Sometimes New Is Not Better

On Friday the boys and I had the opportunity to attend a field trip with our school. We went to Kingsbury Hall at the University of Utah to see, we thought, The Phantom of the Opera. Nothing in the information we were given on the show suggested it was anything other than what you would expect.

As a former professional opera singer, I was thrilled to take my boys to this performance. Phantom would have been a good choice to introduce my boys to musical theater.

However, the Phantom, as I know it, was not at all what we got.

Instead our senses were assaulted with a rock version of the story (which in and of itself I wouldn't have had a problem with) written in the contemporary style of many composers, featuring dissonate chords and minor keys.

In short, it was torturous.

I thought the musicians, performers and singers were pretty darn great. A couple of them excellent, even.

But there wasn't a single thing about the actual composition and production that I enjoyed. At all.

At least we got to have a good discussion about music composition, performance and personal taste. Judging by the reviews, people have found this show appealing enough.

And hey, we got a break from school work and were able to walk around a bit on the beautiful UofU campus. Which also gave us the opportunity to discuss silver linings. :)