This past week I was able to see two more musicals on my list of ones to see, and they were Wicked and Phantom of the Opera. Both were really good, and they didn’t disappoint. Per usual, I will give my opinion on both.
So, let’s start with Wicked. Going in, I was a little bit nervous that I wasn’t going to like it because I wasn’t the hugest fan of the soundtrack, but I was blown away. The first thing that helped change my mind was the set. It was one of the coolest sets I’ve seen in awhile. In the book with the same name, the Dragon Clock is a major object, and the producers of the musical saw that. The whole musical takes place within this clock. At the very top of the stage, there is a mechanical dragon that is controlled by one of the tech people when something bad happened. The rest of the stage had gears intertwined with metal, and it looked like the inside of a clock. To get a better picture, here’s a picture of the stage.
The other thing that made it awesome was the acting. It was superb and did justice to the material. The music was also very good. It was just nice to hear both the singing and orchestrations live. Soundtracks do a good job, but live is so much better. If I had to rate this musical one to five, I would give it a four. I would definitely recommend it to my friends, and I may even see it again.
After Wicked, I saw Phantom. Phantom is my favorite musical of all time, and it was one of my life goals to see it in its original theatre, Her Majesty’s. When I found out I was going to London, I swore to myself that if I was only going to see one musical it had to be Phantom, and it was awesome. For me, there could be somewhat terrible actors and Phantom would still be awesome. Because of that, my review will focus on the acting and some particular stuff in the production. The first thing I will focus on is the Phantom. My all-time favorite Phantom is Michael Crawford. I’ve only heard him on recording, but I firmly believe that he had the best interpretation of the part. I have seen Phantom live three times, and the one I saw here is my second favorite. David Shannon did a very good interpretation of the Phantom. He decided to underplay a lot of the emotions, which I thought was good. This kind of helped show how tortured the Phantom was and how demented he was. He also did very good on all the key songs that I judge the Phantom on. The one I judge most on is Music of the Night, and he did an excellent. It was refreshing to hear a not so vibrato tenor do it.
The next person I’m going to look at is Christine. The night we went, we saw Tabitha Webb, the alternate Christine. She blew my socks off and is officially my favorite Christine. She gave the character some backbone when needed and played the innocent card when needed. She had the perfect voice and the perfect emotion throughout. I could see Christine kind of grow throughout, which is important. As for songs, she did perfectly on both Think of Me and Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again. If I had to rate her, I would give her a five out of five.
The last two I’m going to look at are Meg Giry and Raoul. There’s not much to say about these two characters, except the actors gave portrayals that I liked. The actress who played Meg gave her some spunk and sassiness that I haven’t heard/seen with Meg. Meg is usually played as a very innocent ballet girl, and I do like that. Yet, this interpretation was the best. It gave more character to Meg. The actor who played Raoul also gave more character to Raoul. The other times I have seen Phantom, Raoul is played as the cookie-cutter hero, or very two dimensional. The Raoul here gave him some backbone and some realness to the part. In short, he gave Raoul emotion where Raoul should have emotion. In the end, these two interpretations are my all-time favorite.
Before I end this review, I would like to say one thing about the show in particular and that was the Wandering Child scene. It is one of my favorite scenes in Phantom, and it was done really well here. The last two times I saw it, the scene only had a duet between the Phantom and Christine. I like this, but I really love the trio between the Phantom, Christine, and Raoul. When the trio is done, you get the feeling of both reality and fantasy. The duet between the Phantom and Christine give you the fantasy while Raoul gives you the reality. Going into Phantom here, I wasn’t expecting to see the scene. When the scene came on, I saw Raoul and I was wondering why he was there. Then, it hit me that they were going to do the trio. Shivers went down my spine and I was in complete awe by the awesomeness of the scene. Three perfect actors singing a perfect scene. What else would one want. I was in paradise for those short minutes. In the end, I would give this production a 5/5 just like the Broadway one.
After these two musicals, I have one more to go to, and it is a revisit to Love Never Dies. I’ve been hearing that things are changing with it and that it is a little different every night. So, I’m going to go to see if this is true. A review will definitely follow.
Until Next Time,
Jefe
