Beth Winter ([info]bwinter) wrote,
@ 2008-05-04 08:24:00
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Entry tags:blather, real life, travel

*falls over*
Got back yesterday near midnight and was so exhausted I fell into bed without even touching the computer. Reviews will be up tonight or tomorrow. In the meantime, highlights of my Berlin trip:

- seeing Uwe Kröger, twice. No Pia, but oh, UWE. No more watching certain Hungarians for you, the set'll fall apart!
- Spargel - height of the season, and oh, they were delicious
- lovely Roman-inspired sandals and a jacket that cost far too much
- stuffed alligator O.o


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[info]pinkdormouse
2008-05-04 07:31 am UTC (link)
Welcome back! I take it you had fun?

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[info]bwinter
2008-05-04 07:46 am UTC (link)
Most definitely :) And managed to find a brand of clothing that makes suit jackets that fit me, an utterly amazing feat.

Edited at 2008-05-04 07:46 am UTC

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[info]lamath
2008-05-04 07:34 am UTC (link)
I look forward to your reviews! And hee. UWE! :D

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[info]bwinter
2008-05-04 07:44 am UTC (link)
Honestly, I normally hate him on DVDs, but oh, he was FUN. A lot of Mate, a lot of Maki Ichiro, and a mad laughter all his own :D

(Not a particularly good production, alas. The ensemble is utterly demoralised, and only Annemieke and Uwe put in real effort.)

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[info]lamath
2008-05-04 08:10 am UTC (link)
Uwe always struck me as someone who'd be fun to watch on stage, even/especially when he's being insane. :D

Sorry to hear that the production itself wasn't good, though. =\

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[info]bwinter
2008-05-04 08:52 am UTC (link)
It was decent, but I'm a lot happier about the fact cast is now up for the June run in Budapest, and I'll be seeing Mate twice :D

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[info]lamath
2008-05-04 08:53 am UTC (link)
SO MUCH ENVY! :P I want to see Mate's sexiness. =( You should kidnap him for me.

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[info]bwinter
2008-05-04 08:56 am UTC (link)
Take it up with [info]fyrie - she got her paws on him already ;) I'll be killing myself in Budapest - overnight train, then Tanz that evening, then an Elisabeth-Tanz double feature the next day, and the last day, Elisabeth matinee and 9PM train that leaves me just enough time to grab Mate once he's done washing off the glitter.

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[info]valancystar
2008-05-04 08:12 am UTC (link)
I'm glad to hear that he's at least putting effort into the acting and energy since he can no longer sing. :P Anyway, I look forward to hearing a more detailed review! I'm curious about this production, and I've been trying to read reviews online, but it's much better getting it from someone who I actually know, know what they've seen and what they like and thus can actually draw some conclusions from. People see this musical with such vastly different background and expectations that I never know what to think of some random musical forum user's opinion.

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[info]bwinter
2008-05-04 08:46 am UTC (link)
He was actually decent with singing, which amazed me.

Production is passable, but not on a par with Budapest. The ensemble hate it, you can tell.

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[info]valancystar
2008-05-04 09:04 am UTC (link)
He had good days, then. The reports of his singing in the premiere weren't great, and I still haven't recovered from his croaking in the Musical Forever concert.

It's not a good start if the ensemble hate the production. I wonder if it's the theatre or what.

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[info]bwinter
2008-05-04 09:13 am UTC (link)
I'm wondering if it's not a cold running rampant - Bruno Grassini's voice and energy were MIA on Thursday, and Pia wasn't there on Thursday though she should have been (she misses Fridays regularly to record the Tarzan-Jane casting show). Uwe went into his sharp registers sometimes, but not often, and the first Schatten was lyrical. I'll upload the audio soonish.

From what I've heard, it's the theatre - poor wages, incredibly strict and not letting them get away with any expressiveness.

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[info]valancystar
2008-05-04 09:15 am UTC (link)
I hope that they'll enjoy it better in Zurich in a different theatre. If I indeed get myself on that internship in Strasbourg, I'm thinking that a trip to Switzerland could be in order.

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[info]bwinter
2008-05-04 09:38 am UTC (link)
Depending on cast changes, I would say. I know Uwe and Pia will be leaving soon, and while Annemieke is a good Elisabeth, she's a very angry one. I've no idea what shape Felix'll be in - has he done anything much since Krolock? I wasn't fond of Bruno as Lucheni, and they simply must get another Franz-Joseph - Markus cannot act. And a decent second Sophie, because Christa was off on Thursday and whatshername the second one was dreadful.

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[info]valancystar
2008-05-04 09:46 am UTC (link)
I don't know about Felix - I think he's mostly been doing concerts. We'll see when reports or bootlegs of him start getting out, I guess. I've only heard audios of Bruno as Lucheni, but he's always seemed rather lacklustre to me, not bad but not a very interesting Lucheni.

I want to see an Elisabeth production in German, though. I worship Kunze's lyrics, and the Finnish translation sucked and I can't understand much Hungarian.

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[info]bwinter
2008-05-04 09:49 am UTC (link)
The lyrics were the one good bit, but the thing is, a lot of what is originally sung was changed to speaking, which annoyed me immensely. The second Sophie's voice was very poor, so most of Bellaria was spoken, which ruined it. No rhyme nor reason to it, either - Max had a gorgeous voice (he was the Viennese Javert) and they had his ghost-appearance in Act 2 be all spoken instead of sung.

Bruno's... mostly like Ethan or Thomas, but without their madness and intensity. Just a rather bored Italian anarchist ;)

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[info]valancystar
2008-05-04 09:52 am UTC (link)
That's just weird. I love it about Elisabeth that it's through-sung (like Kunze's musicals in general). It always made more sense to me than have the characters alternate between speaking and singing, which many musicals do. And it's written to be through-sung so changing a lot of the sung lines to spoken lines can't work. It already bothered me a bit that they had so much dialogue in Budapest, but at least it was added lines, not speaking lines that should be sung.

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[info]bwinter
2008-05-04 09:59 am UTC (link)
I got the impression most of the spoken lines were put in to cover voice deficiencies. A lot of the time phrases that should be sung high are whispered instead.

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[info]demoneyeskyo87
2008-05-04 03:48 pm UTC (link)
Yay, you got to see Elisabeth!


Glad to hear that Uwe is fantastic but I am starting to worry about his voice and that he might loose it, I guess it has to do with singing too much of the high notes or aging in general.

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[info]bwinter
2008-05-04 06:06 pm UTC (link)
He's actually better than he used to be - less of the high notes of the kind he can't really hold ;) I think he was just sick at the beginning of the run, because when I saw the show, it was Lucheni who couldn't sing at all.

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Welcome back!
[info]dracschick
2008-05-04 11:27 pm UTC (link)
glad you had a good time:)

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