Non-English musicals

Notre-Dame de Paris: *** Watched on 10 Nov 06, coinciding with Wil's birthday.
Puteri Gunung Ledang: **** on 26 Nov 06
Immortality: **1/2 on 2 Dec 06

By chance, the last 3 musicals we watched were all non-English. There was the French "Notre Dame de Paris" at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, and then the Malay/Javanese "Puteri Gunung Ledang" and the Mandarin "Immortality" at the Esplanade. There were subtitles for all 3 shows, so we were reading as much as listening/watching the shows.

By consensus with Lini, our joint rating for the shows are, out of 5; 4 for Puteri, 3 for Notre-Dame and 2.5 for Immortality.

This is in spite of the fact that N-D has the more memorable and catchy tunes. In fact, Lini drove me up the wall playing and/or humming the soundtrack over and over again at home and in the car ("humming" because she can't sing in French). But it was cheesy, repetitive and flashy music for me, the kind that has little to do with character or plot. (Yes, I'm old-fashioned, pre-post-modern that way.)

That's the beauty of Puteri, where I felt goose pimples witnessing history and myth come alive. Plot, music, character and setting all fused together meaningfully. Puteri also had a hell of a singer and actress in Tiara Jacquelina, whose lung power and vocal dexterity out-matches anyone we know in Singapore. (Except perhaps for Kit Chan, but Kit is no actress.) The largely Malay audience was also spontaneous and generous with applause, it was infectious. The sound system for Puteri was unusually good too, and unlike the other 2 "musicals", it was a live performance with musicians instead of recorded music.






Casts from Puteri Gunung Ledang and standing ovation from the audience





Still, the flashiest, cheesiest, loudest noise came from the Chengdu parade of masquerade. It had fireworks, rain effects, falling petals, flying arrows, actors throwing gifts to the audience and topless women. It had everything except a story and characters we care about. In spite of the din, Lini nodded off for a while. But it's not all bad. One or 2 of the songs lingers in the mind, as do the gratuitous nudity. Or is the latter bad? Let's just say, shall we, that it's nice to be living in such a cosmopolitan city.





Autograph & photograph session with the casts from "Immortality"

Chup