Two Short Reviews: Scandinavian Trip

Last December, I left for a short trip to Copenhagen and Malmö to enjoy some musical theatre. At long long last, it's review time...

You wouldn't think I'd travel to see this one. I once listed all the problems in Love Never Dies and wrote a short story to contradict the newspaper critic who dared to call it good. If you ask me how I ended up sitting in the front row of Det Ny Teater's auditorium with my friend, waiting for the Phantom sequel to begin... I still don't know, and I've had some months to think about it.

But I do know that I haven't regretted the trip for a second.

If you've read my thoughts on the West End version, you know I think LND's music is okay but the story is beyond stupid. But when you mix it with talented actors, absolutely gorgeous visuals, plus a language I don't understand so I can't be bothered about the lyrics... It took me by surprise how much I enjoyed the show. I was pulled into its world and felt invested in the characters' journeys instead of internally mocking them.

The cast was good. Christian Berg as the always drunk and brooding Comte de Chagny was my favourite, Bo Kristian Jensen as the Phantom made his character quite believable, and Louise Fribo's rendition of the title song (that I usually find boring) was gorgeous. A shoutout to Carl-Emil Lohmann as Gustave, such a beautiful voice!

But for me, what made the Copenhagen Love Never Dies so enjoyable were the visuals. The show looked much better than how I remember the West End production. Here's a production that doesn't pale in comparison to the original Phantom! The sets, the costumes, the acrobatics and pyrotechnics, the subtle nods towards the original's designs, all seen in great detail from the front row... I don't remember when I last was so amazed by the sheer beauty of a theatrical production.

Love Never Dies has been rewritten since the release of the London cast recording. The chances are for the better. Too bad nothing's been done to make the last fifteen minutes of the show more sensible. The last scene was like a slap in the face: I awoke from the dream and realised I'm watching a silly story with a stupid ending. No matter how talented the cast, no matter how pretty the sets, I wish the show would've ended after the title song. (In Phantom III, I wish to see Raoul and the Phantom raising Gustave together, while still hating each others' guts.)

Overall – I still think Phantom fans have every right to be upset about Love Never Dies and its sad excuse of a plot, but I'm glad I saw this. I recommend it for all in need of some eye and ear candy!

Next day, it was time for a trip that's becoming an annual tradition, seeing Malmö Opera's musical of the fall. This time, it was something I've been wanting to see live for a while: Evita. Musical theatre is a funny hobby. I've actually learned something about the life and times of the spiritual leader of Argentina, just because I once thought Don't Cry for Me, Argentina was kind of pretty and wanted to hear more...

Having seen the movie and listened to a couple of CDs, I looked forward seeing Lindy Larsson as Che the most. Well, I knew nothing of Larsson himself beforehand, but I love Che's songs and character. My expectations were through the roof. Even then, Larsson blew me away. He sung the part perfectly, I liked him better than anyone I've heard in the role so far. And his sarcasm, his stage presence... Ugh, I'm risking having a complete fangirl meltdown here. Moving on.

I wasn't quite so into Charlotte Perrelli in the title role. Her vocals were quite strong and her tone vaguely reminded me of Patti LuPone's and Elena Roger's powerhouse portrayals, but I'm afraid the charisma necessary for the part was missing. Probably thanks to Linus Tunström's direction, it seemed the character was never on the top of her game. Eva was always unsure, always frightened. Even Don't Cry for Me, Argentina seemed less than confident. Evita's downfall didn't have much of an effect when she never seemed to be rainbow high at all.

Fred Johanson, then, did a good job in all those two scenes where the character of Perón has some emotion to display. Johanson has a wonderful voice, and seeing him as Javert in 2011 convinced me that he can also act, but this is not a show where he can prove it. Perón simply doesn't have much material to work with. Oh well, I was glad to see Johanson nevertheless.

The staging in this production was quite plain and the lights were harsh. The focus was mostly on the acrobat onstage, Christel Elisabeth Stjernebjerg. Dressed identically to Eva, the acrobat shadowed what the title character was going through: climbing the social ladder, flying, falling. I like the idea, and during some scenes, I understood exactly what the director was going for – but during other scenes, I had no idea what the acrobat was supposed to signify.

Actually, that applies to the whole show. Some scenes worked perfectly, but during some, it seemed the director didn't understand the source material at all. Eva felt quite lost in her own story, even during the moments where extreme confidence is written in the script.

But thanks to Lindy Larsson, I'm happy I saw this.

Love Never Dies photo by Miklos Szabo.
Evita photo by Malin Arnesson.

Three Days of West End: Love Never Dies

Here it is. The big one, the one everybody loves to hate.
Siiri reviews Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies.

If I'm so sure no one likes Love Never Dies, what was I doing, seeing it? Well...

• I felt I can't really badmouth LND properly before I really see it - and, who knows, maybe I'd like it live after all?
• I loved Ramin Karimloo in The Phantom of the Opera and in the Les Misérables 25th Anniversary Concert, so I really wanted to see him again.
• David Thaxton as Raoul. As I've noticed, around the Les Mis fandom talking about Thaxton may result in some quite heated exchange of opinions, but I'll still confess something: I had seen Thaxton two times before Love Never Dies, both times as Enjolras, back when I was a brand-new Les Mis fan. And I don't remember anything about his performance. Sacrilegious, huh? So, I wanted to see Thaxton in something, if only for the reason I could say I remember seeing him...

If you want to read about my opinions based on the CD alone before diving into the full stage experience, take a look at here. And, mind you, I really like the original Phantom. I try to stay as respectful as I can, but if you love Love Never Dies with all your heart, you might want to close this window now...

First, I'll analyse the characters. Because this is a sequel, the way the characters have developed is of course an interesting aspect to observe. Let's begin with the Phantom.

 

In some ways, The Phantom is still the same guy he was ten years before. He's just as obsessed about Christine as before. You'd suspect he's going to die without her after the original, but if that doesn't happen, him setting up a new lair and mourning his lost love is the second-best guess.

But otherwise... Don't you think this Phantom is a bit, well, too high-functioning, compared to the original character? In The Phantom of the Opera, the title character had severe difficulties with interacting with the rest of the world. He had spent decades hiding, obsessing about his own appearance to an unhealthy degree. By the end of the show, we've found out he is a blackmailer, a kidnapper and a murderer. He mopes about the world abandoning him, but doesn't try very hard to gain its appreciation.

In Love Never Dies, the Phantom - still with no proper name given - is a successful businessman with his own amusement park. He has become more social, and at one point he even confronts Raoul without his mask on. You'd think that situation would rip open a dozen scars and make him feel really vulnerable, but he goes through the whole incident with a smile on his face. By the end, he's making speeches of inner beauty and trying to rescue damsels in distress, not causing the distress in the first place.

People change, sure, but to me such huge changes as these seem very unlikely.

Christine, then again, has a little more believable character arch.

We don't really know that much about her character, based on the original. She misses her late father, has musical talents and finds herself in a difficult situation between two men. Still, her inner world remains a bit of a mystery to us. Does she get engaged to Raoul because she loves him or because she needs protection from the danger the Phantom represents? Despite her fears, she does see something in the Phantom - so is there something more than pity behind her decision to kiss him? 

We don't know, and that's why Christine's still a believable character in Love Never Dies. Of course, it's rather cruel of her to sleep with the Phantom the night before her wedding, but I think it's very well possible she might regret choosing to marry Raoul.

Speaking about Raoul... His character actually made me laugh a little. 

Maybe he was a bit of a stereotype, being the young, cute, love-struck hero in the original, but here he hasn't so much developed as turned into another stereotype: the drinking, gambling, possibly wife-and-kid-beating jerk. And so angry at that it's almost funny. It's not the actor's fault, but the way the character is written... This is unacceptable, do you hear me! Must you make that racket!! Heh. Poor guy. 

The last characters transported from the original are the Girys, Madame and Meg.

Meg is another character I can see developing to this direction. She didn't seem too keen on the ballet in the original, and we know very little about her. Therefore we can't really claim she didn't wish to be a vaudeville performer the whole time.

But Madame Giry... She is a bit of a showbiz mother in the original, teaching Meg the ballet, sure, but I don't see her abandoning the opera. Ballet seems to mean so much to her in the original, and the way she acts as a link between the Phantom and rest of the world doesn't mean she isn't afraid of him, nor that she would want to help him to set up an amusement park on another continent. I just don't see it happening.

To the story!

I think the show's first act is a bit of a mess. I like some of the music a lot, but the act itself - all the issues with characterisations aside - doesn't feel whole to me. Not every part seems to belong. It's probably a result of the extensive rewrites the show went through, though I'm ready to admit many of them were for the better.

So, as you may know, nowadays the show begins with 'Til I Hear You Sing. I love this song. Whatever is said about Love Never Dies, 'Til I Hear You Sing is a showtune of the first class and Ramin Karimloo sung it really, really beautifully.

Unfortunately, the messiness of the first act kicked in right after the brilliant first song. After the amazing starter, the plot disappears somewhere for a good while, leaving the audience to watch a cavalcade of projections and circus acts. Neat. Then we get some exposition and some more exposition in the form of Madame Giry and Meg. Finally, after quite a while - though the wait wasn't quite as long as on the CD - we see Christine and Raoul and the plot accelerates again.

After meeting the main characters from the original again, I found myself enjoying some scenes. For example, the big ensemble song, Dear Old Friend, and Christine and Phantom's first love duet, Beneath a Moonless Sky, were to my tastes. Even though the latter's lyrics sound like a middle schooler's draft at vaguely erotic poetry, it's a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. I just like the tune. 

Nevertheless, couldn't they have remove the second love duet when they were rearranging the show? From my point of view, two in a row feel rather tedious, even though the second song comes back in the finale of the show.

The act wraps up with The Beauty Underneath, a duet between Phantom and Christine's ten-year-old son. Like the title song of the original, it doesn't quite match the tone of the rest of the score. Fine. Except for that the song, in my opinion, is absolutely creepy. 

Maybe this is hopelessly immature of me... But listen to it, imagine an adult woman sings the boy soprano's part and, then, tell me about the situation you imagine this song accompanies. "Don't you feel amazing things?/Things you know you can't confess/Things you thirst for, nonetheless." Um.

When seeing the action onstage, the piece doesn't sound quite so weird, but I think the lyrics should've been thought out a little more carefully.

The second act feels a little more whole to me, maybe because it hasn't undergone so many changes. Again, there are some songs I enjoy quite a lot, most notably the Entr'acte and the both versions of Devil Take the Hindmost (I'm a big sucker for counterpoints). The big Phantom of the Opera reprise moment is a favourite of mine, too, even if it doesn't leave quite so big an impact anymore than on the CD - there are maybe too many hints to the original in the current version.

Sadly, again, there are problems.

My biggest peeve with this act was how it set up the main dilemma from the original Phantom once again. Will Christine sing or not? Which one of these two men will she choose? Been there, seen that, yawn. It's even more boring because the solution is so obvious this time: would you rather go with a constantly angry moron who has gambled away all your money and hates your kid, or with a rich amusement-park owner who is extremely in love with you, and, despite a minor flaw in is facial complexion, is also quite sexy? Hmm. I truely wonder.

And while I'm at it... Why Christine only has two choices, anyway? Isn't walking away without either of these men an option at all? Christine doesn't set up a great example of an independent woman. I'm certain she could've earned a living on her own, with her obvious musical talent, but unfortunately the show doesn't set that as an option.

Finally, the ending of the show - spoilers ahoy! - almost made me fall asleep. With the Phantom's heroic speech about Meg being beautiful inside and whatnot, the Finale feels almost like a joke to me. This is a man who has been so embarrassed of himself that he has spent half of his life hiding, and now he lectures about inner beauty. Yep. The ridiculousness of the plot, which has been kept in a decent check for most of the time, really flourishes during the ending.

I mean... How long does it take for a person to die from a gunshot? If you think A Little Fall of Rain in Les Mis is stretching it, try to sit through Christine dueting with the Phantom without getting a sudden urge to scream "die already!" And, again, after she finally draws her last breath, and Raoul comes back to observe the body... I felt like laughing. I could almost hear Raoul speaking: "Man... I leave my wife with you for two minutes and this is the result? Geez..." Not the reaction the scene was going for.

I think the whole story, and score, of Love Never Dies, is hit-and-miss. Score mostly hit, but story mostly miss. If Lloyd Webber had used this music with an original tale, I'd surely enjoyed the result more, but sadly Love Never Dies can't survive comparisons with the original.

A word about the scenery: I think the sets and costumes are beautiful. However, as said, the original is always in the watcher's mind, and I don't think they quite match it. Then again, not many shows will, sequels or not. On their own, the sets are very nice, even incredible sometimes. The skeleton lady in the Phantom's lair, for example, was simply amazing! I also loved the lights surrounding the balconies - in my opinion they could've been even more blingy.

Lastly, the cast. As said, I saw the show with Ramin Karimloo and David Thaxton, with Celia Graham as Christine. 

They did the best they could, I'm certain of that, and I really enjoyed their performances and voices. But, no matter how talented the cast, this show remains a mess to me. I'm not surprised it's closing soon. It's not for my tastes, and I don't think I'll be buying the upcoming DVD anytime soon.

The photos aren't mine. 

The photo with the Phantom and Christine by Joel Ryan, the one with Meg by Jonathan Hordle.

The Son of the Phantom

Usually I'm not one to write long rants about movies, books or musicals I don't like.
I don't see any reason spending that much time with something you hate - the world is full of things you can enjoy instead!
But a little article by Jussi Tossavainen in yesterday's Helsingin Sanomat was a little too much for me.

It's a part of "Personal - A culture journalist who has seen all gets emotional" series, so it's not a real critique. But anyway... Some of what Tossavainen says about the sequel of The Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, seems ridiculous to me.

In the text Tossavainen tells how much he liked the show.
"Judging by the shivers the show gave me it's almost perfect", he says. "Melodies start playing in your head right away. -- I almost cried when Sierra Boggess, playing Christine, finally sang the aria The Phantom wrote for her, Love Never Dies. -- I'm looking forward seeing if in the next ten years sir Andrew will make another sequel - titled The Son of the Phantom of the Opera, of course. I hope so!"
So far so good. I've listened to Love Never Dies, and while I think some songs are pretty but in its entirety it's nothing spectacular - not to mention the silly plot - I'm okay with someone else liking it. And I haven't seen it live, which of course might make it better.

But then comes this.
"In Britain musicals are taken more seriously than in Finland. It's still a little bit amusing that the fans of the original The Phantom of the Opera have got furious about the sequel, even though even the composer is the same. They think Christine and Raoul should've lived happily ever after. -- I'm not such a puritan myself. Vice versa: sixty years old, sir Andrew might have created the most gorgeous musical of his career."

I'd like to disagree here.
Firstly, I think that even though there might be better things to do than tell everybody how you hate Love Never Dies, the fans have every right to get mad.
You see, I like to imagine the creation of the show's plot went as follows...


Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber has invited some fans of the original Phantom to his office. The fans sit a little nervously in armchairs, watching the man who has composed their favourite musical shyly.

"We're going to have a little chat today", sir Andrew tells them. "I'd like to hear your thoughts of the first Phantom so I can make the best possible sequel. Let's start: what do you think of the character of The Phantom? What do you like about him?"

"Well", starts a short blonde girl, "I love how mysterious he is. I mean, he's the opera ghost, sends the mysterious notes and drops the chandelier! He's, like, dangerous but interesting at the same time!"
"In my opinion it's really interesting how there's two sides to him: on another side, he's this mysterious, seductive and sometimes even bloodthirsty being, really ghost-like. But on the other side he's just a human, and very unsure about himself. He's not very sociable, always alone", muses a boy with curly brown hair. "He has exaggerated the deformity thing, if you see what I mean - I believe he's the one who's most horrified of his face."

"Mysterious... Dangerous... Bloodthirsty... Unsure about himself... Unsociable..." mutters sir Andrew. "Thank you so much! Now, what do you think about Raoul?"
"I think he's not as sexy as The Phantom", giggles a red-haired girl with freckles.
"Well, yeah", says the blonde. "But I think he's quite nice. He's very charming, and most importantly, he's brave. He's ready to save Christine from The Phantom even if it means he'll kill him."
"It's cute how he's so in love with Christine", says a little dark-eyed girl in a quiet voice.

"Charming, brave, cutely in love", sir Andrew says while writing the adjectives into his notebook. "How about Christine, then?"
"I find it especially interesting how she projects something of her late father to The Phantom", the tall boy says before anyone else has the time to open their mouth. "And I think in the end she makes the right choice - after all, The Phantom is pretty much a madman."
"And in the end, Christine loves Raoul just as much as he loves her, I think", adds the blonde.
"Makes the right choice, in love, right. How about the side characters? Meg, for example?"
"She seems like a pretty simple, innocent girl. I guess Christine is her best friend and really important to her. But she's not a good singer!" the red-haired girl laughs.
"Innocent. Bad singer. Thank you so much for this, everybody! You've no idea how helpful you have been!"

When the fans leave the office, sir Andrew takes a look at the adjectives in his notebook.
"We need to find some opposites", he mutters. "Let's see... 'Dangerous', what's the opposite of that? Someone who tries to save people, I guess. 'Unsociable' is easy, the opposite is someone who is talkative and likes to have people around him. That also removes 'mysterious'..."
Sir Andrew makes a few notes and turns page.
"Well, Raoul then... 'Charming?' I think drunk people aren't charming, or wife beaters... So that's it for him. Christine... 'Makes the right choice?' Well, let's just assume her choice wasn't right after all. Meg? 'Innocent?' Hmm, how about a strip-tease artist, that's quite the opposite..."

After finishing with the notes sir Andrew takes a pile of printed fanfics from his drawer and tacks them on his noticeboard. Then he takes out three darts.
"Now, let's decide the rest of the plot", he mutters and throws the darts.
The first dart has pierced a fanfic where Meg loves the Phantom but he doesn't answer to her feelings. Another points at a story where Christine has a son with the Phantom. "These are so great", sir Andrew thinks. "How in the world I didn't think about this myself!"
The third dart has put a hole through a postcard from New York's Coney Island forgotten on the noticeboard.
"And we have the location", sir Andrew laughs. "This'll make a great show!"


In other words, I think Love Never Dies is like spitting in the face of the original's fans. It's like saying "I know what you liked about the original, and now I'm going to destroy all that!"
On top of that, the show is packed with plotholes, beginning from the time of the events. The original takes place in 1881 and the sequel in 1907 - or as Lloyd Webber put it, "roughly ten years after the end of the original."

The other thing I can't agree with or understand in Tossavainen's review is how he thinks this is Lloyd Webber's best musical.
I'm not an expert in his musicals, I haven't seen even a half of them. But Tossavainen's text makes me wonder if he's seen any... Out of the ones I've seen or heard I'd rank the original Phantom, Jesus Christ Superstar and even Cats higher than Love Never Dies.
I don't think Love Never Dies, as a score, is really bad. But I think it's mostly forgettable, and a lot more so than the other Lloyd Webber musicals I've seen. Till I Hear You Sing is beautiful, but in my opinion the title song, instead of being a tearjerker, is quite a letdown. Many of the other songs are boring and on the whole the show lacks the power and the feeling the first part has. I'd listen to the original rather than Love Never Dies, any day of the week.

I hear changes will be made to Love Never Dies. I hope they will improve the show.
And I hope Andrew Lloyd Webber decides to use his time and talent to create an original musical that respects the watchers instead of composing The Son of the Phantom of the Opera...