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angelofmusicMusical: Phantom of the Opera (Upiór w operze)
Production: Live
Theatre: Roma Theatre, Warsaw, Poland
Date: 30/10/2008 & 31/10/2008
Cast:
The Phantom - Tomasz Steciuk
Christine Daae - Paulina Janczak
Raoul de Chagny - Łukasz Talik / Marcin Mroziński
Of course there are other roles, but these are the main ones :)
From the sound of it, I got very lucky, having the second Phantom in this production. I'd seen Tomasz Steciuk in Academie Pana Kleksa on my last visit to Poland, wherein he played the villain (aka, a long-haired fiendish barber with a robot-boy) but I wouldn't have recognised him in Erik.
While this is not your standard, carbon-copy production of Phantom, like nearly every show in the world (except Hungary, which has the excuse of special crack), they really did take the easy way out and go "you know what? There's a film. People will have seen the film. Let's make it look like that". Right down to the duel in the graveyard, which drove me nuts in the film.
The one exception, and this thrilled me so much, was the lair. The lair was perfect and wonderful. A mass of steam-punk devices and statuary and they didn't make Christine sleep in the boat. The lair was divided into two sections, one from each side, and beyond them, you could see the boat docked. This was a lair that was practically arranged with the boat kept outside. Okay, Christine ends up flopped on a rug, but the boat isn't inside the lair! And they used cogs and levers and everything! Also, the organ is a work of art, with a revolving and elegant stool and the music-stand is made up of two gilt hands splayed behind the pages. I absolutely adored it.
The only other set that was built to impress was the managers' study, which was rather niftily done with the backdrop and doors that allowed for impressive amounts of slamming in and out by various indignant characters.
Cast-wise, someone had clearly restrained Christine. Paulina Janczak looked like Natalie Portman, sang like an angel and clearly had been forced into having a soul-removal. To use a quote from Susan Kay - "the girl possessed a near perfect instrument! And lacked the inner will to play it!". I was later told that originally, she played it with spirit, but apparently, it was too much, so they concuss her before every show.
Tomasz Steciuk as Phantom on the other hand was lovely, even though I prefer a more mature Phantom than the way he played it - this was the child who had grown up in the basement and was so limited in social intercourse that he didn't quite get what he was doing right and wrong. He played him as this hesitantly caring, emotionally- and socially-stunted individual, who is acting out a love-story as he's only ever seen it played in operas.
The simple touch of him flailing and pulling off his cloak to cover Christine up after she faints was so gently touching. Little scenes like that combined with the madness make a nicely layered character. His surprise when she acts in ways he doesn't expect are wonderful, and the mask-ripping-off scene in the lair, he seems so genuinely stunned by it. And without his mask, he crumples, these bestial, crawling, sobbing, desperate thing, but the moment it's returned, he straightens and is the perfect leading man again.
I would have been content with that, but for the first time, I was distracted by Raoul, as played by Łukasz Talik. Yes, I know. I, the lover of all things anti-hero and villain-shaped, got all giddy over a Raoul. And couldn't stop watching him. Even when the Phantom was tangoing with Christine, because Raoul was jumping up and down and flailing in panic in the box on stage right. He was such a sweet Raoul, so sincere, enthusiastic, passionate and throwing caution and social propriety to the four winds.
Also, he had a natural ponytail and he went into L'Oreal mode, his hair all loose and shaken about his face in the lair sequence. It was most pleasing ;)
Minor character-wise, Jakub Szydłowski as Firmin stole the show. Of course he would. He has done in every show I've seen him in and I maintain he should have been the Phantom. He's wonderful. He was the best Koukol I've seen in Tanz der Vampire. He was fantastic as the caretaker in Academie. He should have been Krolock AND Phantom. Seriously, I will see any show that he is in, just to watch the quiet ways he will twist the audience around his little finger. LOVE HIM.
Otherwise, Meg was lovely and I was surprised by how much I liked Anna Gigiel as Carlotta, who played the stroppy diva perfectly. Incidentally, someone needs to tell their Passarino that he's not meant to actually sing better than their lead opera singer. Or twirl his cloak half as much.
On the whole, it is a fairly strong cast, with a fantastic dancing corps, but the biggest weakness of this show, one I ranted about for ages afterwards, was the weakness of the musical direction. The conductor is the same one I've seen at most of the shows at this theatre, and he really, really, really acts as if it is all about him, rather than the music. He jumps around, he puts in over the top gestures just so people will notice him flailing about over the edge of the orchestra pit, he brings in sections at the wrong time. He's impossible to follow.
I watched him beating time and he can't keep to his tempo for love nor money. And I know it's him and not the orchestra, because they use their second conductor during the bows for the moment when said musical director is on stage, and the improvement is tangible. It's so much crisper, cleaner and better. That show could be wonderful if they would just find someone with the nerve to knock out and tie up the musical director.
The next night, it wasn't as good a show. Things seemed to be going wrong, some people seemed rather stroppy and on the whole, I preferred the first night. It was a different Raoul as well, Marcin Mroziński, but you could tell this one is already bored of the role and he played it so pushy and aggressive that he actually made Christine (same girl from the night before) push him off. This would be the Raoul/Christine pairing that would end in domestic violence.
This would also be the Raoul who split his trousers while doing the battle in the graveyard scene.
However, good side of bad Raoul meant I got to enjoy the Past the Point of No Return sequence, wherein Christine and Erik do a wonderful tango, with echoes of Music of the Night in the choreography. Tis tres pretty :)
Incidentally, while the lair sequence is normally my favourite in the show with all three, the music ruined it for me. When you can't even make out one line of dialogue because of overblown gesturing from the pit bringing in the brass too loudly, you need a new musical director.
Still, as smaller productions go, it isn't bad. And I think you all know who/what I would change ;)
Production: Live
Theatre: Roma Theatre, Warsaw, Poland
Date: 30/10/2008 & 31/10/2008
Cast:
The Phantom - Tomasz Steciuk
Christine Daae - Paulina Janczak
Raoul de Chagny - Łukasz Talik / Marcin Mroziński
Of course there are other roles, but these are the main ones :)
From the sound of it, I got very lucky, having the second Phantom in this production. I'd seen Tomasz Steciuk in Academie Pana Kleksa on my last visit to Poland, wherein he played the villain (aka, a long-haired fiendish barber with a robot-boy) but I wouldn't have recognised him in Erik.
While this is not your standard, carbon-copy production of Phantom, like nearly every show in the world (except Hungary, which has the excuse of special crack), they really did take the easy way out and go "you know what? There's a film. People will have seen the film. Let's make it look like that". Right down to the duel in the graveyard, which drove me nuts in the film.
The one exception, and this thrilled me so much, was the lair. The lair was perfect and wonderful. A mass of steam-punk devices and statuary and they didn't make Christine sleep in the boat. The lair was divided into two sections, one from each side, and beyond them, you could see the boat docked. This was a lair that was practically arranged with the boat kept outside. Okay, Christine ends up flopped on a rug, but the boat isn't inside the lair! And they used cogs and levers and everything! Also, the organ is a work of art, with a revolving and elegant stool and the music-stand is made up of two gilt hands splayed behind the pages. I absolutely adored it.
The only other set that was built to impress was the managers' study, which was rather niftily done with the backdrop and doors that allowed for impressive amounts of slamming in and out by various indignant characters.
Cast-wise, someone had clearly restrained Christine. Paulina Janczak looked like Natalie Portman, sang like an angel and clearly had been forced into having a soul-removal. To use a quote from Susan Kay - "the girl possessed a near perfect instrument! And lacked the inner will to play it!". I was later told that originally, she played it with spirit, but apparently, it was too much, so they concuss her before every show.
Tomasz Steciuk as Phantom on the other hand was lovely, even though I prefer a more mature Phantom than the way he played it - this was the child who had grown up in the basement and was so limited in social intercourse that he didn't quite get what he was doing right and wrong. He played him as this hesitantly caring, emotionally- and socially-stunted individual, who is acting out a love-story as he's only ever seen it played in operas.
The simple touch of him flailing and pulling off his cloak to cover Christine up after she faints was so gently touching. Little scenes like that combined with the madness make a nicely layered character. His surprise when she acts in ways he doesn't expect are wonderful, and the mask-ripping-off scene in the lair, he seems so genuinely stunned by it. And without his mask, he crumples, these bestial, crawling, sobbing, desperate thing, but the moment it's returned, he straightens and is the perfect leading man again.
I would have been content with that, but for the first time, I was distracted by Raoul, as played by Łukasz Talik. Yes, I know. I, the lover of all things anti-hero and villain-shaped, got all giddy over a Raoul. And couldn't stop watching him. Even when the Phantom was tangoing with Christine, because Raoul was jumping up and down and flailing in panic in the box on stage right. He was such a sweet Raoul, so sincere, enthusiastic, passionate and throwing caution and social propriety to the four winds.
Also, he had a natural ponytail and he went into L'Oreal mode, his hair all loose and shaken about his face in the lair sequence. It was most pleasing ;)
Minor character-wise, Jakub Szydłowski as Firmin stole the show. Of course he would. He has done in every show I've seen him in and I maintain he should have been the Phantom. He's wonderful. He was the best Koukol I've seen in Tanz der Vampire. He was fantastic as the caretaker in Academie. He should have been Krolock AND Phantom. Seriously, I will see any show that he is in, just to watch the quiet ways he will twist the audience around his little finger. LOVE HIM.
Otherwise, Meg was lovely and I was surprised by how much I liked Anna Gigiel as Carlotta, who played the stroppy diva perfectly. Incidentally, someone needs to tell their Passarino that he's not meant to actually sing better than their lead opera singer. Or twirl his cloak half as much.
On the whole, it is a fairly strong cast, with a fantastic dancing corps, but the biggest weakness of this show, one I ranted about for ages afterwards, was the weakness of the musical direction. The conductor is the same one I've seen at most of the shows at this theatre, and he really, really, really acts as if it is all about him, rather than the music. He jumps around, he puts in over the top gestures just so people will notice him flailing about over the edge of the orchestra pit, he brings in sections at the wrong time. He's impossible to follow.
I watched him beating time and he can't keep to his tempo for love nor money. And I know it's him and not the orchestra, because they use their second conductor during the bows for the moment when said musical director is on stage, and the improvement is tangible. It's so much crisper, cleaner and better. That show could be wonderful if they would just find someone with the nerve to knock out and tie up the musical director.
The next night, it wasn't as good a show. Things seemed to be going wrong, some people seemed rather stroppy and on the whole, I preferred the first night. It was a different Raoul as well, Marcin Mroziński, but you could tell this one is already bored of the role and he played it so pushy and aggressive that he actually made Christine (same girl from the night before) push him off. This would be the Raoul/Christine pairing that would end in domestic violence.
This would also be the Raoul who split his trousers while doing the battle in the graveyard scene.
However, good side of bad Raoul meant I got to enjoy the Past the Point of No Return sequence, wherein Christine and Erik do a wonderful tango, with echoes of Music of the Night in the choreography. Tis tres pretty :)
Incidentally, while the lair sequence is normally my favourite in the show with all three, the music ruined it for me. When you can't even make out one line of dialogue because of overblown gesturing from the pit bringing in the brass too loudly, you need a new musical director.
Still, as smaller productions go, it isn't bad. And I think you all know who/what I would change ;)
