Elena di Veneria on LND Hamburg

[igenlode]

I've just spent most of the evening applying my twenty years' rusty Russian to an online article about the Hamburg staging of "Love Never Dies", having been tempted into it from Tumblr on glimpsing the tantalising statement "мне показалось, что она не любит Призрака" (I get the impression that Christine doesn't love the Phantom)
It's wonderful what a bit of motivation can do...

http://operaghost.ru/lnd_hamburg.htm

Yet again, independent confirmation that Raoul (whom the reviewer concludes this Christine no longer loves in the romantic sense either) comes across in LND despite the author's intentions as a far more interesting and sympathetic character in his relationship with Christine than the one-note Phantom does, and indeed that Lloyd Webber has in effect written the piece as Raoul's tragedy and not, as he supposes, as that of the Phantom. How did the composer manage to do this without noticing?

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The late-coming anemone is now dying as well without ever having reached full growth, the one with the damaged stem has withered, and the others have not only failed to bloom but aren't looking all that vigorous either. I'm afraid that as house-plants (and as a gift) they were a complete and utter failure.

Comments

[butterflydreaming]

How did the composer manage to do this without noticing?
Perhaps it's the fault of the excellent actors playing Raoul. I know that for me, it was "Why Does She Love Me" and "Devil Take the Hindmost" that pulled me into LND. Mr Y isn't enough of a villain to be interesting. Flawed Raoul has more going on to make him human, his motivations easier to understand.

[igenlode]

Same here -- and since I wrote down my reactions at the time, I've got the proof of it :-D

("I managed to reconcile this with my tendencies towards 'sympathy with the devil' in an unanticipated but ironically apt way: by finding myself in instant sympathy with the unfortunate Raoul, clearly intended as the villain of the piece"...)

A major part of the trouble is that I don't think Mr. Y was intended as the villain: in this show the audience are supposed to see the Phantom as the romantic lead. Which, as I've said before, means that he gets Raoul's 'boring' role from POTO and Raoul ends up with the Phantom's old role as 'fascinating flawed protagonist begging for fan analysis'...

[watervole]

I'd never have expected anemones to work as house plants.
They're probably very dependent on seasonal light and temperature patterns.

[igenlode]

They were being marketed ("White Anemone Indoor Planter -- bring the outdoors in") by the National Trust, which really ought to have known better...

Anyway, I've put the three survivors out into the lawn under the oak tree to join the blue ones that are there already. If we get Blanda White Splendour showing up alongside the other anemones next year then I'll know they're mine.

[watervole]

Apparently, they can work as forced indoor plants, but you need to pre-soak the bulbs and water them regularly. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/3339890/An-inside-job.html

[igenlode]

The grey squirrels have dug them up and eaten the corms (the soil being loose where they were planted), so we'll never know...