Elisabeth: Das Musical
We've known for the longest time that this musical was coming to Korea. And for the longest time we had planned to go and see it. So when we finally got the chance to, when the dates were finally released, this is what we build our holiday around.
It's been five days since we saw it and I've finally calmed down enough to do a proper post about it, to put it all into words.
I cried during the intro, not even going to lie. As those familiar bars began to play they filled right up with tears and I had my hand over my mouth for a good portion of the song. We had been waiting for this for so long. The costumes were even more stunning than the Vienna revival which Hattie and I were so used to. The COLOURS. The STAGE SET-UP. When Junsu came down as Der Tod, despite his voice not quite suiting the role, he suited the character well in his mannerisms and personality. I was much more impressed than I expected I would be.
Elisabeth's dress in the first song after the intro was utterly adorable, reminiscent of a little circus costume with a matching parasol in blue and pink with SUCH a puffy skirt that swirled beautifully when she spun around. The silhouette cutout in the stage sets were beautiful and different; the full silhouette of a woman instead of just the profile face like in the Vienna version. It worked really well with the rotating stage and was brought back a few times over the course of the performance.
Another thing slightly different was the stage setup of the wedding and ballroom scenes; six massive pillars were moves around the stage to represent the church and dance hall, and it was stunning. As Lucheni explained the next few years of Elisabeth's life, including the birth of her children and how Sophie took them away from their mother, he controlled the other actors as puppets in a curtained window, it was a really neat way of doing it, and Euntae looked positively wicked as Lucheni! He genuinely looked like he enjoyed what he was doing, too.
Death's angels were far more present during this version of Elisabeth than the Vienna editions (the only version I've seen angels more present in is were some of the takarazuka productions, and that's only because there were a million of them). There were six, all male, and their dances were just beautiful. They always hovered around while Death was on stage, even during songs where he was usually alone in other productions. Junsu managed to command the stage regardless of their distraction though, which showed how powerful his performance was. Their wigs were long and ash-blond, tied back but fluffier than natural hair and looked really amazing with their dark makeup. All the men were really beautiful in their own individual ways and I could hardly keep my eyes off them!!
Kim Seungdae as Rudolf on the first night was utterly perfect. I really liked him already because of his role as Valentin in Kiss of the Spider Woman last year and I was looking forward to seeing him in this-and he didn't disappoint. The boy who played child!Rudolf was also amazing and both of them got massive cheers at the end of the performance.
My favourite, Park Euntae, OWNED the stage as Luigi Lucheni. During Kitsch he came up the audience aisles, as was the case in a few other versions of the musical. He played the role a bit more maniacally than a lot of other actors have, which was interesting although I'm not sure whether I preferred it or not (my bias say yes).
Another of the songs that had me in tears was 'Two ships in the night' which is, of course, Franz-Joseph and Elisabeth's song where they finally decide things will never work between them. And of course... Rudolf's suicide and ensuing funeral. The actress playing Elisabeth portrayed her grief in such a convincing and heartwrenching way that I was practically sobbed the whole way through the song. And the suicide itself was gorgeous too-and Junsu didn't cop out on Death's kiss! I felt an electric charge go through the audience when Junsu's fans were surprised by that, haha.
I was curious to see how they'd done one of my favourite scenes; Franz-Joseph's nightmare about the fall of the empire. The original one is amazing and the stage setup for it was very particular. Since the stage for this version was different I wanted to see what it was like, and in one word...? Stupendous. They built it up fantastically and by the end I had goosebumps racing across my skin as the empire's coat of arms shattered with a deafening crack.
I was glad to see at the end of the show that the applause the audience gave was amazingly loud for every actor, especially since most of the people were there to see Junsu. We gave all the actors a standing ovation and everyong shouted and cheered enthusiastically for every person that appeared. It was so lovely. We got a curtain call photo but that's about it (taking photos wasn't allowed!).
The second night went a little differently because we arrived three hours early to line up for a signing after the show (it was only for the first 100 people there and we turned out to be 70 and 71!). It meant a ton of standing around doing nothing, but it all turned out to be SO WORTH IT in the end.
As for the performance the second night, I had some issues with it; for one, the other actor was nowhere near at good as Junsu was, and it was a bit of a disappointment. For another, he didn't do anything that required him to be doing more than just standing there, singing. He didn't dance, he didn't dangle off the belltower... and the fact I had more fun watching his angels than him pretty much showed that he didn't have enough of a commanding presence. He did however portray a more smarmy, smirky Death, which was an interesting take on the character.
Elisabeth's 'I do' in the wedding scene was a little off which meant the echo didn't work, I noticed several actors trip over their costumes and there was SO much smoke pumped out in the nightmare scene on the second night that it was hard to tell what was going on. I don't know how much of this was more noticable because our seats on the second night were considerable better, or because it was just an off night. I DON'T KNOW. I also found the second Elisabeth overacted a teeeensy bit (to the point where it was getting a bit past believable).
BUT ANYWAY, AFTER THE SHOW WE HAD A FANSIGN TO LINE UP FOR!!
All the actors were smilie and super nice (well, the second night's Der Tod looked a little lost at being faced with foreigners). The woman who played Sophie could speak perfect english, which was a nice surprise!
However the best part came when I finally got face to face with Euntae again. I had been rehearsing what I was going to say to him ALL EVENING. And when I did finally get to him, I told him in a broken mix of Korean and English that last year he sang for me for my birthday. At first he looked a little confused and said 'Really?' but when I nodded and mentioned Kiss of the Spider Woman he went 'Ah!' and nodded, echoing it back to me in Korean. Handing me my signed book back, he smiled sincerely and warmly said 'Thank you.' in English. I just about died.
We were so emotional at finally having seen this musical which we had loved for so long. I'm still getting emotional just thinking about it even now.
Eventually I'll write up about the rest of my time in Korea this year. But this deserved a post on its own.