god, it was spellbinding. The sheer range of it ... not in terms of octaves, I mean, but in terms of styles ... how he could do tender, do screaming, do powerful, do deep and dark, do the sweetest heartwrenching tremulous notes. Do all that and still negotiate all that tricky movement about the revolving stage in between so many moving objects. He was marvellous, an utterly ravishing Phantom.
But then omg, Anna O'Byrne as Christine. Admittedly, I've never seen a bad Christine but she ... when she sang the title song and the melody swelled so loud and her voice soared so loud over it, matching decibel for decibel, note for note ... dear god, I was in chills and chills and chills. And she was so beautiful, passionate and tormented and strong and sweet too. The Aunt found her very tall indeed, perfectly suited to Ben Lewis' height. I thought she carried those exquisite costumes so well, always looked perfectly natural in them.
Bloody hell, she had at least one lightning quick costume change. And Sharon Millerchip as Meg had not one but two instances of performing a damned energetic song and dance number and then going straight into a song with Madame Giry. Extraordinary talent, that girl, I think we saw her in Chicago. She very nearly stole the show for me, I swear.
I loved all the shades of grey in this production. No one was all good and no one was all bad. It was wonderful direction, wonderful characterisation. Even Raoul who was totally demonised in the first half, making me wince for all the Raoul/Christine shippers in the audience, was quite touchingly made sympathetic in the second half.
That score really was fascinating, all those little riffs and repeated motifs and melodies from Phantom. Thrice the actual words but soooo many incidences of the same melodies to different words or the melody just a shade different. I can't wait to get a cast recording and learn it so I can fully compare.
I did think it was very interesting tonally because with just one step wrong, it could have gone paedophiliac with the Phantom's focus going from Christine to Gustave. So many times it could have gone that way but they never did, reined it back just in time.
I can't wait to listen to The Beauty Underneath over and over again. It was so electrifying, that heavy metal guitar and the sheer dizzying glory of all that grotesque visuals. Oh man. I kept thinking: "I have GOT to get shaula82 to see this. First Phantom, then this. She's going to freaking LOVE this scene."
Bloody marvellous, ALW. Really and truly. It was unashamedly ambitious and unapologetically fannish and yet ruthlessly its own creature as well. Holy mother, what a decision to make, what a thought to even have. "What about we kill her off?" Zomg the mindboggling audacity. But then I suppose they have the fiendish satisfaction of seeing audiences stagger out, shellshocked, every night and twice on Saturdays. :p
Oh man, I think I want to see the whole thing again. Whether onstage or on DVD is the question now. Heh.