We Go Together

Girls deserve their fair share of fun, ammiright? So in order to spoil myself, I decided to rush to Siam Paragon after yoga last Saturday - where I bought a ticket for the *exclusive* evening screening of The Phantom of The Opera.

Because the musical has been running for 25 years (“Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of The Opera is a worldwide entertainment phenomenon. It has been staged in 145 cities across 27 countries and it’s box office sales eclipse Avatar, ET, Titanic and Star Wars”!!) a special anniversary performance was staged and recorded at the Royal Albert Hall. It was as close as I could get to sitting in the audience in London.

Burst of Passion - Capital P

The show took about three and a half hours, which sounds like a long time, it went by pretty quickly. I don’t know why I neglected my love for theatre, like I have during the last 12 months. Perhaps because ‘the scene’ is different over here (which should actually be an invitation, not an excuse), probably more because of ‘traveling on a budget’. However, after this night it was more than clear to me how much I love traveling through time and to different worlds while being seated in a theatre (or cinema). You can take the girl away from the Passion (for a while), but can never hit shake the Passion out of the girl.

I was blown away.

Need I say more?

I’d kicked off my flip-flops, sat down with my arms wrapped around my knees and was hypnotized for the entire 220 minutes. By the live orchestra, the aria’s that did not seem to end (hello lovely Sierra Boggess - I am your fan), did I mention the ballet - I love me some ballet, the brightly colored costumes (Masquerade!!), the expressions on the faces of the actors (the emotion in their eyes, stunning!) and the lovely bonus at the end.

When sir Andrew Lloyd Webber entered the stage (what an adorable men it is), held a speech, invited the original London Company on to the stage, and Sarah Brightman started singing.

It was history on stage, all these years of effort - all the people that have worked so hard to pull this off. I love seeing the creative team, they seem to be different species, I don’t know what it is. They’ve got ‘inventive’ and ‘working-our-ass-off’ written all over them somehow. And it is so nice to see them interact with the cast. All these people on that stage, it just looked so adorably cute. It amazes me, the amount of work they put in to making it all come together.

And how it did, come together

It made me miss visiting plays as often as I used to. It made me miss writing about them, trying to inform others and get them enthusiastic to visit a performance. (So, hereby, I promise myself to get back in to that routine. Somewhere, somehow).

I highly recommend you go and watch (this recording of) The Phantom of The Opera - have a look at www.thephantomoftheopera.com and discover if there is a screening in your area, or get your hands on a DVD (or the special Collector’s Box Set!)

Question of the week: to go or not to go again this weekend? ;)