Orchestra, The Phantom of the Opera 🎶

[@disneydanny2]

the speed at which the orchestra is playing this sounds similar to how the orchestra in "Wicked" played "For Good" 9 of the 11 times thus far that I've seen that show.

[@chrisdarling3617]

I saw the original show shortly after it opened decades ago at Her Majesty's in London and the orchestra was huge and rich, lush and powerful. This 14 piece rendition is a ripoff. This show was written to be luxurious and menacing, not tinny and tingling. I was never a big fan of the show but I bowed to it's magnificent production. That was then.

[@BrianBisetti]

Is this the 14-piece orchestration?

[@quangminhtran7612]

It is...does the music sound a bit rushed?

[@_zeerosd]

@@quangminhtran7612 very rushed and very thin. i know the musicians are doing their best, but 14 instruments can only do so much with a score like phantom's

[@quangminhtran7612]

@@_zeerosd I really don't know why. I never got the chance to hear the original 27-piece orchestra so I can't judge. I've seen a few videos of London 14-piece orchestra and all of them sound quite rushed and thin. But when I watched the show in Shanghai and Seoul this year, both two orchestras sounded very rich and dynamic, especially the Korean one, which even made me think they had a full-scale orchestra. I later found out they only had 14 pieces as well. Could it be the recording quality that didn't do justice to the music? You can check out the Playout video on my channel. It was the Korean production orchestra with only 14 pieces.

[@timothyclark5571]

As a music director myself, I think the reason it is so rushed is because it’s been so severely reduced and you have keyboards emulating the actual instruments, you don’t want to give the audience the opportunity to hear that something is “off,” that it sounds synthetic.

[@kaitlynrowena5463]

I thought London also had a prerecorded backing track Thst the 14 players play along too.