A musical weekend....

It was a music filled weekend these past 2 days for me...
On Saturday, me and my ex-schoolmates went to watch a musical produced by my alma mater St Mary Secondary School... It has always been a long time tradition for the school to stage musicals... This time round they were ambitious enough to attempt "The Phantom of the Opera" and I was really surprised when I first heard it.. It is no simple feat to stage a musical of such scale and granduer... I was worried whether they could pull it off or not...
As I drove along the familiar roads of Taman Intan Baiduri, Selayang once again after a 10 year lapse, a sense of nostalgia ran through me... The many memories I have of my old school days...When I finally got there,we spotted a few old teachers... greeted them and talk about the good old days then got ourselves a place and waited for the musical to begin...
When it began, I was impressed with the band and the piano, organ and violin accompanyment... They were really good... but the first act was a bit of a disappointment... It was the 3rd and final day of the show and still there were synchronization problems... I know they are only high school kids but then again so were we when staged our musical... Okay, so my batch didnt but we did witness 2 muscial productions within our span of 12 schooling years in St Mary, and it was a bit of a let down because the previous shows were really really good...
Anyway, as the story got along and Christine(the lead) took to stage I was awe struck... that girl can really sing... Kudos to her, Lim WeiJien... I was really really impressed... her vocals were fantastic for someone so young... she was only 16... and she could actually hit all the high notes... It sounded semi opratic which was what was required since "Phantom" was afterall an opera... Unfortunately, I could not say the same for the rest of the cast... Some could sing, I would give them that but somehow or rather it was all wrong... I think it has to do with the fact that being it is "The Phantom of the Opera" you expect to hear the rich baritone voice of the male lead but since St Mary is an all girl school... all you get is Sopranos after Sopranos... At most the lead playing the phantom was a borderline tenor and alto... as for the rest of the supposed men, it was only altos and sopranos... This kinda killed the show from my point of view... If it was any other musical, this would not have been a big issue since the disparity of voices was not so crucial....
However all in all, I think the teachers and students did a great job... It was a difficult task to stage this particular musical but they managed it and I am so proud of them... :) Wished they chose a simpler play for their first attempt in the school's new premises but it was a job well done.... Then Sunday came and I was off to watch "Beauty & The Beast" the musical at KLCC.... How was it? Well, the lead playing Belle was really good... and the rest of the furniture were cute too... Unfortunately Gaston and The Beast were somewhat sissy-fied... haha!! for lack of a better word... seriously... at some point they were squelling... I was so tempted to shout out "Shut up!! Be a man!!!" hhahaha!! It was really odd to watch though I know they were trying to make it a bit funnier but being that this was a copy of the animation, you will tend to compare and they were much more macho in the animation... How did that happen? hahaha!! But if you ignore the squels and sissy dance steps, it was overall and enjoyable performance.. Not one of the best I have been but quite nice I must say.... I would recommend this to anyone who just wanted to enjoy a fun musical... :D Perhaps maybe my school should have organized a field trip for all the cast to attend an actual musical just so they know what is expected of them... :)