I think Kai summed it up perfectly when he stated, "I simply have no words" to describe the...the exceedingly unique? experience of the Las Vegas Rhapsody. Firstly, the concert was held in the world-famous Musikverein. This is a concert hall exuding grandeur and elegance; this is a place for gold leaf and red velvet and ceiling paintings and fur coats and fine wine and statue upon statue of naked women. But tonight, electric blues and pinks lit up the organ, the orchestra played chord progressions we've all heard a thousand times, and a man wearing a cream colored suit jacket and grey slacks (WHAT??) walked out and started singing like he'd just stepped out of the worst American 1940s mockumentary I'd ever seen. The hall was soon dripping with so much cheese I wasn't sure if I could see through it into the reality I'd once known. I envisioned any moment tux-clad waiters filing through the doors carrying trays of wine and offering cigars or those really long cigarettes used by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's.
The performance consisted of a Viennese orchestra and a Japanese pianist accompanying the unfortunately dressed German singer, who sang American show tunes in their original English. Despite the guy's terrible fashion sense and skewed vision of American culture, he had a pretty good voice and his rhythm was awesome. And the orchestra was incredible! Whenever I took a moment to focus on their sound soared through the hall, I could understand why this venue was valued acoustically, though I admit I was frequently too distracted by the oddness of the singing to pay too much attention to it.
To give you an idea of what this performance consisted of, here are some highlights:
-"A Gal in Calico" featured a section where the poor man decided to imitate a Texan drawl. I tried so hard not to burst out laughing, but I couldn't stop giggling so I had to hide my face as the polite Austrian man next to me kept looking at me like I was nuts.
-He made a joke about still being young during "I feel so young" and nobody but us laughed.
-"Chim Chim Cheree" was inherently funny just because it's just really not meant to be lounge music, and that's what it sounded and looked like. Also, a few words got lost in translation.
-There was one song where he just started oooohing and for about 4 minutes I wasn't sure if there were words. At first I was absolutely mortified that it would be "My heart will go on" from the Titanic. Thankfully, it was not.
-There was a very unique arrangement of "My Favorite Things" which was in 5. It was cool but kind of creepy, and it didn't necessarily make me think of my favorite things.
-At one point he described Las Vegas as "Lights, fun, and happy times!"
To top everything off, after the first encore, someone decided a second encore was a good idea. So out walks the singer, the pianist, and...wait...the conductor? With a CLARINET?? I turned around and looked at Kai behind me with terror written all over my face. What was this man with the crazy hair going to do to my poor instrument?
"I've got the world on a string" was the song of choice, and from the moment the conductor blew his first note into the clarinet, I was cowering. He played with a wheezy tone that was so thin, I swear that all you could hear was air sometimes. His jazz improv was highly questionable, and screeching was frequent. I heard notes I didn't know existed. The piece ended with our jazzy maestro trilling on a note that dissappeared about halfway through so that as the piece ended, all you could hear was his keys clicking. We clapped like we never had before. Oh, what a night.
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