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Reviews of the 2017 tour
#6
Review of the Lexington, KY Show from the Herald-Leader:

Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Rupp return: overblown doesn’t begin to describe it

Spending an evening with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra is akin, in many respects, to over indulging at the dinner table at holiday time. Everything is inviting and offered in abundance, so you generously partake. But the food never stops coming, so those partaking of it do so far past the saturation point. The result: a feeling that surpasses mere satisfaction and soars straight into gluttony.

Transfer that kind of feast into a concert presentation and you had the makeup of what TSO offered last night for its annual seasonal performance visit to Rupp Arena. With about 9,800 dinner guests in attendance, the ensemble poured it on thick, both visually — via an onslaught of lasers, pyrotechnics and screen projections — and sentimentally, where original compositions by the late Paul O’Neill came sugar-coated in pathos and individual performances included a litany of rock star postures.

Overblown? That doesn’t begin to describe it. Like past Rupp outings, this TSO show was spectacle for spectacle’s sake; a presentation that tied an anchor as well as a bow around conventional holiday cheer and tossed the whole gaudy package out to sea.

Before going any further, it should be noted that the audience ate it all up: the Spinal Tap-like excess, the Kiss-like flamboyance, the WWE-level of sheer physical stamina. And why shouldn’t they? In terms of technical design and execution, the show was a marvel. Few were the moments when stage platforms didn’t bob up and down or shift with the aid of remarkably clear screen projections that shifted the look of the set from a movie theater to a cathedral to a winter snowscape in mere seconds. Similarly, the lighting design, from dancing lasers to showers of computerized effects, was beyond dazzling. The production was even climate controlled, with huge rows of flames shooting from the stage one minute and dancing suds of makeshift snow falling over the arena audience the next. In short, this was a production and-a-half, even by TSO’s theatrically intensive standards.

But at the same time, there was hardly an instance — especially, in the first half of the 2-and-a-half hour program, which was built around a stage recreation of the band’s 1999 television film “The Ghosts of Christmas Eve” — that wasn’t choreographed to the point of claustrophobia or delivered with an excess that made even its sweeter emotions, like the ones summoned during the Pachelbel-inspired “Christmas Canon Rock,” seem coerced.

Curiously, the most human element of “Ghosts” was reflected in segments shown of the original film that featured the late Ossie Davis. The 18-year-old clips didn’t allow Davis to utter a word, yet they reflected a subtle warmth and grace the rest of the program bulldozed over.

The concert’s second half was looser, owing less to the production piece structure of “Ghosts” and more to TSO’s non-holiday material. But by the time the show hit a seemingly inevitable “Carmina Burana,” the bombast was back to stay.

Again, the quibbles here are largely with the overall framework of TSO’s productions and their unrelenting pageantry as opposed to the performers and performances igniting them. And, again, the audiences fully appreciated the feast being served, even if it seemed less like a holiday gathering and more like an alien invasion.
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Messages In This Thread
Reviews of the 2017 tour - by danfromnj - 11-20-2017, 02:01 AM
RE: Reviews of the 2017 tour - by danfromnj - 11-20-2017, 06:17 AM
RE: Reviews of the 2017 tour - by NancyL - 11-21-2017, 05:50 AM
RE: Reviews of the 2017 tour - by wickfam - 11-30-2017, 03:59 AM
RE: Reviews of the 2017 tour - by NancyL - 11-30-2017, 08:01 AM
RE: Reviews of the 2017 tour - by danfromnj - 12-02-2017, 01:42 PM
RE: Reviews of the 2017 tour - by Lalbright - 12-05-2017, 05:45 AM
RE: Reviews of the 2017 tour - by wickfam - 12-06-2017, 04:04 AM
RE: Reviews of the 2017 tour - by KISSAlien - 12-07-2017, 03:27 AM
RE: Reviews of the 2017 tour - by Lalbright - 12-08-2017, 05:30 AM
RE: Reviews of the 2017 tour - by wickfam - 12-08-2017, 11:50 PM
RE: Reviews of the 2017 tour - by amicipat - 12-19-2017, 11:45 AM
RE: Reviews of the 2017 tour - by nuraman00 - 01-30-2018, 05:07 PM

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