The Phantom lives on!
Andrew Lloyd Webber continues the tragic tale of romance, mystery and music

    

Angela Espinoza

aving produced shows such as Jesus

Christ Superstar, Cats and Joseph

and the Amazing Technicolor
Dreamcoat to great acclaim, the man needs
no real introduction. Andrew Lloyd Webber
has left his mark in the history of theatre.
Most recently, Lloyd Webber has put the
finishing touches on Love Never Dies
(LND), the long-awaited sequel to his ever-
popular Phantom of the Opera (PTO).

On October 8, Lloyd Webber held his
first major press conference to talk about his
latest production at Her Majesty’s Theatre in
London. He revealed production notes and
a portion of the opening piece, “Till I Hear
You Sing,” sung by Ramin Karimloo, who
will be the first to portray The Phantom at
the 2010 premiere.

The plot picks up the story 10 years
after the original musical. The Phantom has
chosen to leave his opera house lair in Paris
in order to start a new life in Coney Island.
Having worked his way up from freak show
to architect, The Phantom has developed
a new attraction, for which he requires the
aid of an old attraction: Christine Daaé.
Christine has moved on with her life,
having married childhood sweetheart Raoul
and raising their son, Gustave. Christine
is invited to sing by an “anonymous”
employer. Having clearly learned nothing
from her experience a decade earlier, she
heads off to Brooklyn, bringing her husband

 

and son along with her.

Having heard “Till I Hear You Sing,” I
have to say it’s not exactly Lloyd Webber’s
best. If anything, it sounds almost like
a parody of the PTO songs. At least it’s
something new: a sweet ballad sung by The
Phantom about his longing to hear Christine
sing — wait a minute, weren’t there several
of those in the last musical?

Not that I’m complaining, but the
others were... well, good. Then again, this
was merely a preview of the entire song,
so I shouldn’t be too harsh right off the bat.
The section is available for all to hear on
the official LND website for those who want
to give it a listen and come to their own
conclusions.

The story’s a little tacky and the title
even tackier, but let’s keep in mind that this
is the man who’s entertained the world time
and time again with blockbuster musicals.
As well, the casting of Karimloo as The
Phantom and Sierra Boggess as Christine
Daaé has been met with critical acclaim,
with Boggess showing a tremendous amount
of talent at the age of 27 and Karimloo
mastering The Phantom in dozens of other
past performances.

The show is set to be one of the most
anticipated events in recent theatre history,
with the world premiere to take place at
the Adelphi Theatre on March 9, 2010, in
London. Future shows are already set to
take place on Broadway, in Australia, Asia
and Canada. I have my fingers crossed for
Lloyd Webber in hopes that his next show
will be one of his best.

 

lb ars

West Coast Symphony brings down the
house at Douglas College

Local players make up one of Vancouver’s premier symphonic ensembles

 

Bujar Llapaj

By Jay Schreiber, Arts Editor

sk Symphony, an ensemble of
woodwinds, brass, strings and
percussion, was for a time the
metre stick of musical excellence in
Western culture. After Hayden’s so-called
“fathering” of the classical symphony,
musical greats from that era until the High
Romantic saw most of any composer’s
achievements documented in an ensemble
setting.

So what do we North Americans
think of the symphony today? Well, not
much to be honest. Most major cities
have orchestras that perform regularly but
to us non-Europeans, our culture really
doesn’t have much to grab on to within
the symphony’s “best of” collection.

There was first Hayden who
pioneered over 104 symphonies, hailing
from Hungary and making his name
in London. There was Mozart who’s
focused 10 years of steady composing
in Vienna helped him create both
aesthetically pleasing and technically
brilliant masterpieces. And of course,
straight from the German countryside to
your ears, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
broke boundaries and has repeatedly
rung out with music lovers since its
debut. Other greats in the symphonic
world such as Schubert or the Russian
Five (Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Modest
Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
and Alexander Borodin) helped to craft
the world of writing large ensemble
music.

The West Coast Symphony (WCS)
is a performing ensemble of community
musicians that every month performs
famous and popular symphonic music.
Members include everything from
professional gigging musicians to music
teachers, to even community members

who just love to play.

October’s bill highlighted three
musical selections. The first, a piece by
Rimsky-Korsakov, is entitled Capriccio
Espagnol or “Capriccio on Spanish
Themes.” The array of five short
movements reflects aspects of Rimsky’s
experiences in Spain during his travels
and features beautiful romantic melodies.

Friedrich Von Flotow, a Romantic
composer, was a contemporary of
Chopin’s at the time piano concertos
were making their way into the spotlight
around the mid 1800s. Flotow’s Second
Piano Concerto made its world debut
with the West Coast Symphony, and
featured talented Swedish pianist Carl
Petersson who flew to Vancouver for the
performance. With amazing conversations
between the piano and orchestra, it’s
difficult to wonder why Flotow’s concerto
took so long to be discovered.

Everyone knows who Ludwig Van
Beethoven is so I’m not going to waste
ink on his biography. Long story short,
the WCS wrapped up the program with
his “Pastoral” Sixth Symphony, a great
achievement in length and complexity of
Beethoven’s composing.

Albanian-born conductor Bujar
Llapaj has been with the orchestra since
2008, and fiercely led the orchestra
through the trills and swells of each piece.
The crowd applauded, and Carl Petersson
returned for an encore of Liszt’s infamous
Hungarian Rhapsody orchestrated for solo
piano.

The two performances of October’s
program took place at Christ Church
Cathedral downtown and in our very
own Muir Theatre at Douglas’ New West
campus. For more information on the
Symphony’s upcoming performances,
you can log on and check them out at
westcoastsymphony.ca.

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