Matinee Musical Classics
As the Liverpool Theatre Festival rolls on, today is a day when we get a double-header courtesy of Absolute Opera. Music Of The Night is the evening performance, but before that, our afternoon was spent with Matinee Musical Classics, a real treat of a show.
Description
International Tenor and operatic veteran Roy Lock starred alongside renowned West End performer Olivia Brereton, with musical direction from the pianist Tom Chester. Roy noted how this marked their first time back on stage since lockdown, at one point excitedly noting that he had waited six months for this moment, and it was clear that the performers were thoroughly enjoying themselves (while also transferring that warmth onto the audience, who were also highly entertained) as they took us through some vintage musical numbers.
Several shows provides the soundtrack for this production, including Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, The Sound Of Music and Turandot. We also had a tribute to Dame Vera Lynn, herself an incredible singer during the time period described by Lock as the Golden Age of Musicals. As for the songs themselves: Oh What A Beautiful Morning kicked things off, and from there we were treated to the likes of People Will Say We’re In Love, I Could Have Danced All Night, Edelweiss and Mack The Knife, the latter originating from a German musical titled Die Dreigroschenoper. The Vera Lynn section included The White Cliffs Of Dover and We’ll Meet Again, plus we had Figaro as a grand operatic number. Some Neapolitan music came courtesy of Libiamo (often called The Drinking Song) from La Traviata. The final major number was Nessun Dorma, and we had an encore of That’s Amore to round things off.
Analysis
Roy Lock and Olivia Brereton are truly incredible singers. Their vocal range is as strong as could be, and they are perfectly suited to covering classic musical numbers from the mid-20th century where a great emphasis was placed on the meaning of lyrics, the importance of tone and the impact of the background music. Here, that was provided by the aforementioned Tom Chester, who himself did a fabulous job. All of the songs were delivered spectacularly, so much so that it’s hard to choose a specific highlight when it comes to the catalogue of tunes.
However, one cannot ignore the incredible performance of Nessun Dorma by both Lock and Brereton, who received a much-deserved standing ovation after that number. There was crowd participation to as great an extent as the current Covid guidelines would allow, with arms swaying, throats humming and small, soft quiet voices singing along to That’s Amore. No doubt, it brought back fond memories for attendees of watching these shows live in the past, and they certainly had me imagining how awesome it will be to see those productions in person again in the future.
Summary
Matinee Musical Classics nicely brought together the greatest hits from some of the most famous stage shows of all-time. Nevertheless, it was the first-class singing itself that stood out most to me, and it was a pleasure to listen to Roy Lock and Olivia Brereton do their thing back in front of a live audience. I’m looking forward to seeing what the Absolute Opera deliver with Music Of The Night later this evening!
