The Phantom of the Opera
I'm dividing this review into acts for a change, since each act was sort of it's own entity. Not super detailed, but some noticeable things.
Act One
It was nice to see Harriet's Christine again. I still don't love it, but it's still improved from the last time I saw her (didn't connect to that show at all…). I still can't watch her without analysing her, but I've at least pinpointed what I don't like about her Christine. It's the voice; she's got this gorgeous, full, beautiful voice… but every song sounds the same. Her movement and her face tell a story, but her voice never changes. I noticed this most in All I Ask of You and Wishing. She could be so, so good, but she needs to let the voice go a bit at points. It doesn't always need to be perfect; imperfections tell the story better.
Anyway, Hannibal was fun; loved that Harriet's starting to figure out the dancing. Her shoes matched everyone else's this time (in the past they've been bright white). Jeremy is brilliant in Hannibal; he just makes the most of every second he's on stage, and really brings a lot of humour to the show. Microphone issues for Monsieur Reyer, but other than that, Hannibal/Think of Me was clean. No comment on Cat jumping up early again. Think of me was gorgeous; I still think it's Harriet's best song (closely followed by PONR and Twisted Every Way).
I watched the degas ballet during the Meg/Christine and Raoul/Christine scenes. I did catch Harriet's reading of the letter from Raoul; loved the confusion-turn-to-realisation look that she had. Nice Angel of Music; Harriet has such a beautiful face, she can make pretty much anything look good (I say this because the 'Angel of Music face'; that is, the dreamy, dipsy facial expression, annoys me to no end, but Harriet makes it tolerable). Nice enough title song. Music of the Night was dull; Gero's voice was great but they don't connect as well as Olivia and Gero do. The mask got knocked off too early, but Harriet did a great 'run and fall' (very believable) and Gero's 'Stranger' was wonderfully creepy.
Didn't pay attention in Notes/Prima Donna. I only like that song when Layla is in it (hooray for three dimensional characters!), otherwise it's my least favourite song/scene in the entire show. Fiona was better today; less shrill, better accent, stronger overall portrayal. Il Muto was hilarious; I love how Fiona does that scene. It's funny.
All I ask of you was very meh. Pretty boring, nice voices but nothing else happened. No connection between Raoul and Christine. The Chandelier had a bit of a delay coming down, so everyone was standing there looking shocked for a few moments before it came down.
An eventful Act Two
Act two of this show was quite something. The first act was pretty dull, so I was expecting a similar second act. Didn't happen, obviously.
First of all, Harriet in Notes II: EPIC. Loved her; loved the emotion, loved that she let herself go a bit. It wasn't all about the big voice anymore, and she is truly at her best when she's not all about the voice. Another Harriet thing that made the second act interesting: Aminta Dress. Huge rip in the back; the ruffle was hanging halfway to the ground. She stepped on it. And her boot caught it. I have no idea how she untangled herself but for a second I thought she was going to end up on the floor. Nice save, but the ruffle was completely ripped and I was terrified she was going to step on it again and fall. Everything was fine, but it made PONR much more… nerve-wracking?
Backing up a bit to Masquerade. They forgot to drop the curtain and the stairs weren't going back. So from the audience (I was three rows back and on the opposite side of the stage), you could hear "Get the stairs back! Get the stairs back!" And the stairs went back before the curtain went down. So unlike the onstage bloopers, this was a very poorly handled issue by the backstage crew. They needed to not be so loud… because if I could hear it, other people certainly could. It didn't ruin the show, but they needed not to panic. I thought after the fact that maybe they were short staffed and someone missed their cue, but still. If I can hear you from the audience, you're doing something wrong.
The big event of act two was the Final Lair. Something happened with the noose, and I'm not sure what, but it didn't end up around Sean's neck. So Sean just sort of fell over and attached himself to the gate on the floor. Now, in theory, he probably should've stayed on his feet and attached himself to the gate that way, but in practice, he had a split second to figure it out, and what he did worked fine (the only issue I had is that he was blocked by the music box from my side of the stage). I think he handled it very well, and Gero and Harriet both did a good job working around it. Gero hurried up the candle bit of the 'noose release' (obviously noose-less) so the conductor had to play catch up a bit. But again, it was fine. Everyone handled it well. Yes, it was obvious that something went wrong, but it wasn't a disaster. A disaster would've been if they all sort of stood there not knowing what to do. I think the masquerade staircase is a bigger issue than this was.
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