I went to see the Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary concert/show/movie thing. I don't even know how to explain what it is exactly. It's the musical show screened in a movie theater from the Royal Albert Hall in London, England. It's like the actual musical but filmed so more people can see it. I took my grandparents with me, we sat in the cold theater for like 3 hours. It was an alright show...I mean I'm very picky when it comes to things I like.
The Breakdown--(SPOILERS-ish)
The good:
+I liked the extra scenes they showed on the projection screens. Like the Phantom writing the notes as he was reading them.
+The closeups of everyone's faces. I mean the only way you'll be able to see close up of the actors' faces on Broadway is if you pay an exorbitant amount of money to sit in the front row (which I have done...cough).
+The woman who played Carlotta was pretty good, as well as the dude who played the husband in the production of Il Muto.
+"Masquerade" was awesome. It was great to have a lot of people on stage for once during that song. In the actual Broadway/West End production, there aren't that many people on stage, half of the performers are actually mannequins dressed in costume to fill out the staircase. But in this show, they had three full staircases of people. Which made it look pretty impressive.
+Colm Wilkinson. <3. I love Colm Wilkinson. If you don't understand, then you haven't seen the 10th Anniversary Concert of Les Miserables. Here. Watch at 7:13. I have never heard anyone pull that one note off. He had also played the Phantom at one time or another. His voice is amazing, with a huge range of notes. If you want to see his 25th Anniversary performance it is here. Starting at 7:40. He, Anthony Warlow (who is also amazing), John Owen Jones who is also...you guessed it amazing and some other dude on the end who...has a horrible voice for the Phantom and I don't know why they picked him. It was always said that Andrew Lloyd Webber wanted a "rock and roll" voice for the Phantom which is why he picked ohGod Gerard Butler for the role in the 2004 movie which...was a poor choice. Broadway has always taken the Phantom's voice to be more of a tenor, more classically trained. While I feel West End productions always looked for a Phantom with a really powerful voice, a voice which could blow you out of the water, hence John Owen Jones (Anthony Warlow was the first Australian Phantom but I feel he is also West End Production material). Colm Wilkinson on the other hand, I feel has that rock and roll quality that Webber was looking for without being limited in its range or not "musical theater" enough.
+Seeing the Phantom actually strangle Buquet was a change. It was a good change I thought considering I've only seen the production on Broadway where it's only a shadow fight.
+The fact that the Phantom actually catches Christine instead of just letting her drop to the floor like he does in the Broadway production.
+The boxes in the side and people in period costumes actually as part of the musical but playing the "audience". That's pretty cool.
The Eh:
+The casting of the three principal actors--
=Ramin Karimloo was never my first pick for the Phantom. Never. I don't know how to explain it. I always thought his voice was too low for the Phantom. Now I've been listening to Michael Crawford since I was a little kid. I saw the Broadway productions with Hugh Panaro and saw youtube videos of John Cudia. Their voices are a bit more in the tenor range. They still have a fullness in the lower range but their high notes are awesome. Which they have to be for the role. The Phantom goes high up there on a lot of the songs. But Ramin Karimloo has more of a baritone voice. He never seemed comfortable with the higher notes, he just sort of...blasts them at you rather than floating over the note. I'm not saying he doesn't have an awesome voice as well but it never fit with my version of what the Phantom should sound like. He was great as Enjrolas in Les Mis with his voice but not the Phantom. There's also the fact that he was in the disaster that was the Phantom sequel "Love Never Dies." I heard he was the reason that there was a revival for the Phantom in the West End which I don't really understand and I hate his over-enunciations.
=Sierra Boggess. Dear me. I never liked her. Which sounds really really horrible. But it's true. She was the original cast of The Little Mermaid on Broadway and when I saw the preview for that show on TV there was something about her that annoyed me. I never thought her voice was that operatic and I feel like she had to get mondo training to sing like this. She was the original Las Vegas cast but her voice is too thin to be Christine. I mean if Christine is supposed to have all this singing potential, shouldn't her voice at least be powerful? Maybe they meant to base her off of Sarah Brightman's voice but even though I really really really don't like Sarah Brightman, I have to admit she at least had a fullness to her voice. Boggess was also in "Love Never Dies" which is an automatic strike against her and she has weird over-enunciations as well and an odd accent when she sings. It's like an Irish lilt. She sings this line "Am I now to be prey to your lust for flesh?" and says flesh like fliiiiiish. I was like what is that? Is flish anything like flesh? I have to admit that she can act though. I actually caught myself feeling bad for her throughout the show so I guess that's one thing she can do right.
=Hadley Fraser as Raoul. He was pretty angry throughout the whole show. Not the doting boyfriend he was supposed to be. He never really seemed like he cared for Christine at all. More just thought she was annoying or delusional most of the time. I felt like he was just rolling his eyes at her for the whole duration of the musical. So at the very end when the Phantom kidnaps Christine and he's supposed to save her, you don't really believe that he cares. It made the impact of their love story at the end very anti-climactic. His voice was good but his acting was off.
+The fact that the Phantom tries to choke Christine. The nature of his character is that he loves her so much he would kill FOR her but not actually...kill her. That goes against everything he believe in. I mean if he was just going to hurt Christine, why make her marry him and not just kill her if he couldn't have her? It even says in the musical "Did you think that I would harm her? Why should I make her pay, for the sins which are yours?" So after he chokes her he says that line in the show...which makes NO sense! He just did harm her!
+The fact that Christine is crying when she leaves the Phantom. In the Broadway musical you feel as if she pities him and feels sorry for him but understands that they'll never be able to be together. She can't be with someone so emotionally unstable. And I don't think she ever really felt romantically about him. He was more a father figure while he was the one who felt romantically about her. But in the show, she's crying like she loved him her whole life and wants to be with him and it's like Raoul has to drag her away. If she felt like that, why not just stay with the Phantom? It doesn't make much sense in the context of the thing.
+The fact that the chandelier didn't even fall, not even just a little bit. I mean it doesn't make sense why everyone would be running of the stage for a chandelier that's just sparking. I mean why would a candle-lit chandelier be sparking in the first place? In the beginning of the musical the chandelier is fitted for the "new electric light" so it wasn't electric before.
+The sets were very minimal which sort of disappointed me. They used a lot of the projections to make the sets but I wish they had done the real Broadway/West End sets.
+The piccolo player messed up. It was his moment! His solo! And he flubbed it. I felt bad for him or er..her.
This was long. But it's a long show. I feel like they should have cast it better but I can't really go against the show's creator who handpicked them. So I can only gripe about them after they'd been picked.
Yay.I'm not alone.
ReplyDeleteI think some other actors were better than Ramin Karimloo.
For example the standby Phantom if 2004-2006. He has a natural husky/raspy voice. He sounds like baritone but can hit the tenor range easily. He supposed to be the next principal, but he chose to be The Beast instead.
Yay.I'm not alone.
ReplyDeleteI think some other actors were better than Ramin Karimloo.
For example the standby Phantom if 2004-2006. He has a natural husky/raspy voice. He sounds like baritone but can hit the tenor range easily. He supposed to be the next principal, but he chose to be The Beast instead.