the 2006 yangtze new year's concert

last night our school invited duff and me to attend a special concert for foreigners. The provincial foreign affairs office sent a few tickets to some universities in wuhan with foreign teachers. some of our friends at other schools were there as well. getting there, i had no idea what to expect. we went to a huge concert hall by the yellow crane tower. it seems to have been recently built, and it is was so different from any concert hall i have seen before. it was cold, and sterile, white and modern. from the construction it is very obvious that the weather in wuhan in warm most of the time, most everything was open-air. when we walked into the main concert hall, i was so excited. i often feel so isolated from the arts here. i know that there must be concerts and shows, especially in a city the size of wuhan, but because we cannot speak the language we never know about them. the hall was a lot smaller than i expected, and it was really cramped. the programs showed 23 musical selections, almost all of them from operas and broadway shows.

the concert started with four pieces from 'phantom of the opera.' there were four chinese vocalists, and two canadian guys. the chinese vocalists had great pronunciation, and were trained as opera singers. still, the performance had some distinctly chinese characteristics. the orchestra was crammed so tightly on the stage i thought at first that they weren't using sheet music. there was a giant screen hung behind them, and when the came up on camera, i could see the music was practically pasted to the back of the musician in front of them. they were packed in so tightly. as the vocalists sang the pieces from 'the phantom of the opera' scenes from the movie played on the screen above their heads. it was supposed to be the footage from the movie of the same song that was being performed. it didn't take long, though, until the live singing was no longer timed correctly with the movie images. the effect was really off and disconnected. during one duet, the younger male vocalist appeared on stage to sing with the phantom mask on his face. i took my eyes off of him for one second and when i turned my attention back to him he was lurching towards the orchestra, arms outstretched in a zombie walk. he was so into this bit, he almost forgot to run back to center stage to the microphone for his duet. hilarious.

the screen alternated with slides and images from 'cats,' 'phantom of the opera,' 'west side story,' and the live performance. there were camera men, in jeans and sweatshirts, crawling all over the place to get their shots for the feed. there was one camera man who tromped through the orchestra regularly. they had a camera mounted on a huge arm, which they swung around the stage for some sweeping shots, at times coming dangerously close to the performer's heads.

my favorite sequence was 'tonight' from 'west side story.' it is a pretty, slow song, accompanied, on the screen, by the fastest dance sequence from the 'west side story' movie. the best, though, was when half way through the song, the stage was flooded by sequined, feathered, hot-pink clad, las vegas-style show dancers. it was odd to watch.

there was a piece from strauss’ ‘bat,’ and another from ‘cat,’ by andrew lloyd webber. i had a great time at this odd show. oh, and they had the vegas dancers back for ‘scarborough fair’ which was billed in the program as a ‘riddle song.’

we are still working on our india plane tickets, but it looks as if things are going to work out.

the weather is wonderful today, it is cold, and rainy, and really windy. sometimes the rain turns to sleet. it is just like bellingham, or ireland. i am so pleased.