Andrew Lloyd Webber - Masterpiece (Live in Beijing)

Starring:Elaine Paige, Sandy Lam, Fei Xiang, Tony Vincent (III), John Bowles (III), Belinda Allchin, Adam McKenzie, Ben Harkin, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Damian Humbley, Lisa Crosato (II), Spencer McLaren, Trisha Crowe, Deone Zanotto, Chloe Dallimore, Simon Pryce, Leonie Page, Anthony Costanzo, Bronwyn Mulcahy, Troy Sussman
Director: Jo-Anne Robinson
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Elaine Paige headlines the international cast of Masterpiece: The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, a September 2001 concert in Beijing. Paige sings songs from her roles in Lloyd Webber's musicals Evita, Cats, and Sunset Boulevard, while Kris Phillips, Sandy Lam, Tony Vincent, and others provide solid but rarely thrilling renditions of tunes from such shows as Jesus Christ Superstar and Phantom of the Opera. There are also orchestral numbers and some dances, but not much staging or costumes--whether performing "Macavity" or "Masquerade," the dance team members look like refugees from Sweet Charity.

The obvious comparison is with Andrew Lloyd Webber: A Royal Albert Hall Celebration. Filmed three years later, Masterpiece includes more from The Beautiful Game and it's a technically superior DVD with DTS sound and an anamorphic widescreen picture. Royal Albert Hall, however, has bigger stars and better performances overall. But both run over two hours and have plenty of variety, so Lloyd Webber fans don't necessarily need to pick one over the other. --David Horiuchi
Description
For the first time in China, The Best of Andrew Lloyd Webber is presented in concert as a world-class showcase incorporating the best-known and best-loved songs from Lloyd Webber's internationally acclaimed stage musicals, including The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Sunset Boulevard. This is a hit-driven production, a spectacular event starring Elaine Paige, one of the most established and highly regarded West End and Broadway stars, direct from a year-long sell-out season in the London production of The King and I, and recording sensations Coco Lee and Kris Phillips (Fei Xiang), amongst the most successful artists of their generations. For China Concert Tour 2001, this world-class lineup will be joined by a full company of established performers drawn from the U.K., U.S., and Australia and a 60-piece orchestra led by the renowned Patrick Vacciarello, who has conducted musicals for Lloyd Webber on Broadway and on national tours in the U.S. and Australia.

Amazon.com

Elaine Paige headlines the international cast of Masterpiece: The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, a September 2001 concert in Beijing. Paige sings songs from her roles in Lloyd Webber's musicals Evita, Cats, and Sunset Boulevard, while Kris Phillips, Sandy Lam, Tony Vincent, and others provide solid but rarely thrilling renditions of tunes from such shows as Jesus Christ Superstar and Phantom of the Opera. There are also orchestral numbers and some dances, but not much staging or costumes--whether performing "Macavity" or "Masquerade," the dance team members look like refugees from Sweet Charity.

The obvious comparison is with Andrew Lloyd Webber: A Royal Albert Hall Celebration. Filmed three years later, Masterpiece includes more from The Beautiful Game and it's a technically superior DVD with DTS sound and an anamorphic widescreen picture. Royal Albert Hall, however, has bigger stars and better performances overall. But both run over two hours and have plenty of variety, so Lloyd Webber fans don't necessarily need to pick one over the other. --David Horiuchi

Description

DVD Tracklisting:
ACT 1: Superstar Overture / Jesus Christ Superstar / I Don't Know How To Love Him / Any Dream Will Do / Evita Suite / Buenos Aires / And The Money Kept Rolling In / Don't Cry For Me Argentina / The Heart Is Slow To Learn / Beautiful Game Overture / Let Us Love In Peace / Gethsemane (I Only Want To Say) / Take That Look Off Your Face / The Jellicle Ball / Macavity: The Mystery Cat / Memory ACT II: Aspects of Aspects / Love Changes Everything / Whistle Down The Wind / Pie Jesu / Phantom Overture / Phantom Overture / The Phantom Of The Opera - The Journey / Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again / All I Ask Of You / Masquerade / The Music Of The Night / Car Chase / Sunset Boulevard / The Perfect Year / As If We Never Said Goodbye / No Matter What / Ni Yong You Wo De Wai Lai (Friends For Life)

CD Tracklisting: Jesus Christ Superstar / Don't Cry For Me Argentina / The Beautiful Game / Gethsemane (I Only Want To Say) / Take That Look Off Your Face / The Jellicle Ball / Macavity: The Mystery Cat / Pie Jesu / Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again / Masquerade / The Perfect Year / As If We Never Said Goodbye / Ni Yong You Wo De Wai Lai (Friends For Life)

Customer Reviews:

Lousy.......2006-12-17

Loud, raucous, barren, forced, didn't finish it. As far as I got it seemed like they just picked the noisiest Lloyd Webber tunes and pranced and shouted them. It all started off with a glowing cross and JC Superstar. It was a drag. Sondheim is a mediocre hack (his one song is "Send in the clowns"), but at least he's quiet. Never did like Bway, though I grew up on OBC albums. Just some songwriters (Rodgers & Hart, Porter, Berlin, Gershwin without his dreadful brother Ira, a little Jule Styne but not much, he was mostly Tin Pan Alley and movies anyway until I think "High button shoes"). Bway shows are long and creaky and back-breakingly boring. And with the exceptions I mentioned, it's all children's music anyway. Sondheim is nothing; ALW does/did have some talent. But it's all children's music. Some pretty or catchy tunes if you're lucky, but mostly blah to terrible. With the exceptions I mentioned. A few (like Kern or Hoagy Carmichael or Frank Loesser) got off some good tunes, but not enough to qualify them for the big time. Loesser started out as strictly a lyricist, then with "Praise the lord and pass the ammunition" (hardly a gem, but a WWII hit, and he liked it) began writing his own music. But with only 3 hit shows (unless you count that awful "Most happy fella") and a few stray pop tunes, hardly a full canon. One last note. America did not invent the musical comedy. It just diluted it. About this ALW DVD. It is drab and loud and the one slow tune I heard ("I don't know how to love him") was sung with a very weak ineffectual voice. The voice that yelled Superstar and the song from Joseph wasn't weak and ineffectual though. Just colorless and LOUD! It reminded me of an aging Gruberova. "Roberto Devereaux." 2 females dressed like something out of "How to succeed in business..." YELLING Donizetti. Or Ethel Merman. At least she had some personality. So much shop talk about Bway. I hate it. Only 3 musicals I ever saw I did not hate were 2 by Rodgers and 1 by Coward. I saw the other ALW special (his 50th birthday), all rock and religion. But if I were tied to a pole and had to choose which to be subjected to, I would take the 50th birthday DVD. More musical, more colorful. But I hated and didn't finish it too.

DEFINITELY SHOWS THE BEST OF ANDREW LOYD WEBBER!!!!.......2006-11-21

An amazing combination of some of Andrew's best musical songs.The main singers and the cast are excellent notably Fei Xiang(Kris Phillips) who has an amazing voice best shown in the song 'Any Dream Will Do' and 'Phantom of the Opera-the Journey'.Elaine Paige is also magnificent in 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina' and 'Memory'.But the best is definitely saved for the last as the songs 'No Matter What' and 'Amigos Pera Siempre' are fantastic. The entire team really deserved a wild applause from the audience at the Great Hall of the People. Congratulations Andrew and everybody involved for a spectacular concert that China will definitely never forget

I REALLY hate to say this, but..........2006-07-26

I AM Chinese, I live in China, so you can understand that I DO NOT want to say something bad about it, but the fact remains this piece of thing cannot be honestly given a score other than 1 star, since Amazon apparently does not have a 0-star or 0.5-star rating.
A little contrast with Albert Hall is enough. Take two songs. "No matter what" and "Love changes everything". Both forced me to dig out the Albert Hall version from my pile of DVDs, switch to the corresponding song, repeat 5 times before I can continue listening to this thing. And the portion in "No matter what" with Chinese girls singing in Chinese? The Chinese there has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the original lyrics. It's just thrown in there. Perhaps I'm a little biased on the point, since I just can't bear seeing the two songs I loved being degraded, for lack of a better word, but these glaring deficiencies, in my humble opinion, are more than sufficient to justify a negative rating. Since the mininum rating is 1 star, however, I - very reluctantly - gave it just that.

Great show!.......2006-03-19

After watching this DVD the first time I was not overly impressed by the performances. I got tired of seeing the same three faces again and again, especially when I did not exactly know who they were. Don't get me wrong, they all give incredible performances, but I wanted more. However, after watching the "Making Of" this production in the DVD's special features I was forced to watch it again and found a new appreciation for what I was seeing. I understood the hard work put into this production and was able to see why this concert was so important. If you are an Andrew Lloyd Webber fan I would highly recommend purchasing this DVD. Elain Paige is great and Tony Vincent will blow you away.

MASTERPIECE WITHOUT A DOUBT.......2006-01-17

Regardless of the fact that some of his latest efforts (most notably, The Woman in White) are disappointing, there can be little doubt that Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of the greatest composers ever to work in the musical theatre. Ever since his "Jesus Christ Superstar" hit the stage in the early 70-is, it was clear that the conception and perception of musicals are never going to be the same again. Many of his songs became standards not only in the theatre history, but also as tops on the charts. Even though he's British, his influence on the shape of the modern musical theatre expanded over the West End boundaries long ago and has thus made an enormous impact on Broadway. Two of his shows ("Cats" and "The phantom of the opera") hold the record as two the longest running shows in the history of Broadway. He has also been the only composer to have three of his shows running at Broadway concurrently. Some of his awards include three Grammies, a Golden Globe, an Oscar and a bunch of Tony awards. But perhaps most of all, Lloyd Webber is responsible for bringing the musicals and the theatre appealing to the wide audiences, who in different circumstances would not consider seeing a musical. The secret of his success is probably the mixture of beautiful and catchy melodies, interesting subject matter (though some, like Starlight Express, are too thin) and grandiose staging.

And even though his shows have been staged all over the world, China has somehow been left out. Until 2001, that is, when the idea came about to put together a big concert of ALW's greatest hits for the people of Beijing. This over 2-hour DVD is the recording of that magical evening that took place in the Great hall of the people, the big conference hall in Beijing, specially re-worked to fit the big orchestra and the performers. The people familiar with ALW's recordings will most certainly draw a parallel with a similar concert DVD, The Royal Albert Hall Celebration, recorded in 1998, as a tribute to ALW's 50th birthday. Although some similarities with the repertoire do exist, there are many novelties here for us to enjoy.

First, the cast in this Beijing concert does not boast with so many big names, but this is not a drawback. The only real celebrity here is Elaine Paige, the one and only first lady of the British musical theatre, who starred in many ALW's shows (original West End Evita in 1978, original West End Grizabella in Cats in 1981, Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond both on Broadway and in the West End). Elaine gives a strong lead here. Her soprano is terrific in most of the songs, even though her Don't cry for me Argentina sounds too thin (after all, Elaine hasn't got the big voice of Patti LuPone). Her rendition of As if we never said goodbye from Sunset Boulevard is particularly worth mentioning, since it is much better than over-the-top/vocally weak performance Glenn Close gave on the Royal Albert Hall DVD.

The leading male stare is Kris Phillips (Fei Xiang), a Chinese-British star from lots of ALW's productions. Phillips has the right stage presence and a good singing voice, thus justifying the fact he is the most featured artist of the concert. He is exceptional in some parts (The Phantom of the opera, Joseph), while good at others (JC Superstar). The third male lead is the young and handsome Tony Vincent, who can be seen at the 2001 video recording of Superstar, playing Simon Zelotes. He gets to sing Superstar, The money kept rolling in from Evita and joins Paige and Phillips in Friends for life.

Some of the other songs are sung by the young and unknown singers, gathered by the process of auditioning. No problem with that, since they are all exceptional vocalists. The girl who sings Wishing you were somehow here again from The Phantom is thrilling, much better than Emmy Rossum in the movie version.

As for the repertoire, all the shows (minus By Jeeves and Starlight Express) ALW wrote until then are there. We are treated with some of the rarely performed stuff, such as Macavity: The mystery cat, The money kept rolling in and Take that look of your face from Song & Dance. Of course, the big tunes such as Memory, The Phantom songs, Love changes everything from Aspects of Love, together with a nice instrumental medley of the melodies from the latter show, are all there. The concert is nicely wrapped up with Friends for life-Amigos para siempre, a song ALW was asked to write for the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, here sung partly in Chinese.

If anything, this DVD proves another important fact. For a long time, ALW's detractors have been claiming he writes empty spectacles that heavily rely on big names and imposing stage sets. This DVD proves just the opposite. Take away all the sets, costumes and star names, assemble some talented singers and what you do get is outstanding melodies written by the man who managed to find the way to the modern musical theatre lovers like no other composer of modern times. Here the music is free to speak for itself. And it does so in a most convincing way.

If you love ALW's music, or simply are into modern musicals, be sure to check this out.

Andrew Lloyd Webber - Masterpiece (Live in Beijing)

Average customer rating:

Lousy
DEFINITELY SHOWS THE BEST OF ANDREW LOYD WEBBER!!!!
I REALLY hate to say this, but...
Great show!
MASTERPIECE WITHOUT A DOUBT

Andrew Lloyd Webber - Masterpiece (Live in Beijing)
Starring: Elaine Paige , Fei Xiang , Sandy Lam , Tony Vincent (III) , and Belinda Allchin
Director: Jo-Anne Robinson
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Musicals & Performing Arts | Genres | DVD | Video

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ASIN: B00007AS0W
Release Date: 2002-12-03

Amazon.com

Description

For the first time in China, The Best of Andrew Lloyd Webber is presented in concert as a world-class showcase incorporating the best-known and best-loved songs from Lloyd Webber's internationally acclaimed stage musicals, including The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Sunset Boulevard. This is a hit-driven production, a spectacular event starring Elaine Paige, one of the most established and highly regarded West End and Broadway stars, direct from a year-long sell-out season in the London production of The King and I, and recording sensations Coco Lee and Kris Phillips (Fei Xiang), amongst the most successful artists of their generations. For China Concert Tour 2001, this world-class lineup will be joined by a full company of established performers drawn from the U.K., U.S., and Australia and a 60-piece orchestra led by the renowned Patrick Vacciarello, who has conducted musicals for Lloyd Webber on Broadway and on national tours in the U.S. and Australia.

Customer Reviews:

Lousy.......2006-12-17

DEFINITELY SHOWS THE BEST OF ANDREW LOYD WEBBER!!!!.......2006-11-21

I REALLY hate to say this, but..........2006-07-26

Great show!.......2006-03-19

MASTERPIECE WITHOUT A DOUBT.......2006-01-17

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