We had a short getaway last weekend to Stuttgart. The reason was that I’ve bought us tickets for the musical The Phantom of the Opera as part of my Christmas gift to T. I wasn’t at all sure whether I’ve watched it as musical or in film and I couldn’t recall most of its songs. Thus it’s high time to refresh my memories again . I rather like the venue (Liederhalle in Stuttgart) this time. The interior is spacious, the lighting is not too glaring and most important of all, I had a great view of the stage!The orchestra was great but the music was sometimes too loud until it drowned out the voices of the casts. The stage setting was rather disappointing this time. I’ve always thought that out of courtesy for the audience or discreetness or for the sake of making it real, the curtains should be drawn closed for changing props when switching scenes but they just dimmed the light on stage while the audience could still clearly see the people running about arranging furniture for the next scene. What a suspense-killer!

And do you know how they change scenes? By changing the huge canvas (located in the middle of the stage at the picture above) together with a few extra props. Doesn’t sound very creative, right?

All in all, the musical itself was great, although the performance of the German ensemble was way below my expectation…