Lestat, The Musical

Last night, I fanned the Family Dog party and went, instead, to the first preview of LESTAT. If you don't already know the general story of Lestat and how he came to be a vampire, etc., you will not learn that from me here. I try not to get into storyline and plot discussions, preferring to discuss the performances, the performers, and the music.

The music. Ah, the music. The orchestrations were powerful but the songs were good, not great and not terribly memorable, especially given the composer is Elton John who did such great jobs with "Lion King" and "Aida." I guess you could say the show does not contain a HIT song, at least in the sense that you come away humming the tune and cannot get it out of your head (as, at least I did, with "Circle of Life" or "Elaborate Lives"). I did like Claudia's song, "I Want More" quite a bit - Allison Fisher is quite a scene stealer and has a very powerful voice and stage presence and she did a tremendous job with this number. I also liked the staging for "Sail Me Away," which was gorgeous, but as someone said on the Lestat message board, I cannot remember the tune of the song at all.

The actors were all quite good in their roles but I had some trouble accepting Hugh Pannaro as the ethereal (in MY mind, anyway) Lestat when he kept jutting his square, Dudley-Do-Right chin out in profile and mugging at the audience, especially during the first act. I half expected the vampire to abandon his gorgeous period costumes in favor of the uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. A little less ham and a little more filet mignon, please!!!