Lord of The Rings In Concert: Fellowship of the Ring

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING

METROPOLITAN FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA

THE STAR THEATRE

JUNE 6-8 2013

An edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 8 June 2013 under the title "Fellowship plagued by problems"

While film producers all over the world continue to invest heavily in cutting-edge special effects technology, more often than not the success of a movie hinges on its accompanying soundtrack. Some of the most emotionally impactful Academy-award-winning movies in the past, including Schindler’s List and The Last Emperor, have also been awarded the Oscar for Best Original Score. They would probably not have garnered the awards had they been shown with the theme song of Tom and Jerry.

Fresh off its successful debut just a few days earlier, the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra presented Howard Shore’s epic score to the first installment of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy in concert with a role reversal; this time the movie was seen as accompaniment to the music.

From the onset, the problems facing such staging were apparent. The absence of proper audio mixing resulted in the loss of much of the grandeur and awe of the work, and without the surround-sound effects of the Dolby technology, audiences no longer felt immersed within the cinematography. Instruments were stripped of their characteristic resonance in the dry auditorium, and in the louder moments it drowned out the dialogue of the characters on screen. More significantly, the need for onstage lighting meant that the projection of the movie behind the orchestra lost its crispness of contrast. Was this product worth ten times the cost of the ticket price to watch the movie in a cinema?

It should probably be established by now that the orchestra has a phenomenal string section, and they more than held their own whether in the Celtic-infused Hobbit’s Theme or the dark cravings of Gollum. The ethereal and spine-tingling mist of sound they produced in support of soprano Kaitlyn Lusk in her solos made the hairs on the back of one’s neck stand. Arguably the star of the show, Lusk’s silky tone of utmost purity was mesmerizing in depicting the love between Arwen and Aragorn in Aniron (composed by Enya) and portraying the otherworldly powers in the chant-like Lament for Gandalf.

The extensive percussion section were sensational in their cohesiveness, and the march of the orcs were brought to life by the incessant rhythms. Never missing a beat, they injected a sense of marvel and vividness missing from much of the performance.

While the second half of the performance was a marked improvement in balance and projection, perhaps fatigue set in for the musicians with several moments of sloppy ensemble-work and missed notes. They were most let down by a distinctly off-key chorus, made up of The International Festival Chorus and The Young Voices of Vocal Associates, who struggled with diction and intonation in the complex writing. The brass and woodwinds were not far behind in level of disappointment, with moments of missed entrances and cracked notes at the high registers. The one saving grace was perhaps the alluring solos by the piccolo, although its proximity amplification with added reverb was completely disproportionate to the mic-ing of the rest of the orchestra.

As much as the orchestra handled the music well generally, with ticket prices at a premium, one would have expected a much more polished performance. And with large chunks of the 5000-seater theatre completely empty, one cannot help but question the wisdom of holding the production there, when it would have struggled to fill up much smaller venues.

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