London day 6 - Jersey Boys & The Pearl Fishers
So, for the final day of London (part 1), I had scheduled one musical and one opera. Also, I decided to take a break from sandwiches and stopped into a little italian restaurant for pizza. Not the best pizza I've ever had, but a nice change.
The musical of the day was Jersey Boys, which is about the group "The Four Seasons". I was a bit hesitant when buying tickets because musicals about music groups can be quite disapointing, but I do really like the four seasons, so I decided to go for it. When I arrived at the theatre, they actually upgraded my ticket from the back row of the top balcony to the middle of the dress circle - a very nice seat, especially since I paid the lowest ticket price! I actually quite enjoyed the show, though the followspots were so terrible forthe first fifteen minutes of the show I did start to wonder if the followspot op was drunk. The music was, of course, good (if you like the four seasons, which I do), and I was very impresses by the guy playing Frankie Valli - not only did he have to use a huge range, he carried most of the songs through the show. The story itself was also more interesting than I'd expected. Turns out a couple of the band's original members were actually minor criminals before becoming successful musicians, for instance. Also, the reason that albums are sometimes marked "The Four Seasons" and sometimes "Frankie Valli and the Four seasons", is that "The four seasons" was the original group of four singers. All of them but Frankie Valli left, one by one, at which point Frankie Valli got himself four band members and changed it to "Frankie Valli and the four seasons". Pretty much all their big hits were in the show, and sung very well (and juxtaposed interestingly with the plot) - one of my favourites, "Who loves you" ended up being the finale song, just when I'd given up on it being in!
In the evening, I headed over to the London Coliseum to see Bizet's "The Pearl Fishers". Unfortunately, two of the four main singers (the male and female leads, in fact!) had throat infections, so both parts had been filled with last minute replacements. Fortunately, these replacements were very good, particularly the woman, whose voice was incredible. The only other Bizet opera I've seen was Carmen, and though I think the music in Carmen was far more memorable, this was nice too. I think the part of the show that was most memorable for me was actually the various water effects. For the places were there was still water, they had the whole floor covered in mirror (which I imagine must have been very annoying to keep clean). However, there is a fairly important storm scene in the play, and what they did was basically stretch a thin, dark, massive piece of fabric across the set, which was then sort of shaken and waved by (presumably, as they were hidden underneath it) stage hands, to produce "waves". On top of this was projected a moving wave gobo. The combination of the two effects was very effective, mimicing the unpredictable look of a stormy sea. It was also effective in the scene were the pearl fishers are diving for pearls - they had a small rowboat set in the middle of the cloth, obviously raised of the ground somehow, and there must have been slits in the cloth, because actors "dived" into the water and swam up out of it most effectively.
After the opera, I headed back to Elaine's, where they'd just had a little reception, and there was lots of leftover food, so I got to have some tasty, if crumbly, cheesecake for bedtime snack, and pack up some more food for my trip to Cardiff the following day. Then I got everything packed up to go, and that was it for day 6.
The musical of the day was Jersey Boys, which is about the group "The Four Seasons". I was a bit hesitant when buying tickets because musicals about music groups can be quite disapointing, but I do really like the four seasons, so I decided to go for it. When I arrived at the theatre, they actually upgraded my ticket from the back row of the top balcony to the middle of the dress circle - a very nice seat, especially since I paid the lowest ticket price! I actually quite enjoyed the show, though the followspots were so terrible forthe first fifteen minutes of the show I did start to wonder if the followspot op was drunk. The music was, of course, good (if you like the four seasons, which I do), and I was very impresses by the guy playing Frankie Valli - not only did he have to use a huge range, he carried most of the songs through the show. The story itself was also more interesting than I'd expected. Turns out a couple of the band's original members were actually minor criminals before becoming successful musicians, for instance. Also, the reason that albums are sometimes marked "The Four Seasons" and sometimes "Frankie Valli and the Four seasons", is that "The four seasons" was the original group of four singers. All of them but Frankie Valli left, one by one, at which point Frankie Valli got himself four band members and changed it to "Frankie Valli and the four seasons". Pretty much all their big hits were in the show, and sung very well (and juxtaposed interestingly with the plot) - one of my favourites, "Who loves you" ended up being the finale song, just when I'd given up on it being in!
In the evening, I headed over to the London Coliseum to see Bizet's "The Pearl Fishers". Unfortunately, two of the four main singers (the male and female leads, in fact!) had throat infections, so both parts had been filled with last minute replacements. Fortunately, these replacements were very good, particularly the woman, whose voice was incredible. The only other Bizet opera I've seen was Carmen, and though I think the music in Carmen was far more memorable, this was nice too. I think the part of the show that was most memorable for me was actually the various water effects. For the places were there was still water, they had the whole floor covered in mirror (which I imagine must have been very annoying to keep clean). However, there is a fairly important storm scene in the play, and what they did was basically stretch a thin, dark, massive piece of fabric across the set, which was then sort of shaken and waved by (presumably, as they were hidden underneath it) stage hands, to produce "waves". On top of this was projected a moving wave gobo. The combination of the two effects was very effective, mimicing the unpredictable look of a stormy sea. It was also effective in the scene were the pearl fishers are diving for pearls - they had a small rowboat set in the middle of the cloth, obviously raised of the ground somehow, and there must have been slits in the cloth, because actors "dived" into the water and swam up out of it most effectively.
After the opera, I headed back to Elaine's, where they'd just had a little reception, and there was lots of leftover food, so I got to have some tasty, if crumbly, cheesecake for bedtime snack, and pack up some more food for my trip to Cardiff the following day. Then I got everything packed up to go, and that was it for day 6.