The Forerunner Times

"A life journal by Nathan J. Elias, called under God's grace to be His forerunner and restorer for His glory."

Ah, the Phantom of the Opera.

I was so thankful for the chance to watch this opera yesterday night. When the ticket went on sale last October, I was still thinking about buying the ticket, partly because of the price and partly because I was thinking whether it was worth it, especially since the original 1986 Phantom and Christine, Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman, have already stepped out of the stage, I wondered whether this show is still good enough to warrant such an expensive ticket. Time passed, and because I was still busy studying in JCU at that time, I eventually forgot about this Phantom of the Opera show.

But yesterday, the groove was there on the church when some of the people from the choir were talking about how they were going to watch the Phantom that night, especially Amel (although she was going to watch it the next Sunday, not yesterday). I was quite disappointed and rather hoping that I had bought that ticket. Curiousity got the best of me and I was wondering what was so good about this show that made it one of the best and most enduring shows in the world, having already ran more than 20 years in London and 18 years in Broadway.

The great chance came to me, though, at 7 pm, after the choir practice, when one of the people who had bought the ticket said that she could not come to the show and wanted to sell her ticket. In a sudden act of impulse, I instantly bought the ticket from her. It was quite expensive at S$130, but it was worth it because the seat was at the centre of the theatre and quite near to the stage, so I could see all the action and drama unfold before me very clear that night.

It was an amazing show of spectacle and music. If you’ve watched the movie version, let me tell you that everything they managed to do in the movie, it’s all there in here and performed LIVE. Even now I am still curious on some of the amusing tricks present in the show. Phantom appearing in the mirror in Christine’s room. Phantom disappearing in a flash of light during the Masquerade ball scene (truly, he was onstage at one moment, *poof* a blinding light, and he disappears in an instant). And the final scene where Phantom put his cape upon himself and disappears (different with the movie, here he just sits in the chair, covers himself, then Meg comes in, pulls the cape and nothing was there except the mask - it’s all in one scene, in the movie it seems easy because they can just cut the scene, the Phantom goes out and they film again, but here it’s all live and I couldn’t figure how could the Phantom just disappear like that).

The stage effects are amazing, they can change scenes instantly without needing to close the curtain. The background and the props just seem to move about and pop around from everywhere. Maybe they use some machinery or something, I don’t know, but it’s very amazing. The true spectacle was the Phantom’s lair where the smoke effects onstage plus the candles coming out of the bottom of the stage (yes, it seems like the candles just rise up from the FLOOR of the stage, but the smoke effects made it look like the candles are coming out from water) made it seem like the Phantom and Christine were really rowing a boat to Phantom’s lair. This is one heck of an opera where you’d think all this is magic. In the movie version, you won’t be amazed so much because you’d believe it was camera tricks and filming cuts, but when you see everything here performed live, including the effects (the Phantom hurls FIREBALLS, can you top that? And the fireballs felt hot, too!), you’ll just wonder how they managed to do that.

And yes, the music. The opera and the orchestra were amazing. You won’t ever want to watch the movie version again after watching this. You will instantly feel that Gerard Butler (the Phantom in the movie version) sucks. Butler seems to sing rock in the movie, not singing opera like the way the Phantom should, and he fails to hit those high notes. When you listen to the opera Phantom’s “Music of the Night” and “All I Ask Of You (Reprise)” you’ll immediately note the difference and feel THIS is how a real Phantom should sing. The notes for Phantom’s songs in the movie seems to be lowered from the opera version. Opera’s Phantom is a really high tenor who knows the high notes and reach them easily with falsetto, while the movie’s Phantom… well, the less said of him, the better.

All in all, one of the best and most memorable nights in my life. If you like musicals, you definitely gotta watch Phantom of the Opera at least once in your life. I know I’d want to watch it again someday. I was very lucky to be able to catch it in Singapore, so I don’t have to go all the way to London to Broadway to see it. The last time the Phantom tour was in Singapore was 15 years ago, so I wonder when I’d get the chance to watch it again…

Bravi, bravi, bravissimi~!!!

I came back from campus two days ago and look what I found lying in my room….

A package from Inex! I wonder what it could be… let’s open it and see what’s inside….

 

Sarah Brightman’s “One Night in Eden” and “Harem” concert DVDs! Finally! I now have a complete collection of all three Sarah Brightman concert with these two DVDs. Thank you Inex for fulfilling my hard-to-fulfill Christmas Wish, you really gone a long way to find these DVDs for me and for that I thank you lots lots and lots… loph u~ loph u~ loph u~

Now let’s see the DVDs in details shall we? Oh and you can click all images in this page (2 above included) to open a higher-resolution image so you can see all the finer details of the DVDs! And be sure to hover your mouse over the images to see my comments!

This is the Sarah Brightman “One Night In Eden” concert DVD. It was her first world tour in 1999, and so it was simple, the stage was small, with minimal but BEAUTIFULLY MADE stage acts, but I liked it! This is where she truly sang with magnificence and even without the creative stage acts seen on her latter concert, it works best. You have to see for yourself how she made for amazing scene acts, giving an image of a sea, a castle and the sky in different songs just with a piece of curtain and light work. Simple, but works beautifully, although still loses to La Luna, which has a better stage performance (of course, by La Luna she was already more famous, and her stage for that concert was A LOT bigger than this one, and she used many props for that concert, where for this one she only used curtains and stage lighting play, that works fine I must say). For this concert I rate the musical quality 8.0, the stage acts 8.0, and the total entertainment factor 8.0. Since this is her first concert, she didn’t have too many songs and the concert only lasted 92 minutes.

 

Okay, now let’s move on to the next one. This is her latest tour in 2004, “Harem”, conducted in Las Vegas. Well, it was too flashy in my opinion, too many stage acts, too many sexy dancers that distracts attention. And hey, she doesn’t sing too well here too, when she inhales during singing to take a breath, it was REALLY noticeable! If you compare it with Eden and La Luna you will see a whole lot of difference. The songs from the Harem album are also not too nice, so overall in this concert I only liked a few parts of it, maybe not even half of it, but it’s okay. But when they’re good, the stage acts are REALLY good and creative, and I must say this is maybe the best stage acts she ever thought of, though a bit over-the-top. I liked her flying angel and her swing scenes, they were magnificent. So in the end, for the music quality I rated 7.0, stage acts 8.0, and overall enjoyment 7.5.

 
 

So, after watching all three concert, I still stand by my opinion that La Luna (2001) was the best concert. It has the best blend and strikes the perfect balance between superb music (her La Luna album is magnificent) combined with superb stage acts (she really manages to use the “moon” theme really well) resulting in a very satisfying experience in which I enjoyed going through all her songs - and who could resist Sarah Brightman having a duet with Josh Groban? For La Luna I still give the music 9.0 and stage acts 9.0 - leading to an entertainment level of 9.0!

Definitely, you must watch all three, each have its different strength and weaknesses with uniqueness. As Sarah said, in every concert she brought a new world of fantasy into her audiences, and it is different for every concert. But as far as quality is concerned, La Luna is the one that you really must see. And thus, these three DVDs will go into my music library as part of my prized priceless collection. Thanks Inex, you really made my day!

I have heard about Sarah Brightman maybe more than five years ago, but just now I finally listened to her and I’ve fallen in love with her singing. Truly one of the best sopranos in the world, maybe even the world’s best, though some fans of Celine Dion and others will argue.

For the manga lovers who have read “Dragon Voice”, surely they will know (or not) that Sarah Brightman is the model for Amami Sara - Amami Rin’s mother with the legendary voice. Some concepts of Sarah Brightman’s concerts and wardrobe designs have also been passed on to the ‘Sara/Seiren’ character in the manga, especially some from this La Luna concert. Now it feels a little fulfilling to be able to see and listen to Sarah Brightman and imagine how Amami Sara might have sounded like.

How did I manage to find my new interest in Sarah Brightman? Again, Pandora (sheesh I am starting to sound like a Pandora marketing person). While listening to the New Age station which I made from Enya as the base artist, several times it pointed me to Sarah’s songs and I found them nice and enjoyful. Thus begans my Wikipedia research about her career and list of her albums and concert tour DVDs.

As of now I have three of her albums in my possession:
- Classics: Best of Sarah Brightman (2006)
- Harem (2003)
- The Very Best of Sarah Brightman: 1990-2000 (2001)

The Classics and The Very Best ones are the really good ones, must listen. Now I am looking for her legendary “Eden” album, but since it was out in 1998 it might be a little hard to find now. I am also looking for her concert DVDs, “One Night In Eden” (1999) and “Harem World Tour: Live In Las Vegas” (2004). Might try looking around in local stores once more, yesterday when I went there I arrived without knowing any of her concert DVD titles. I found this La Luna by accident, on the for sale rack, so I got this superb, beautifully amazing DVD for S$10 only (can you believe that), which should have actually cost more for the quality. So I was very lucky to get this DVD, which has been said to be her best concert DVD around in terms of voice and graphical clarity (while in term of overall concert performance Eden is still said to be the best).

For those of you who didn’t know her already, maybe you should go to Youtube and look for her duet with Andrea Bocelli titled “Time To Say Goodbye” (here it is). It’s a very famous song that should help you recognize who she is. As for other songs to listen to, I really cannot suggest as I like almost all of her songs, from the classical ones such as Pie Jesu and Hijo De La Luna (*) to the more pop ones like Who Wants To Live Forever, A Whiter Shade Of Pale (*) and Only An Ocean Away (which sounds awfully similar to Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On). As an added bonus, while I’m on Youtube anyway, here’s her There For Me (*) duet with… see for yourself. You can find a lot more of her videos on Youtube, try to look for more on your own

Items with * are taken from her La Luna concert, so now you know how good my concert DVD is.

Enjoy her songs, as they may be the best to be found in your lifetime.
If you have never listened to Sarah Brightman, then you have never truly listened to good music.

Today, the second Death Note movie, “The Last Name” is released in Japan and Hong Kong.

Singapore would have to wait until 28 December 2006 before the second movie premieres here, but thanks to the people at Animesuki, I have managed to read this ending. Credits to Kinny Riddle for this movie summary (which actually details everything right through the ending).

My personal opinion is that this ending is very satisfying and like I said before when I was commenting on the first movie, the Death Note movie have a seriously good scriptwriter, maybe I have to say even better than the author Tsugumi Ohba herself. I understand her desire to finish the manga in 108 chapter - 108 being the number of worldly desires in a Japanese teaching, but if she cannot manage to do it well then I’d say better don’t do it at all. The manga falls after the first arc and the ending is not quite good for some of us, but this movie’s ending has managed to do unexpectedly well and I have to praise the movie team for that. Can’t wait to see this in the movie with my own eyes.

Now, click below if you want to know what the true ending is…

Death Note The Last Name Ending Spoilers

Yep, finally got hold of my own DEATH NOTE today…

Was going with friends from KP GPO for a dinner in Es Teler 77 at Cathay CineLeisure after the Sunday Service, and spotted this very nice item at a stall just outside the toilet. I guess it was a lucky coincidence because if we hadn’t go to the toilet I wouldn’t have come in touch with this note. It was being sold for S$9.90 and I think the price is quite fair considering that it is not the original Japanese DEATH NOTE version but this is the Chinese version of the said item so it got some Chinese text in the “HOW TO USE” pages, but still looks very nice, though, as you can see in this photo.

It also come with the trademark pages from the DEATH NOTE plot that all fans will recognize soon enough, such as…
Shibuimaru Takuo - Death of Traffic Accident
The infamous “Lind L. Tailor” page
Notes for Raye Penber and the FBI deaths

Quite satisfied with it and perhaps I will never use it for writing and I would keep it as a collection item, or maybe use it in cosplays.

On another interesting note, the DEATH NOTE anime is out since 2 weeks ago and now it’s in the second episode. ToriyamaWorld is subbing this and you can get their DEATH NOTE fansub here. Though Live-Evil might have a better job in styling, ToriyamaWorld have a closer translation to TOWNL’s such as the “god of the new world” and “humans are interesting” part, which in turn is the official English translation used in the DEATH NOTE movie, so we’re kinda proud of that. You can also join TOWNL to get the direct links to the fansubs, so you don’t have to mingle with BitTorrent if you don’t know how to use it. Alternatively, you might also try grabbing it from DeathNoteFan.com.

The DEATH NOTE movie will premiere in Singapore on 19 October and I’m gonna watch it with my friends. Stay tuned to read my report and impressions of the DEATH NOTE movie next week.

Some matches I think I’d highlight…

Italy vs France
Well, there won’t be much to say on this day except that Zizou headbutting incident, but personally I think Materazzi should have kept his mouth shut. It was an unfortunate turn of events for the French side, maybe if Nesta wasn’t injured and was playing, things would have been very different. Materazzi was the one to give away the penalty, which Zidane scored, but a few minutes later he made amends when he scored that header from the corner. Really, there can’t be a worse way to end a career here and I feel bad for Zizou. But that’s it, the maestro will take his leave from football and hopefully when we remember him, it is not this that we remember. At least he got the Golden Ball to take home…

England vs Portugal
www.ihateronaldo.com, enough said.

Really, someone should smack that Ronaldo kid for butting in to other people’s affairs and for his divings. What the heck was that wink for? Rooney should go smack him, and I don’t think he would dare to return to Manchester United, else he might be killed by the hooligans. If David Beckham - an Englishman himself - can receive that kind of treatment in 1998 for getting a red card and crushing England’s hopes, how much worse can Ronaldo get, when he’s not an Englishman and he got an Englishman red-carded and seems happy even about that? This kid should be taught some manners, rather than crying, he should be smacked down off the pitch sometimes.

Germany vs Portugal
Serves ‘em right, cheaters! Go cry boy! Cry! If you wanna cry don’t play, go home to momma!

The Bastian kid really wreak havoc here, all three German goals came from him. The first and third goal was superb screamers, and the second goal was an own goal from Petit, which resulted from a Schweinsteiger free kick. I wonder why they didn’t play him against Italy, else things might have turned out very differently for them. With Ballack and several other key players out, it really became Bastian’s one-man show and he really sparked that night, even putting Figo out of the limelights, though he managed to lay a perfect cross for Nuno Gomes to put that header in. Yeah… I also wonder why they didn’t play Nuno Gomes more often, he is a good player.

Oh well, the World Cup is over, gotta tend to my exams then. Sleepless nights continue…

I got an impression of the Death Note movie by a LiveJournal user named nyonyo.

Only click below if you are not afraid of spoilers…

Click here to read more…

As requested by Miss Violette, here’s a match report on that Ita v Aus match.

Watched this match in a local McDonalds since they don’t air World Cup matches for free in Singapore and I thought it would be injustice to watch this match from a laptop in a small pixelated window. Since I am supporting Australia, I thought it would be nice to ask a friend of mine who supports Italy to join in. So I arrived there at 10pm and secured a seat while my friend came 30 minutes later. We shared some idle banters about the lineups and chances. The others can already see the heat building up between us two. A man beside me pointed out that Italy was three times world champions. I don’t need to know that, fat dude. STUFF HISTORY! Lucky you I didn’t stuff you with something like my McSandal for your unwanted opinion.

The match went to a start and suddenly Italy started threatening Australia and Schwarzer came to their defense. This early incident showed where the allegiances of the supporters lie as I am shouting “NO! NO! NOOOO!” when the Italians came close while my friend beside me shouted “YES! YES! YEEEES!”. The people just stared at us and then resuming their oooohs and aaaahs everytime both sides went close, but among all of them me and my friend were the one making the noises constantly and raising the atmosphere. “Go go Bresciano!” I shouted, only to be replied by my friend’s “Come on Toni! Score a goal!”. It continued on and on, and by the half time we were already exhausted and had to refill our strength with something. McSpicy and Choco Sundae comes to the rescue!

Second half brings so much tension for both of us. In a matter of minutes, Marco Materazzi was sent off with a direct red, sending me to jump around and send a hate message to the Italian fans over there “You deserve it Materazzi! Eat that! No Materazzi, no Nesta! Bye bye Italy”. They were silent and speechless, didn’t even look back at me. At this point Australia kept on the pressure and the Italy fans became very silent while I turned on more fire and sent more shouts to the Australian side.

Though it’s 11 vs 10, Italy’s defense was a tough one to crack and Australia’s possession play didn’t help either. They just like to pass and move the ball around to play safe and has no real threat since they’re not attacking forward much. They had their chances yes, but they didn’t seem to bring any danger at all to the Italian sides from my point of view. Nevertheless I still screamed when one of the Australian players barge into the box and made an attempt, while the Italian fans will go aaaaaargh. The match continued in a pretty stale way until the fated 93th minute arrived…

Fabio Grosso (those who’ve read Fantasista manga series will wonder if this is Fabio Castellini who have taken up the last name of Carlo Grosso) made a darted run to the left, tripped over above Lucas Neill who was lying in the floor, and the stupid ref chose to award a penalty. When the commentator said “yes, it’s a penalty!” all the Italian fans stood and shouted with joy, hands in the air, then sitting back again, some looking at me. Wish I could have thrown my McSandal at one of them, but then if I do that I won’t be coming home that night.

Totti stepped forward, and both me and the Italian fans prayed with hands clutched in front of our mouths. I hoped that Schwarzer will be the day’s hero, but sadly, Totti kicks it in to the left top corner. The entire McD shouted. Italian fans shouted with joy while sneering at me - prompting me to really hold my temper and not stuff all of them with my fist and give them some smackdown in the ass. If only I had more Australian fans with me maybe the match would not have ended in peace. Ah the woe of a lone fan. As I walked home, heads down in sadness, my friend teased me all the time. And that night, I cannot sleep, knowing that it will take another 4 years in my life before Socceroos will have another chance at the next World Cup…

It’s been quite a long time since I last saw Beckham with his free kick goal. Since he moved to Real Madrid in fact, I have never seen his free kicks again and I kinda miss him, missing his days when he was on Manchester United, with his Real Madrid move in the end prompting my fandom movement from United to Chelsea. And today, he’s done it again. The phrase “Bend it like Beckham” is not there for nothing. No one can bend it like Beckham. With that free kick goal, England won 1-0 today and will face either Portugal or Netherlands next. Congratulations Mr. Becks, you deserved that goal and you deserved to be England’s captain. Quite old you might be, but your free kicks and crosses are still very damn accurate (just look at that cross to Crouch against Trinidad & Tobago). That other goal you made against Paraguay should have been yours too, not an own goal…

Reality aside… I think they would go home in the next match, no way they can beat either Portugal or Netherlands. Reality sucks and it bites. If they DO win the next match though, I’ll jump up and down and party all night in that England bar…

After a long hard week of entertaining matches, finally the contenders of the last 16 have been finalized. No Asian power here as both Japan and Korea were knocked out from the group stages. But kudos to the Socceroos, they managed to go through and Stuff History. Yeah, I love those Stuff History ads, they put a new one yesterday when Socceroos go through, “History Stuffed”, finally the old sucker dies, ha! There were some surprises here and there as Czech Republic and Croatia failed to go through while Ghana and Socceroos make it to the next round, and now I am rooting for those two.

So, here’s the match roster for the last 16 round, starting tonight:

• Germany v Sweden
• Argentina v Mexico
• England v Ecuador
• Portugal v Netherlands (big match!)
• Italy v Australia
• Switzerland v Ukraine
• Brazil v Ghana
• Spain v France

If you are looking for betting tips, by all means DO NOT follow what I predict there, especially on Australia and Ghana. I tend to follow my heart rather than my mind and now that I loved those two teams so much (who can not love a team called Socceroos? And those teams are the only representatives of Asia/Oceania - well not really but sort of, and Africa). Socceroos might have a chance, a slight chance, and they should put back Schwarzer, Kalac was so damn horrible. As for Ghana, at first I thought they can win, but after looking at Brazil who just returned to form and trash Japan 4-1, well…

As for my main team, England, now Sven is gonna regret it. He only brought four strikers. Two just recovered from long injuries. One is only tall but is a moronic idiot without any skills. And other one is an untested uncapped striker. Now that Michael Owen is injured, he got limited options. Oh well, bye bye England, should you manage to beat Ecuador, you’ll face Portugal or Netherlands, which will send you back home…