English National Opera

10th July

Yeah so this is a musical being performed by an opera company. I don’t really have a problem with that though I can see why some people do. But I mean if the opera companies were putting on musicals that you get to see all the time, a long running musical like Les Mis or something everyone knows backwards anyway like Grease or a musical that’s like totally not operatic at all like Fame or Starlight Express then I would like totally have a problem with that.

But Kismet isn’t such a bad choice. It’s not on anywhere else and I don’t think it has been on for years. Probably not many people know the songs, I had a look at some compilation CDs of musicals and I didn’t find anything from Kismet, I wasn’t looking really properly but it’s not one that’s on like nearly every CD like Phantom of the Opera or something and by the way I am so pissed off of people thinking Phantom of the Opera is an opera. It’s not, it’s a musical set in an opera house. Bit of a difference there I think. Ariadne auf Naxos is set in a theatre but no-one goes around saying that’s a play do they? It’s like watching an opera and thinking it’s really happening and that’s just weird.

Kismet does have some quite operatic bits and it’s not too well-known so it’s not a totally bad choice. The only thing is that there’s probably like 20 musicals on in the West End all the time and only about another 20 operas you see from one company in the whole year so 1 extra musical from the ENO means like 1 fewer opera.

The main character is the Poet sung by Michael Ball and first of all he pissed me off because he got applauded just for walking on the stage. Okay so that’s not his fault but like why??? Wait until he’s done some singing at least. If he wants to run in on stilts juggling okay fair enough, he deserves it. But for just walking in and starting to go down some stairs? I don’t think so.

But the problem with this opera is that the Poet is a total prat. He spends the whole opera lying and stealing and finally killing someone and he just like gets away with it. Well to start off with maybe it’s pretty cool but some of what he does is pretty serious stuff and killing people definitely isn’t on, why not just torture them? Okay so the person he killed wasn’t exactly nice himself but you can’t go around killing people just because they’ve tried to have you put to death. And it wasn’t like the Poet hadn’t done nothing wrong. And he was a total wanker to Jawan, he was sung by Julian Curry who seems to be an actor not a musicals person but I don’t think he had any major singing, maybe he didn’t sing at all but maybe he did. Anyway I know Jawan was dodgy in the first act and slushy in the second act but that’s no reason for the Poet to be an a***hole.

It’s probably not Michael Ball’s fault I didn’t like him, he didn’t have much chance with such a crap plot. But I didn’t think his singing was all that great and his acting was so over the top. Okay the Coliseum is a big place but you don’t have to shout all the time. But maybe I’m just pissed off with him because I can’t stand his character.

Some of the real musical singers were brilliant though. Faith Prince who sang Lalume, now she was hot and I so would. Very cool voice and her character was exaggerated without looking stupid. Then there were three dancers who were the princesses of Ababu, they were probably 3 of the female ensemble but they were totally hot, they came onstage in this box and I was waiting for them to jump out and they came out legs first, you should of seen it, it was brilliant.

But I still liked Sarah Tynan as Marsinah best, seriously I can’t get enough of her. And they let her use her own hair for once which was wicked, she’s a well hot blonde. In her first duet I didn’t recognise her though because she just completely sounded like a proper musical singer and her clothes weren’t very revealing. After that she got more operatic but that suited the music. And she wore some better clothes later on. She was so hot and I got to see her naked! Well she had a towel thing and she probably did have underwear on really but I mean phwoar! Okay ENO this is a crap musical but I’m letting you off. But seriously Sarah’s singing would be brilliant even if she wasn’t a total babe. She’s just one of the best young singers around.

Alfie Boe was the Caliph, the lucky guy who gets to snog her. I feeling was a bit unsure about him, he was on the Young Artist Programme from the ROH so I knew he couldn’t have been that bad but anyone who gets his kind of brilliant reviews, well you can’t expect too much. The way people go on, he’s like the male version of Katherine Jenkins, in other words he’d be a pretty good in your local choir but not someone you should be paying to go and see. That’s how I thought Alfie would be because his type always are but he actually isn’t a bad singer at all. He’s nothing special of course, you don’t get his kind of record deals if you’re anything special but he is pretty good. Nice voice, acting pretty good – wouldn’t go to one of his big concerts but wouldn’t mind if he came back to the ENO again.

But if I was a record producer looking for a star tenor I’d have gone for Dwayne Jones who was the Bangle Man which is a crappily small role but there was still something about his voice that made you listen even if his diction does need a bit of work. He looks quite cool in his pic, sort of dangerous. If you had him and then a hot babe like Sarah doing a duet CD it would give opera a so much cooler image. And image is important, that’s what gets people in the doors.

Graeme Danby was the Wazir, that’s the bloke the Poet murdered. Didn’t like him but it still isn’t funny to drown people. Graeme’s brilliant, always cool to see him in a role with so much character because that’s something he does really well and he’s a real proper good bass as well. Same with Donald Maxwell as Omar Khayyam apart from the bass part, he’s a baritone. He’s a Scotsman so Hairy just raves about him but Hairy’s really got a point this time. Then there’s Rodney Clarke, he’s not as experienced as the other two but he’s been cropping up in all kinds of different small roles and he knows what he’s doing.

The music was okay but the best bits were the bits by Borodin obviously.

So crap musical but some great performances. But next time let them be great in an opera okay?

FitCrit

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