#1
Posted: 3/21/18 at 9:14am
When a show makes you long for the blissful ineptitude of Home for the Holidays, you know it’s bad, and boy is Rocktopia a real stinker. It’s 100 times more polished and professional than this season’s holiday special event, and yet I greatly preferred that disaster to this uninspired slog of an evening. (The nearly 2 hour and 45 minute runtime was simply too much for many patrons, and there was a steady stream of walkouts around the 2:15 mark through the end.)
At one point Rob Evans came out and asked the audience if Beethoven and Mozart had been alive in the 20th Century, don’t you think they would have collaborated with Queen and other rockers? Well, the answer is actually probably not. It’s not like classical music stopped being composed with Beethoven. It’s also not like Sondheim and Jerry Herman we’re collaborating with The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin either.
But fine, if you want to mash up classical pieces with rock anthems then go right ahead, but other than a few exceptions the two genres weren’t “mashed up” at all. The two styles weren’t integrated together. Usually a combo would start out with a 45 second classical music introduction followed by the full rock song. Repeat. A few times a Puccini or Handel aria would be overlaid atop a rock song, but I don’t think this worked as well as they thought it did. It’s purely bad timing, but one of the singers attempted an overblown “Lascia Ch’io Pianga” which is currently being sung so brilliantly and expressively at Farinelli and the King right now that I was embarrassed to even hear this version. Puccini rolled over in his grave so many times that he probably burrowed a hole to the other side of the world by now.
The lighting is garish and often the spotlights were shown directly into the audience, blinding the viewer- perhaps in an effort to make sure were still awake. (Rarely has a show been so loud and still so sleep-inducing.)
And speaking of the sound- rock concerts are supposed to be loud, and Rocktopia is appropriately so, but the sound design is so poor that the orchestra just sounds like mush and the much discussed underpaid chorus can rarely be heard so I don’t understand the point of even having them there.
The classical song choices are of the “This is the only classical CD you’ll ever need to own,” variety and the rock songs and the same. There wasn’t much care taken to curating an interesting or surprising songlist- not like I was expecting otherwise, but still.
Lastly, the projections were from the same clip art file as Baby, It’s You; the two low points were a montage of Dust Bowl photos (a real pepper upper!) and the We Are The Champions montage which featured Anne Frank, Mother Teresa and Princess Diana. Didn’t Anne Frank suffer enough already?
At one point Rob Evans came out and asked the audience if Beethoven and Mozart had been alive in the 20th Century, don’t you think they would have collaborated with Queen and other rockers? Well, the answer is actually probably not. It’s not like classical music stopped being composed with Beethoven. It’s also not like Sondheim and Jerry Herman we’re collaborating with The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin either.
But fine, if you want to mash up classical pieces with rock anthems then go right ahead, but other than a few exceptions the two genres weren’t “mashed up” at all. The two styles weren’t integrated together. Usually a combo would start out with a 45 second classical music introduction followed by the full rock song. Repeat. A few times a Puccini or Handel aria would be overlaid atop a rock song, but I don’t think this worked as well as they thought it did. It’s purely bad timing, but one of the singers attempted an overblown “Lascia Ch’io Pianga” which is currently being sung so brilliantly and expressively at Farinelli and the King right now that I was embarrassed to even hear this version. Puccini rolled over in his grave so many times that he probably burrowed a hole to the other side of the world by now.
The lighting is garish and often the spotlights were shown directly into the audience, blinding the viewer- perhaps in an effort to make sure were still awake. (Rarely has a show been so loud and still so sleep-inducing.)
And speaking of the sound- rock concerts are supposed to be loud, and Rocktopia is appropriately so, but the sound design is so poor that the orchestra just sounds like mush and the much discussed underpaid chorus can rarely be heard so I don’t understand the point of even having them there.
The classical song choices are of the “This is the only classical CD you’ll ever need to own,” variety and the rock songs and the same. There wasn’t much care taken to curating an interesting or surprising songlist- not like I was expecting otherwise, but still.
Lastly, the projections were from the same clip art file as Baby, It’s You; the two low points were a montage of Dust Bowl photos (a real pepper upper!) and the We Are The Champions montage which featured Anne Frank, Mother Teresa and Princess Diana. Didn’t Anne Frank suffer enough already?
Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco.
Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!
