Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary Tour
I went to see the Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversay show last night. It was birlliant! Love the new staging!!
It seems to be the norm with these anniversary shows that they like to redesign the show (Happened with Les Mis, worked birlliantly), and they did the same here. The new staging was brilliant. There were the boxes and stage as normal, but they were designed differently and moved differently. The rest of the stage was on tracks, and each room would appear from different parts. For examplpe, what you thought was a solid wall would be opened up to see the inside of the Manager's office. It created the feeling of being backstage in a theatre really well.
The decent to the Phantom's lair was brilliant. They appeared at the top of the set and walked along it for a while, before they opened a door out towards the stage and these steps down to the stage appeared out of the set. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this very well, but it was brilliant. Then they did the boat thing and the steps disappeared into the wall. The wall then split down the middle to reveal his lair. Brilliant!!!
As this is the touring version, there was no chandlier crash before the interval, which I was kind of disappointed by, but I guess you can't have everything.
Okay so on to the cast. I was really impressed by the cast. John Owen-Jones played the Phantom, and was Phantastic. Katie Hall was Christine, and I was impressed by her acting, but I disliked her voice. She couldn't always hit the notes properly and used vibrato to cover it, and there was far too much vibrato on the whole. She sounded too much like Carlotta. I know she's meant to be an opera singer, but I prefer Christine's who use only minimal vibrato. Raoul was played by Simon Baily, and although he did not look like Raoul to me, he was very good.
They changed some of the lyrics and script for the show. It wasn't too distracting and I understand sometimes lyric/script changes are needed/worth while, but I went to see the show I knew and loved, and at times I would stop watching for a moment because I was taking in the changes.
Tne only major issue with the show was that you could hear them moving the set around at times, and the dancers often sounded lkike elephants stomping around the stage. It was bareable though.
The Phantom's disappearance was brilliant. There was no chair in this show, and for a moment I thought that they had caught him. He pulled the hood of his cloak up and turned his back to the audience while Meg held his shoulders. Meg then stepped back and the cloak drops to the ground - the Phantom no where to be seen. I've still no idea how they do either trick.
And thats all my thoughts for the moments. If you have any other questions about the show, please let me know!
It seems to be the norm with these anniversary shows that they like to redesign the show (Happened with Les Mis, worked birlliantly), and they did the same here. The new staging was brilliant. There were the boxes and stage as normal, but they were designed differently and moved differently. The rest of the stage was on tracks, and each room would appear from different parts. For examplpe, what you thought was a solid wall would be opened up to see the inside of the Manager's office. It created the feeling of being backstage in a theatre really well.
The decent to the Phantom's lair was brilliant. They appeared at the top of the set and walked along it for a while, before they opened a door out towards the stage and these steps down to the stage appeared out of the set. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this very well, but it was brilliant. Then they did the boat thing and the steps disappeared into the wall. The wall then split down the middle to reveal his lair. Brilliant!!!
As this is the touring version, there was no chandlier crash before the interval, which I was kind of disappointed by, but I guess you can't have everything.
Okay so on to the cast. I was really impressed by the cast. John Owen-Jones played the Phantom, and was Phantastic. Katie Hall was Christine, and I was impressed by her acting, but I disliked her voice. She couldn't always hit the notes properly and used vibrato to cover it, and there was far too much vibrato on the whole. She sounded too much like Carlotta. I know she's meant to be an opera singer, but I prefer Christine's who use only minimal vibrato. Raoul was played by Simon Baily, and although he did not look like Raoul to me, he was very good.
They changed some of the lyrics and script for the show. It wasn't too distracting and I understand sometimes lyric/script changes are needed/worth while, but I went to see the show I knew and loved, and at times I would stop watching for a moment because I was taking in the changes.
Tne only major issue with the show was that you could hear them moving the set around at times, and the dancers often sounded lkike elephants stomping around the stage. It was bareable though.
The Phantom's disappearance was brilliant. There was no chair in this show, and for a moment I thought that they had caught him. He pulled the hood of his cloak up and turned his back to the audience while Meg held his shoulders. Meg then stepped back and the cloak drops to the ground - the Phantom no where to be seen. I've still no idea how they do either trick.
And thats all my thoughts for the moments. If you have any other questions about the show, please let me know!