GREAT COMET - "Charming" Music Video
GREAT COMET - "Charming" Music Video
BroadwayConcierge
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/24/15
#1GREAT COMET - "Charming" Music Video
Posted: 4/25/17 at 6:39pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQeka-7k8bc&feature=youtu.be
I love this weekly music video feature they've been doing at Great Comet!
#2GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/25/17 at 7:05pm
The video itself is a little odd, but Amber Gray continues to be fabulous. I am obsessed with the way she takes the song up at the end.
I am a firm believer in serendipity- all the random pieces coming together in one wonderful moment, when suddenly you see what their purpose was all along.
#3GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/26/17 at 8:00am
I've posted several times on this board over the past few weeks that the folks behind this show should push this song, and my suggestion has been poo-pooed repeatedly. Glad to see the show has more sense than some folks around here.
"Michael Riedel...The Perez Hilton of the New York Theatre scene"
- Craig Hepworth, What's On Stage
BroadwayConcierge
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/24/15
#4GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/26/17 at 9:31am
Lot666 said: "I've posted several times on this board over the past few weeks that the folks behind this show should push this song, and my suggestion has been poo-pooed repeatedly. Glad to see the show has more sense than some folks around here."
It has? I think "Charming" is the best song in the show! I totally agree with you here.
BeukyBaby
Swing Joined: 7/8/14
#5GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/26/17 at 10:15am
Is anyone else struck by Amber's uncanny resemblance to a young Eartha Kitt in this video? We need a Kitt biopic starring Amber Gray, stat!
Updated On: 4/26/17 at 10:15 AM
#6GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/26/17 at 12:01pm
This is my favorite song in this wonderful score and Amber absolutely slays it. She has an amazing star quality that makes you forget how small a role Helene really is.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#7GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/26/17 at 12:03pm
BeukyBaby said: "Is anyone else struck by Amber's uncanny resemblance to a young Eartha Kurt in this video? We need a Kitt biopic starring Amber Gray, stat!"
YEEEESSS!!! That was the only thing I could think anytime she was on stage in this show. She is so wonderful and I love that they gave her the music video treatment. I wonder if every major character in the show will get the video treatment for one of their solos...
#8GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/26/17 at 12:28pm
BeukyBaby said: "Is anyone else struck by Amber's uncanny resemblance to a young Eartha Kurt in this video? We need a Kitt biopic starring Amber Gray, stat!"
Definitely! Meow...
"Michael Riedel...The Perez Hilton of the New York Theatre scene"
- Craig Hepworth, What's On Stage
PaulWom
Featured Actor Joined: 8/8/16
#9GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/26/17 at 2:48pm
I actually think that Amber's performance as Helene is criminally underrated. It warrants repeated viewings to really understand the nuances she's put into it. The pure, undiluted spite, anger and venom she throws at Pierre.... The haunted look of loss in her eyes, the fear as Pierre goes after her... The malicious manipulation of Natasha... It's really a phenomenal performance.
#10GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/26/17 at 2:50pm
I didn't see her in Hadestown, but it's amazing to see the difference in Amber's performance as Helene and her work in An Octoroon a few years back. She's brilliantly talented.
I am a firm believer in serendipity- all the random pieces coming together in one wonderful moment, when suddenly you see what their purpose was all along.
#11GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/26/17 at 3:06pm
She was great in Hadestown. A wonderfully warm, heartfelt performance.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
BroadwayConcierge
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/24/15
#12GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/26/17 at 3:19pm
PaulWom said: "I actually think that Amber's performance as Helene is criminally underrated. It warrants repeated viewings to really understand the nuances she's put into it. The pure, undiluted spite, anger and venom she throws at Pierre.... The haunted look of loss in her eyes, the fear as Pierre goes after her... The malicious manipulation of Natasha... It's really a phenomenal performance."
Great word choices, and so well put—I couldn't agree more. She's absolutely stunning in the role.
NYadgal
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/18/04
#13GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/26/17 at 3:23pm
Adding my agreement.
I've seen the show twice, and the second time I simply couldn't take my eyes off of her.
"Two drifters off to see the world. There's such a lot of world to see. . ."
Ortensiah
Chorus Member Joined: 11/11/16
#14GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/26/17 at 3:28pm
This was my favorite song in the show as well. I was actually a little afraid to watch the music video because of how amazing Amber Gray's performance was live, but I think they did a pretty good job here. I do wish they didn't have her behind a mic stand as a sort of carabet singer in the video, because even though she milks every note, her strongest performance is when she mingles more freely with the audience members and you can fully see her at her most seductive and cunning.
Edit: She performance reminded me of Helen Bonham Carter as Beatrice Lestrange in Harry Potter...only not murderous...that kind of twisted charisma.
zzdawgg
Stand-by Joined: 4/28/14
#15GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/26/17 at 7:02pm
I really don't care for the show, but this was gorgeous. Thanks for sharing!
Rainah
Broadway Star Joined: 11/24/16
#16GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/27/17 at 12:37pm
Hm. I will be the voice of dissent and say I'm not wild about this music video. Love Comet, adore this song (It was one of the first I learned) but I feel like the music video is losing the narrative of the song. It's a seduction, a build up to get that "yes" from Natasha. Amber sure looks like she's having fun in this video, but I'm not seeing that "I want something and I am going to make it happen". If they're going to do non-narrative videos, I think I prefer the ones of them singing into a mic (No One Else, In My House) to these (Charming, Sonya Alone)
#17GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/27/17 at 1:13pm
I really hope she gets a Tony nomination. The best part of THE GREAT COMET.
"Oh look at the time, three more intelligent plays just closed and THE ADDAMS FAMILY made another million dollars" -Jackie Hoffman, Broadway.com Audience Awards
madlibrarian
Broadway Star Joined: 8/15/06
#18GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/27/17 at 2:07pm
Question: Why does she sing charman-tay? Isn't the French word charmante, without an accent? Or is it not French?
(I've not seen the show.)
dramamama611
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/4/07
#19GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/27/17 at 2:16pm
Somewhere there's a huge discussion on this. HUGE. MY take on it (yes, it's french) is that she, along with her brother are no where near as cosmopolitan as they'd like you to believe, therefore the mispronunciation plays into that.
If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it?
These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.
BroadwayConcierge
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/24/15
#20GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/27/17 at 2:18pm
Here's the thread dramamama's talking about! It's a good question, madlibrarian, and one I wondered about too 
:
https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.php?thread=1089442
#21GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/27/17 at 2:29pm
I got nothing out of that...not a fan of the video or Amber
"Anything you do, let it it come from you--then it will be new."
Sunday in the Park with George
PaulWom
Featured Actor Joined: 8/8/16
#22GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/27/17 at 2:31pm
dramamama611 said: "Somewhere there's a huge discussion on this. HUGE. MY take on it (yes, it's french) is that she, along with her brother are no where near as cosmopolitan as they'd like you to believe, therefore the mispronunciation plays into that.
"
Dave has confirmed this in the Comet: A Journey to broadway Book. That and apparently he also loved the way the pronunciation flows in the song
madlibrarian
Broadway Star Joined: 8/15/06
#23GREAT COMET -
Posted: 4/27/17 at 2:44pmThanks for the responses and link to previous discussion. Supposedly the upper class Russian was fluent in French, speaking in French in preference to speaking in Russian, so I'd think even a Helene would know better than to mispronounce a common, simple word. So the song (to me) grates of lyric incompetence, much like all the non-rhymes in Finding Neverland. Am astonished nobody ever knew enough or saw fit to correct it! I mean, wouldn't somebody, sometime, somewhere have corrected Helene?
