Watching "The Phantom of the Opera"

I was excited from the moment I woke up this morning, as I would be attending "The Phantom of the Opera" at the Esplanade. I have been anticipating this show to come to Singapore for a long time, as I had missed it when it came many years ago, and after listening to the orignal cast recording, I fell in love with it. It was lucky for me that I saw the performance notice on Sistic's website months ago, way before it was being advertised on TV. If not, I doubt I'd be able to get good seats, especially so when I had only a few available days to catch it.

When I arrived at the theatre, I was pleasantly suprised that there was a small section of the foyer cordoned up for a small exhibition. Well, there wasn't much things on display, just some ultra big posters decorated with heavy drapes. Looked nice though. I got another surprise shortly after, when I saw Mei and Qin walking towards my direction. Mei (used to be our opera troupe's member) and Qin are friends of Amai, and are die-hard fans of Takarazuka. From their seating arrangement, I thought they would be seated quite far from me, but later on I found out that they were only two to three rows away from my seat.

Anyway back to the show, I feel that the performance was quite well produced. Every team of the performance, all the way from backstage co-ordinators, orchestra and actors were very professional, and there wasn't much negative stuffs for me to pick out. However, it was still not really quite perfect. Like in act 1 scene 10, there was a bit of a problem with John Bowles' (taking on the role of Raoul) microphone, as his voice was sometimes loud, sometimes soft, sometimes crisp and clear while sometimes slightly muffled. Also, although John and the actress playing Christine Daae (I couldn't see clearly if this role was played by Rebecca Pitcher or her alternate Ana Marina) acted and sang well, their mutual feeling in this particular scene was a bit distant. In this scene, there was this classic kissing scene towards the end of their song "All I Ask Of You", and I just felt that something was lacking in their kissing. In fact, I think the kissing between Christine Daae and the Phantom (acted by Brad Little) at the last scene of act 2 was much better. Other than these slight glitches, the rest of the show was quite nice. I could never forget the chandelier which rose up to the ceiling of the theatre from the stage floor after the prologue, and how it came "crashing down" towards the end of act 1. Some of the audience even held their breath when the latter happened, as the chandelier was actually hanging above the audience seats. Not forgetting also the comical role of Prima Donna Carlotta (played by Pauline Du Plessis), which was one of the more vivid characters in the show (although I still prefer Minnie Driver in the movie version, just too bad that she didn't sing her parts in it).

What a splendid show this is, and it was such a sad anti-climax when the time for curtain call came. I hope to watch this show again, but I know that is not possible somehow, as the tickets are not cheap. Even if the tickets are cheaper, I doubt I can get anymore tickets now! Nevertheless, I'm still glad I had not missed this great show...

(On a sidenote: I was told by Qin that the Takarazuka version was completely different from this Andrew Lloyd Webber's version in terms of script and music, although both were adapted from the same novel. Now I'm curious to see how the Takarazuka's version is like!)