378 posts
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Post by ctas on Jan 20, 2019 15:58:06 GMT
Anyone else find that the tickets for this are criminally expensive? Apart from the brief todaytix offer of £15 seats for that awful balcony (which I’ve booked) I’ve been refreshing the site trying to find something on the days I could go for under £40 Worth turning up to the box office and trying my luck? That said, I’m really excited to see this finally!! Amazon video also has the 1999 live video so I’ve been watching that today in preparation.
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3,057 posts
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Post by ali973 on Jan 20, 2019 16:24:52 GMT
I recently found out that the music will be played live by the ENO orchestra. Should sound amazing and quite different than the existing pre-recorded version which has a very studio sounding synth sound to it.
I saw this cast in Geneva last year (or was it the year before?) and loved it. Great singing by all the leads.
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Post by QueerTheatre on Jan 20, 2019 22:08:13 GMT
I recently found out that the music will be played live by the ENO orchestra. Should sound amazing and quite different than the existing pre-recorded version which has a very studio sounding synth sound to it. I saw this cast in Geneva last year (or was it the year before?) and loved it. Great singing by all the leads. Its still not quite a full live score - some members of the ENO orchestra (i think string section?) will accompany the prerecorded score.
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1,482 posts
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Post by Steve on Jan 23, 2019 17:59:52 GMT
Saw the one-price matinee this afternoon, and it's glorious escapism if you're in the right mood. You'll have to shake the mischievous ghost of Terry Wogan off your shoulder, as this is like Eurovision plus plus plus, with excessively beautiful people flamboyantly gesticulating, as they belt overblown emotionalism, song after song after song, while ripped Cirque de Soleil style acrobats slither up and down walls and do flips that Aston could only dream of. If ever you wanted an escape from the narrow and nauseous politics of Brexit (the echoes are explicitly there in the scenes where the "illegals" and "foreigners" are dispensed with), hearing what sounds like the compressed and compiled hits of Demis Roussos, acted and sung in the style of a Spanish Telenovela, by a superb cast of European singers is precisely the tonic you might crave: all acrobatic movement, luscious and lusciously sung melodies, passionate posturing bodies, dazzling colourful lights making a spare stage beautiful, and one actress, Hiba Tawaji, as Esmerelda, bringing just that little surprising sprinkle of credibility to her emotional expression, to season an otherwise superficial spectacle with a soupcon of realness that cleanses the theatrical palette. Daniel Lavoie is a loveably smooth villain, all grey hair and dark eyebrows, a corrupted Maurice Chevalier lol. All in all, I felt like I went on an immersive 2 hour, forty minute, holiday to an alternative universe (one in which we love Europe, and they love us), where all emotions are large, and we can all love to die for love, if only for a short while, because after all, that's a very silly thing to want to do. With the caveat that Quasimodo has a terrible hairstyle (as if struck by lightning, while applying red hair dye and gel), this is marvellous silly shallow luscious wallowing escapist fun! And it got a raucous standing ovation, a briefly but deeply felt lingering bond of love between a British audience and continental European performers. 4 and a half stars.
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Post by mrdanvers on Jan 24, 2019 8:02:47 GMT
Agree with all of the above. Great entertainment and good to see our biggest theatre extatically rammed. Hope the Maybot isn't going, to sit through 'we are the foreigners with no papers'. Awkward.
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1,046 posts
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Post by jgblunners on Jan 24, 2019 9:26:19 GMT
I would love to see this on Friday but the seats just don't look reasonably priced to me - any ideas whether they're doing day seats? Neither TodayTix nor TKTS seem to have discounts 😢
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Post by phantz on Jan 24, 2019 14:48:40 GMT
Yes. I saw it in Geneva and was thoroughly entertained. Plus, Hiba Tawaji belts Vivre unlike her predecessors like Tina did FTFY
EDIT: She's only a halfway belter. She pulls out on that top D in the final chorus. Tina clearly set the bar way too high (although it's not actually that high)
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3,057 posts
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Post by ali973 on Jan 24, 2019 17:16:04 GMT
I stand corrected. Maybe I should say, her French predecessors. Yes, Tina belted it and so did Patti Russo!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2019 17:23:59 GMT
I thought Tina Arena was terrific when I saw it back in the day. Acting may not have been her strongest suit but by jiminy, that voice is a gift from the Gods.
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520 posts
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Post by anthony on Jan 27, 2019 0:39:41 GMT
Saw it tonight and it was AMAZING. I really wanted Elhaida Dani (the alternative Esmeralda), but I guess that wasn't going to happen on a Sat night (I'm Alive is one of my favourite Eurovision songs ever!). I'm also a big Eurovision buff and missed the national final of France tonight for it, but given that the French National Final is hosted by Garou, it seemed somewhat fitting! The writers were in the audience tonight and got called up on stage and it was just really, really amazing. It was so great hearing the audience sing back the French lyrics to them (a bit like Derniere songs that German musicals do on their last performance, but this wasn't the last performance). I want to see it again ! (on the subject of dodgy surtitles, there was a lyric in Belle which had a lot of people laugh out loud (Frollo's bit was translated to 'Let me enter her garden' or something to that affect). There is a pretty great translation of Belle that was on an old Uwe Kroeger album (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_prC2U16Pc), I don't know why they didn't just use that - it could be the same as the London English version? I'm unsure!).
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Post by Stasia on Jan 27, 2019 11:46:09 GMT
anthony but why were surtitles dodgy? The French text has exactly the same meaning
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Post by Montmartre on Jan 27, 2019 16:04:02 GMT
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378 posts
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Post by ctas on Jan 27, 2019 20:51:14 GMT
I’m still on cloud nine after this afternoon’s performance. Tried my luck at the box office and managed to get a dress circle ticket for £30 and was enthralled from start to finish. Can’t quite believe I’ve finally seen this show! I’ve been a fan for so long and never had the chance before.
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Post by miz on Jan 31, 2019 17:07:15 GMT
I am surprised that so many people liked the show (sorry!) To me, it felt like a sing-song show backed up by some irelevant (but very good) acrobatics. It was like watching a figure skating sequence consisting only of big jumps with nothing in between. Such thing as "weaving of a story" was nonexistent.
Having said that, I thought the singing was quite strong all around. However, I was not sure if the role of Quasimodo should have been sung in that kind of intentionally ugly voice. He may be deformed physically, but his soul is supposed be pure. I have now bought a copy of the original novel to see if my supposition is correct.
All in all, I did not think one can call this particular production a fully-fledged musical. It felt more like a rough sketch.
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642 posts
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Post by Stasia on Jan 31, 2019 19:01:57 GMT
I am surprised that so many people liked the show (sorry!) To me, it felt like a sing-song show backed up by some irelevant (but very good) acrobatics. It was like watching a figure skating sequence consisting only of big jumps with nothing in between. Such thing as "weaving of a story" was nonexistent. Having said that, I thought the singing was quite strong all around. However, I was not sure if the role of Quasimodo should have been sung in that kind of intentionally ugly voice. He may be deformed physically, but his soul is supposed be pure. I have now bought a copy of the original novel to see if my supposition is correct. All in all, I did not think one can call this particular production a fully-fledged musical. It felt more like a rough sketch. One can call it so and does it for the last 20 years. This is one of the direction musical theatre turned to. This style is popular in France and has successfully been adapted in Russia. When something is different from what you are used to, it is not necessarily “wrong”.
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Post by miz on Jan 31, 2019 19:29:52 GMT
Oh, is that so? Well, if plenty of people like this style, who am I to complain about it? I should just say it wasn't my cup of tea.
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378 posts
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Post by ctas on Jan 31, 2019 20:23:02 GMT
It’s very much of the French “spectacle” style. I once saw a spectacle about Cleopatra and it had everything but the kitchen sink in the show in terms of acrobatics, dance and the singers front of stage.
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