I had matinée tickets to Mozart today! This is the ticket I bought back in June. The show was stellar, but even more stellar was all the stuff that went wrong. Like Mikele's head getting stuck in a curtain.
AND I HAVE A VIDEO OF THAT.
First off, I could only see about half the stage, so I was pretty pleased that I'd already seen the show once from decent seats. I knew what I was missing and wasn't too stressed when I heard disembodied voices singing from the back of the room. What I *could* do was peer into the wings and watch dancers wander about and that awful clown sit on a ledge and swing his legs until it was his time to go molest Mozart. I enjoyed that a lot. Like I was in on a secret with the cast or something.
Since it was a matinée, all the small children were out. One was on my row and kept fidgeting and singing along in a French baby voice, which would have been cute in any other context than WHILE I'M TRYING TO GET MY MIKELANGEFLO ON. I don't love children.
Anyway, I was a lot more stingy with my videos and pictures this show as my camera was dying and I meant to stagedoor again afterwards (I didn't, so don't get too excited).
My summary of Mikele, having seen the show twice, the DVD once, and having met him at the stagedoor, is that he is superbly flouncy and jumpy and may in fact believe himself to be a cat, but his face is not good at acting. He always looks kind of... dead behind the eyes. And somehow that just makes him even more wonderful. Watching him put his entire heart into a role without even making a single facial expression is just plain adorable. I love you, Mikele. Nevah change.
My initial intention upon taking my camera in today was to capture how much better Diane is than Claire (her slumpy performance on the DVD, added with the fact that she quit this job at all, has officially made me strongly dislike her) and how terrifying the clown is. I am so uncomfortable with Merwan the handsy clown.
Here he is harassing Mikele while Solal dictates a letter in his sexy sexy voice.
I like to call this picture "Bad Touch."
I found out the purpose of the clown's balloons in this scene, too. He comes in, skips around aimlessly, and then pops the balloons in Mikele's face. On Tuesday he just threw them down, but today... pure evil.
Another remarkable thing about Mozart l'Opéra Rock is the show's ability to go from the least subtle dialogue ever ("Vous pouvez oublier vos rêves!" and "Tu l'as laissée mourir!" or whatever) to random, trippy imagery that could never make any sense. Like the scene where Mozart's mom dies.
And the scene immediately following where Mikele sits at the front of the stage and watches a man with a pillow shoved down his shirt dance around to circus music. If there's one thing I've learned from Mozart l'Opéra Rock, it's that circuses are pure evil and only appear when times are particularly terrible.
I also noticed for the first time that there's a weird drunk molest-y dude at the Princesse d'Orange's court in the scene leading up to Six pieds sous terre. It must be a part of the show and not just an extra who had an idea, because he even has a uglier wig than everyone else. I noticed him because he kept trying to lift Constance's skirts while Aloysia was performing, and then he spent the rest of the scene wandering around bothering the rest of the women.
The cast dynamic was really different tonight to what I saw Tuesday. Everyone seemed a lot more energetic and there was a lot more ad-libbing and such. My favourite examples:
-Just before he began conducting the music that leads into Le Bien qui fait mal, Mikele did one of those deep Tom Hulce bows and threw back his coattails so the audience saw his (breeches-clad) butt. He then grinned cheekily over his shoulder while everyone applauded.
-Yamin took a lot of liberties tonight. At the beginning of the Rosenbeeerg scene, where he was imitating Flo, he said, "Ugh, Salieri, with his stupid bangs-- no, wait, he doesn't have the bangs anymore, does he?" and then, later, when Flo said "Rosenbeeeeeerg" and leaned all the way over backwards, Yamin said something like, "Yeah, you're off balance because you've grown that ponytail." He also did a lot of imitating Flo in various scenes and then mumbling insults under his breath. He was obviously really jazzed. During the scene where he was mocking Mozart's music and started going "Hein! Hein! Hein!" in a really spastic way, he then sort of coughed and explained, "I'm laughing." He also made fun of the emperor a few times... I wish I knew better French. It was a lot of fun. He always struck me as irritating in youtube clips, but in person Yamin's silliness is one of the most fun parts of the show.
And then there were the mistakes!
Mikele started off REALLY strong. I was floored by how powerful his voice was during Le Trublion. But then halfway through Tatoue-moi he kind of cracked on a high note (it was really unnoticeable unless, like me, you were just staring at him) and clutched his cravat and giggled awkwardly at the audience. Oh Mikele.
Things only got worse for Flo's Italian Stallion, as, during the scene where Aloysia appears through that long, stringy curtain, his mic got caught in the long stringyness and was quite visibly ripped off his head in the middle of his line about his mother being dead. I grabbed my camera at this point and got a video of the rest of the disaster. Mélissa tried to carry on the scene like a champ, but both of them realised it was no good, and for a few minutes she just stood there in silence while Mikele tried desperately to untangle himself and the audience cheered delightedly. Eventually Mélissa repeated her line: "Did you succeed in Paris?" as a joke, since they were in Paris and he was not succeeding at carrying on the scene. The audience laughed and Mikele continued to toy with his mic. I could actually see people gathered anxiously in the wings from my crappy cheap seat. Finally the mic was free and Mikele slung it back onto his head, quipping out a "No, I didn't succeed in Paris" before carrying on like nothing had ever happened.
(Please correct my French if I made a mistake, by the way.)
This video of part of Bim Bam Boum illustrates how I could only see part of the stage, by the way:
I think Mélissa has let her voice go down to a slightly more normal register than what you hear on the DVD. Between her little Betty Boop voice and Claire's hunchy shoulders and annoying facial expressions, the DVD kind of makes you want to blow up the Webbers' house. But in person the only character who bothers me is the clown, and that's because he is terrifying. It's the aimless way he flounces around that really scares me; it's not even the way he manhandles Mikele and tries to, like, bite his cheeks.
Flo's YEEEOOOOOWWWWwwwwWWWwwww-ing went the same way today that they did on Tuesday: the one during Le Bien qui fait mal was subtle and divided into two distinct parts, but then he let a massive one out during L'Assasymphonie. And I noticed somehow in my haze of fangirl excitement that he did another super one in the middle of the audience during Victime de ma victoire.
This is the broken-up one. I only videoed the end of Le Bien qui fait mal this time because I took a full video Tuesday and I wanted to just sit there and enjoy the fact that I was being exposed to musical sex. In person.
During L'Assasymphonie I became convinced that Flo had been in on the cast screening of Amadeus that I'm sure took place earlier, because he was practically in tears during part of the song. I took this video because my video of L'Assasymphonie from Tuesday disappeared (I refuse to believe I was stupid enough to delete it... it must have been vandalism) and because I wanted to capture that they've replaced those wonderful blindfolded seizure dancers had been replaced by leftovers from Le Bien qui fait mal. I like it a lot, but I liked the seizure dancers just because of the jokes they provided for me and my friends (and because they made the scene super easy for Katherine to reenact).
Oh Floflo. I do so love you.
Speaking of my love for Flo, check out where I was sitting during Victime de ma victoire! And I warn you, proximity to Florent Mothe gives me shaky hands.
I thought I remembered involuntarily moaning "FLOWWWWWWWWW" when he was near me, but I don't think the video picked it up. Good.
I knew from the moment I hit my seat where I was, and for some reason I kept anxiously glancing at those stairs all the way through act one. I just couldn't believe that Flo, in SALIERI COSTUME, would be RIGHT THERE.
And yet THERE HE WAS. It was beautiflo.
Also, during Victime de ma victoire Flo was legit doing a Jack Sparrow walk. Was he supposed to be drunk? Has this been the way he's done it all along and I somehow was able to gaze upon Flo and not notice this? I am confused.
Okay yeah, I just watched the scene on the DVD, and he's bullying women and glowering a lot (and looking VERY ATTRACTIVE FLOOOOooooooo) but he's not doing the Jack Sparrow walk. I guess he just decided it would be fun. I agree! Keep it in!
Oh, and there's a scene right before Dors mon ange that is definitely not on the DVD! It's after the scene I'd never heard of which IS on the DVD, the one where Aloysia gets to be in act two and she and Constance are partying in the streets over Figaro.
It starts with Mozart standing on a column wearing a silly mask and trying to... play Don Juan?... with Da Ponte.
Da Ponte is really annoyed and tells him to focus and get to writing music, but Mozart smugly tells him the music is already written. It's right here in my noodle, I guess. He recites some music to prove it, sounding really Italian in the process, and then it's mentioned that his father is sick. Then for some reason he decides to try to... look into his imagination? Or something? And the stage fills with fog and Mozart opens a trap door.
A dude with a creepy hat on rises up out of the fog about that far and stares at Mozart, who gets freaked out and slams it shut again. Da Ponte asks what he saw, and Mozart then launches into the scene about his father being sick, ending with the "I owe him so much" and "Surely not your genius" and "No, but he gave me love." Did he, Mozart? I'm not convinced.
And then Solal dies and I am sad.
Speaking of Solal, I was laughing to myself on Tuesday about the way he has to drag his chair offstage twice, and this time while I was getting a video of Mozart proposing to Constance (a really sweet scene when Constance is so lovable) I realised Solal was going to do some chair-dragging soon. And then I realised that that time-travelling photographer was going to show up for the end of the wedding scene, so I kept the camera rolling.
Anyway, on Tuesday I watched jealously as a group of fans assembled at the foot of the stage during Vivre à en crever and moshed all over the place during curtain call. I decided that I would be one of them this time. So all the way through Vivre à en crever I was anxiously peering around to see if anyone else was headed down. I finally caught sight of someone and I took off after them, camera in hand. I was right near the centre of the stage, only behind two or so people. When the curtain rose for C'est bientôt la fin, I was so shocked by my proximity to the cast that I took a picture that looked like this.
And then I collected myself and got this one:
Something about being so close to those costumes I've loved through the internet for so long was almost as exciting as just being at the show and being near the cast.
I love Solal's purple velvet waistcoat and flouncy black cravat. He's so Solal. Oh, and Maeva had blue eye makeup on, which I thought was a weird choice. Maybe to match the butterfly dress?
Here's further proof that proximity to Florent Mothe gives me shaky hands:
and
but at least I was trying.
Then Mikele came out, and I was so happy to be near that glitter coat in person that I couldn't help but start snapping wild photos.
Oh how I love that glitter coat. And oh how I love Flo's ponytail. I think I love it more than the emo bangs... like, a lot more.
Here's proof that the two of them can never be in the same picture without one sneaking a glance at the other.
I also like that Flo decided to grow out his emo bangs for whatever reason and someone in the wardrobe department bestowed a black bow upon him. But this overall look is so much more... Salieri. And so much more attractive to me. Not that the emo bangs weren't attractive, just... UNFFF FLO Y U SO BEAUTIFLO
Since it was the first time I was close enough to get un-blurry photos, I started trying to futher capture how much I love Flo's ponytail. Because for some reason I didn't think I'd taken enough pictures of him this close yet.
Then again, one can never have too many pictures of Flo.
Remember how I was in love with Mikele for like a year and a half? And then one week ago I met Flo at the stagedoor and did a straight-up about-face? Yeah, just thought I'd mention it. I still love Mikele as much as I ever did... I just... Flo's eyes... and he's so nice... he's SO NICE. And his speaking voice. And his singing voice. And his eyes. And his skin.
Wooo okay I lost it there for a second. Here, have a picture of Solal and Diane.
Solal and I totally had a moment! True story! They were singing C'est bientôt la fin here, and apparently I am the only fan who has learned that song. So when Solal said "Tout le monde!" I obediently started jamming, and he made eye contact with me, grinned, and nodded.
Thanks for your approval, Solal! I approve of you right back.
Being this close I recognised Mikele's sun necklace as the one he wore at the stagedoor the night we were hanging together. And I saw under his flouncy cuffs that he had those mysterious rags tied around his wrists still.
WHAT ARE THEY?
Oooh I just got distracted by Flo's hands in that picture... 'scuse me.
Here, have some Mikele. Have some Mikele gazing lovingly after Flo, who has gone to get his guitar for a reprise of l'Assasymphonie.
You know what? Have some reprise of l'Assasymphonie:
I love Nuno's dance. And the raving extras. And Florent Mothe.
So I went out to stagedoor, but the crowd was epically huge and I was nowhere near the front. This was not the environment I wanted for the scene where I give Mikele and Flo the fingerless gloves I knitted them and they love me forever, so I peaced out, let some little child have my spot, and I headed out to dinner with some friends.
I spent the entirety of dinner in a Mozart hangover, or what Sherry described as a sex coma. I'm not sure she was wrong. And while we were at Monoprix letting Phoebe buy some chocolate, Vivre à en crever came on the radio. I almost passed out.
Anyway! Today at six I am returning YET AGAIN to the Palais des Sports stagedoor to give Flo and Mikele those gloves I knitted them. And Mikele better freaking bisous me this time.