Phantom of the Operaaaaaaa

Hi guys, short blog post to tell you about the most awesome of evenings in the history of the earth ever.. As you can probably guess from the title, I went to see The Phantom of the Opera tonight, and it was beyond amazing. I shall give a few reasons (bear in mind these are the reasons once the superficial ones, like just its general awesomeness, have been omitted, if I included them I could go on forever): 1. The singing: it is just incredible how a person can reach that high a note and sustain it, don't even comprehend how it's possible, it's breathtaking (for me, as well as the performers - aha, pun). It just completely entrances you, encapsulates you in the performance. 2. The orchestral music: in my opinion, it is the music of something that can make or break a drama (be it a live show, a film, a TV series), and in this it certainly plays it's part, being the driving force behind the entire thing. The music is just so hauntingly beautiful it almost brought a tear to my eye (and that takes a lot, trust me), it builds tension absolutely perfectly and sets the mood of the characters and the scene so accurately that it foreshadows the events of the next following scene when it's hardly begun. It creates personalities for the characters and fits so well with the events of the story that they build each other up so that they're both so intertwined with each other that you could barely draw the line between the drama and the music of it. 3. The dancing/general flowing movements around the stage: it is just enchanting, the gracefulness of the dancers, and I was constantly amazed at how they can dance with such energy yet still have enough breath left to sustain such high, beautiful notes. 4. The special effects/scene changes: in films I can understand how they can use special effects to build things, the way in which they can edit the transition between scenes out of the final cut, but this was a live performance, no edits. That's what amazed me so much about it, the way that the scene changes did not interrupt the flow of the performance, but instead built it up. And the way in which the special effects, which basically had to rely on surround sound/sound effects, lighting, and an extremely talented tech person/people, added so much to the performance and made things so brilliantly realistic. 5. The storyline: it is just mesmerising, from the offset you feel such emotional attachment to the characters that it's like you feel the entire performance, can see everything from each different character's point of view. I'll not give the plot away for those who haven't seen it, but I strongly recommend.. no, insist that you go to see it at some point. You will not regret it, it is just spectacular. Emily x