liaku | Merry Christmas

Happy Holidays. And etc. Now back to my usual rambling.

So I've had the official Elisabeth Essen recording for forever, and I've never really listened to it until the plane ride back home from school just a week ago. It's pretty badass. Carsten Lepper usually annoys me half to death, and Uwe almost never gets any reaction out of me at all (and nothing in this case is a very bad thing), but I actually like both of them in this recording. There's just this lovely presence Uwe has, an aura of command and a subtler longing for Elisabeth. I love it. He still doesn't come near the expression of my favorite Deaths, but it's still a lovely recording in its own right. That, and Jesper owns every other Rudolf except possibly Szabó Dávid. (Yes, I had a brief obsession with Oliver Arno. It is over now. ...Mostly over, anyway.)

In other news, I finally went through some of the music I've been downloading over the semester, and I listened to Felix Martin singing Die Unstillbare Gier in English for the first time. On one hand, it's really nice to hear the lyrics in English sung by anyone that's not Michael Crawford. On the other hand, that was English???? I kid, I kid. After a few seconds of adjusting to his accent, it's a great recording of the song--provided you can adjust to his accent at all, that is.

And to repeat some old news: Rob Fowler is my favorite Simon Zealotes for Jesus Christ Superstar. Bar none.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Elisabeth Essen is brilliant. I fell in love with Eli through that recording. I think Uwe sounds great there, I have no problems with Carsten, Jesper is awesome and Pia is.. well, being Pialy Amazing. Damn I love that woman.

I sneakily read your your conversation about Olegg!Death and the Stuttgart DVD.. well, I have it.. and Pia's performance is WOW. She's really on fire! And then you have this Death as Olegg and you mourn that Pia will have to kiss the guy! It's awful. I do think Pia and Olegg realize Pia is the best thing about this combination. This proves it.
Olegg has this interpretation in which he thinks he's awesome and that everyone will throw themselves at his feet anyway. It makes me cringe. He isn't even that handsome and he definitely can't sing! (The last note in Der Letzte Tanz on the DVD? Way off.)
The only good thing about the Stuttgart cast is (obviously) Pia, though I liked Wietske!Elisabeth too and the song Karin Seyfried & Maike Boerdam did together, "Zwischen Traum Und Wirklichkeit".

Felix Martin's Unstillbare Gier is a lot of love. Lol, it was the first thing I heard by him after coming back totally enchanted from Berlin. I fell in love with it at once. XD I love him as Krolock! (Sad to say, that I just can't get into Tanz except for Krolock's songs..) But yeah. His English. =P

I agree with you on Elisabeth Essen. The recording's probably the best out of the official German recordings (the Wien revival might edge it out because Serkan Kaya's Lucheni is just that amazing, but Máté just sounds awful in it). I don't know how you can stand Carsten though. That'll always be a mystery to me. :P

...That picture of Olegg and Pia will give me nightmares. Is that during Die Schleier Fällt? Because that expression on his face is creepy. But Pia looks wonderful, as always. I've heard Olegg as ValJean in Les Miserables, and he sounded fine to me there, so I'd say he can sing fine, though a ValJean voice is not the sort of voice I'd ever cast for der Tod.

I believe Annemieke first performed as Elisabeth at Stuttgart too, so that might be another good thing about it. I don't know what "Zwischen Traum Und Wirklichkeit" is though, so I can't say anything about that.

Felix Martin is wonderful in general. I love his voice, though I think he moves kinda funny. I've only seen him in the Wien DVD with Maya and then that camera-crazy DVD of him in Berlin, so maybe he has a bit more grace live. :P As for Tanz, for the most part, I'm just an Unstillbare Gier fan, but I've recently starting obsessing over Carpe Noctum. It's catchy. :D (The only good thing about Broadway's Dance of the Vampires was Max von Essen's For Sarah. It's absolutely amazing.)

I saw Olegg as Valjean, and he was all right. He definitely actually has an amazing voice, but he absolutely can't sing Death's part. He has that more classical technique in his singing and apparently can't do the kind of rock singing that Death requires. Anyway, his singing as Valjean was good, but I didn't care much for his acting. His Bring Him Home sounded like "GOD ON HIGH HEAR HOW MIGHTILY I CAN BELT" rather than prayer. I know it's a hard song to sing right without sounding stupid, but it's maybe not the song just for showing how loud you can sing. Anyway, while he's an acceptable Valjean, he's my most loathed Death ever. His interpretation is indeed how Solyndra described it and it's extremely annoying. And I don't know why some people think he's good-looking. He doesn't look like anything to me.

It's funny, I used to obsess over the Essen recording of Elisabeth (barring Carsten) but nowadays I rarely listen to it. I guess it's just because I've listened to it so much. But it also bothers me that while the actors are great, the orchestrations somehow sound really thin and dull on that CD. I miss some depth and darkness from the music.

It definitely is. And you know, I really don't think he's that bad. Personally, I never got into Serkan Kaya much, maybe because I didn't listen to that recording a lot. Maya and Máté aren't my favourite cast for the cast albums.

He looks so scared. I find the picture totally amazing haha. :D
As for Olegg's singing.. I suppose he can sing just fine, he just sings the songs of Elisabeth in an odd way.. like he's singing staccato or something. It's awful. The interpretation is way off and that's why the singing sounds weird as well.

Zwischen Traum Und Wirklichkeit is a beautiful song. It's just in the Japanese version if I'm not mistaken. But they recorded a German version on the Stuttgart album. Together with Susan's Bellaria the only good songs on that disc!

I loooove him. I totally fell in love with him that evening lol. There's something about his performance that just takes you in.. even my dad agreed, and he's not too fond of any other Death but Uwe. Felix can be very entrancing.. when heard live. I usually don't like his studio voice. (The Die Unstillbare Gier album is an exception.)
Well, the other song I really love (besides the 4 on Felix' album) is Draussen Ist Freiheit. I just love that one. But the story on a whole is a tad too cheesy for me, I can't help it. :(
(Btw, is the DVD with Maya any good?)

You know, you need to watch the Vienna DVD. It's worth it for Serkan alone, even if you didn't end up liking anyone else. I've met maybe one person in my fandom years who didn't adore his Lucheni.

But the story on a whole is a tad too cheesy for me, I can't help it.

Hmm, but the thing is, Tanz der Vampire knows that the cheesy things in it are cheesy and deliberately makes fun of them. The story is deliberately built on clichés and intertextuality. I love it so much because (among other things) it manages to wonderfully balance between parody and seriousness so that it's totally hilarious at the same time as it has a serious side. I guess I have the right twisted sense of humour for it.

I've met maybe one person in my fandom years who didn't adore his Lucheni.

This is mind boggling. Serkan Kaya's basically some sort of god. I swear.

I'm close to getting that DVD, so I'll see it, sometime, whenever that may be haha.

And yes, you did tell me that before, so I listened again.. and while I do like the songs on their own, the whole story just doesn't impress me as much. Who knows, maybe it'll come. =P

Merry Christmas

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject