I've been an Andrew Lloyd Webber freak for a few years...
I know the musicals, I know the singers, I know my opinions...
And right now I've decided that it's time to share them.
Just remember, there are few things that we may not agree on.
Just do...
I've been to the Royal Christmas Gala with Sarah Brightman and Gregorian and decided to make a (almost two months belated) review of it. Also two days before Christmas I saw Swan Lake danced by Moscow City ballet (so not some Czech ballet, but real Russians who are the world's best ballet dancers!) so I'll write about it in the second half of this chapter for those who are interested.
Royal Christmas Gala (trailer above):
Place: It was in Tipsport arena in Prague, which is a place where hockey matches take place most of the time. So no padded comfortable chairs, perhaps the people who had the most expensive tickets down there in front of the stage may have had them, but me and my grandma (my mum didn't want to go-her loss, but granny seems interested if it's connected to Webber...maybe it's after I told her that he wrote a song for Elvis Presley hehe) had the cheapest tickets and we were in the highest floor under the roof. When you want to go to a concert, being in my country and in middle class, you can't expect too much luxury. But we saw enough and heard everything, which is more important at a concert than the visual part anyway.
This was our view by the way:
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Yeah, no luxury, but what can you do with so expensive tickets?
Gregorian: So I don't know how many of you know about this group. The main reason I wanted to go to this Gala was, of course, mrs. Exwebber XD. I've heard about this group before and knew briefly what they do, but didn't pay any particular attention to them. It's a german vocal group which sings modern songs in the style of Gregorian chant (old pre-baroque style of singing that was used in churches). They dress as monks and add simple choreographies to their performances. And their soolist is Amelia Brightman, sister of Sarah.
They took the first part of the concert, and were changing with the quests (Mario Frangoulis, Narcis, Elisa Sadikova, Fernando Varela- about them later) Sarah came in the second part of the Gala. They were really good, I think I'll listen to this group sometime. They were singing mostly from their new album (as they said) "Holy chants", and those little choreographies in the monk robes were just so funny and cute! During one song they all played ukuleles. It was so captivating. I absolutely loved their interactions with Amelia. They're all men so it was like a princess among knights. She even kissed each of them holding a mistletoe! So adorable. Oh, and at the beginning, one of them greeted us in Czech! "Dobrý večer, dámy a pánové." meaning "Good evening ladies and gentlemen." Sure, they probably did this in each country (I saw a clip of Sarah speaking russian), but still, it was such a highlight.
The special guests:
It said three special guests, and yes, there were three more singers, but I think it should have said 5 or 6. Well six guests and 5 special performances.
Mario Frangoulis:
A musical or classical-crossover tenor. I realized I don't really like tenors in operas, those that are always "the pure heroine" is a soprano and "the brave hero" is a tenor. Unless it's a tenor that has something special in his voice, like Luciano Pavarotti, I'm not impressed.
