"Changes as in rewriting the entire show? Because from almost everything I've heard, that's what needs to be done to salvage this show."
Just going off the of Cast Recording, it really doesn't seem that horrible.
The music is great, but Webber just needs either a new lyricist or just kick Slater into shape. The book also needs to be less crazy and more focused, which is all possible.
"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
I just this minute got in from seeing 'Love Never Dies' tonight. I avoided all the reviews and word-of-mouth so that I wouldn't start wondering about it. I had no idea about the plot, hadn't heard the music.
All this being a precursor, of course, to saying that it was one of the worst things I've ever seen. At one point several of the people sitting around me got the giggles. We were like a bunch of girl scouts.
Sierra Boggess is absolutely wonderful, I should add. She really plays it for what it's worth, but my god. It really begs the question of whether Andrew Lloyd Webber has actually SEEN 'The Phantom of the Opera', and what he actually thinks the story is about!
From all the noise I've been hearing, the best change would seem to be to pull it altogether. ALW's day has passed -- he had a great time of it and has been rewarded handsomely. But it's time to move over. And I'm not talking jukebox musicals or Disney replays of the original cartoons. Let the originals let their voices be heard -- and, in my opinion, let them have some music that doesn't violate your eardrums or is too esoteric.
its funny hearing these all over the place reviews of LND(im not discounting anyone's opinions just saying) I was expecting a resounding hatred or indifference. Its strange its getting glowing to negative to mixed to everything in between.
Hmm, alright. A show that critics half hate, half love, but overall pretty mixed to negative, has some amazing female leads, started in England and once it got to Broadway completely flopped...that situation hasn't been done before. Oh, right. It has. It's called Carrie.
Recent Broadway and Off-Broadway:: Carrie, Merrily, Ionescopade
Next On The List :: Clybourne Park, Once, Streetcar, BOM
^ Except, unlike Carrie, LND has producers behind it that won't have spent all the advance before previews are over. And it also has proudcers that seem aware that there are problems that can be solved by doing something aside from just changing a few orchestrations and a song.
A show that critics half hate, half love, but overall pretty mixed to negative, has some amazing female leads, started in England and once it got to Broadway completely flopped...that situation hasn't been done before. Oh, right. It has. It's called Carrie.
Isn't that The Woman in White?
Listen, I don't take my clothes off for anyone, even if it is "artistic". - JANICE
I have to give them credit for knowing their show needs work before it is released to the hounds in NYC. Let's hope they are able to make the right changes!
Does anyone know where you can officially download the music video and the sneak peek video of "Till I hear you sing once more"...would love to put it on my ipod and just view it all day long...so beautiful.
Here is how I would re-write love never dies... make is NOT A PHANTOM SHOW. Change the names of all the charactors that have any relation to POTO. If you make it about someone else perhaps who heard her voice when he was a soldier in europe (or maybe for school) and she spurned him once... Then she gets the invite and goes to NYC. Why could that not work?? The story would actually be interesting to me. But with the whole phantom tie-in it seems so force fed.
"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around."
My dyed in the wool inner Phantom Phan has been taking round the clock doses of Pepto since subjecting myself to listen to the score this past Tuesday, courtesy of Sirius Satellite. At first, I wasn't impressed. I took a step further and actually purchased the special DVD/CD at Barnes and Noble, thinking I just needed to hear a better recording of it, on a better sound system, maybe it would grow on me. I should have invested the $$ in a good book instead.
The music is charmless shlock. The lyrics sound like they were lifted from Twitter. That's how bad.
The only hope this show has is to close before 6 months and never come to NYC.
Ramin Karimloo is the only reason to listen to this should you decide to subject yourself. Sierra sings like she's still in Little Mermaid which was a total turnoff to me. Joseph Millson plays bitter just fine, but why turn Raoul into a savage Gaylord from Showboat? What ALW did to these characters just turns my stomach.
Jerry Springer should be happy. The plot of this show is more white trash then any segment he ever aired.
Enjoy at your own risk...I'm off to listen to the original Phantom Score.
did sierra use her soprano at all in mermaid? i think her head voice here sounds very different from her belt. i do love ramin. he's just so beautiful. i hope it comes just cause i'm so curious.
wow -- i haven't seen it, of course (i'm in the usa), but i love everything about the show based on the recording. they'd better not change the great gustave stuff (beauty underneath, etc) ... or the END. The end, imho, is perfect.