Lord of the Rings Symphony

[Valandil]

Well... this Friday night is when I go with my wife. Since Michael posted the thread about the one fellow (Dr. Eugene Hargrove) who's speaking at the Dallas performance this week, it got me curious about a couple things:

1. Is this some kind of 'tour' or not? It's in Dallas on October 7 & 8... yet manages to be in Chicago on October 8 & 9??

2. How many places is this showing? I thought the mailer I originally received said it would only be in like 4 places in the US... but it seems like I'm hearing about several (even DALLAS!!! ). From reactions of overseas mooters, it also seems like there are performances in lots of other places.

Well... I think we're in like the second balcony or something... never been to a symphony before, so not sure exactly what that will mean (but if there's empty seats, I'm movin' up! ).

Hmmm... my wife's not a fan, but broke down and agreed to go with me. Guess I'll have to 'splain the story to her as we go along!

[Entlover]

Hope you have a good time. You might want to give your wife a quick rundown of the plot beforehand, since from my limited experience there are two major rules in attending a symphony: you must arrive on time (early if possible) or you might not even get in, and you can't talk during the performance.
The drawings that accompany the music are sketches, not easily connected to the plot unless you're really familiar with it. I guess it's the mood that counts.
I thought it was only in a few places, but perhaps that's just with Howard Shore. I gather he has to be in each town several days in advance to work on it with the orchestra, since he uses the hometown orchestra in each place. Any orchestra can play the symphony, and possibly several are doing it on their own.
Hope you enjoy yourselves!

[Valandil]

Well... I guess I'll probably never be a 'symphony-person' I mean... it was o-kaaaayyy... if you go for that thing.

My wife let me explain SOME of the story to her. There was quite a crowd for the show - and we were both guessing it wasn't the typical symphony audience. Lots of youngsters and less affluence that normal, I expect.

Biggest frustration was the view from our initial seats. We were second balcony - and our seats ended up in the next to last row there (of 9 rows). We could see the orchestra just fine... but if you were in the last 3-4 rows, you could only see about the bottom half of the screen where they showed the storyboards! The bottom of the 3rd balcony blocked the view. Even the 3rd balcony had a better view! Because it was a lower-budget crowd (even at that, $53 for 2nd balcony, $38 for 3rd!! ), all the seats in our section got filled up (we briefly moved forward a few rows to some empty seats and had a nice view - but then those with the tickets for those seats came and we got bumped back. So... I spent the first half of the show unable to see the top half of the pictures - and straining my neck to see the bottom half.

(I sit sort of 'tall in the saddle' - long torso - so I was worse off than most around me - but all this affected around 200-300 people)

Finally (I had talked to about 3-4 ushers already - they acknowledged that it was too bad I couldn't see, but they weren't allowed to let us go down to the 1st balcony) - we got up and I took us down to the 1st balcony ($63 seats! prime seats were like $78!!! ). Had a fine view then (and there were PLENTY of seats), but maybe my mood was already destroyed.

*sigh* just seemed like a way to spend a lot of money to hear some music and see some drawings. Might've been different if my wife was interested. I mean, I was glad she agreed to go - but she couldn't really enjoy it herself.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

do you know if there are any english performances?
i would love to see it, and i would gladly travel to Exeter, Bristol or even as far as London or Birmingham to see, and most importantly hear it

[HOBBIT]

I'm going to this tonight in NJ. NJPAC.

[Nurvingiel]

That's too bad you didn't have fun Val. I'm a big symphony person myself, but I can still sympathize. It really sounds like they should have thought out the venue better. I still wish I could go see it though. (Those are really expensive tickets! Must be a big city thing. )

[HOBBIT]

just came back from it. was very good.