Phantom of the Opera!

I went. It was amazing. I would go again in a heartbeat! Yep, that's right, I finally got to see Phantom of the Opera on Saturday evening. It was great fun, let me tell you. We (me, two co-workers, a friend, and a friend-of-a-coworker) met up around 5:30pm on Saturday night and piled into the truck for the drive over to Spokane. I sat in the front seat, trying not to get *too* excited, but not finding much to say other than to comment on the sunset (which was beautiful!).

Once we got to Spokane we stopped at Sonic to get milkshakes and malts -- yummy! We arrived at the INB Performing Arts Center wayyyy before we needed to, but oh well. Once we parked, we finished our milkshakes and decided to walk around. We walked over and looked at the river, and walked over to the falls but they weren't on, so there wasn't anything too exciting to see. :-)
Finally they let us into the theater and told us where to go for our seats. Our seats were not where we thought they were going to be, but it was okay. We could still see pretty well. I was glad I had binoculars, though!

Anyway, after a looooong (or so it seemed!) period of waiting, the time we were all waiting for arrived. The theater went dark and then the actors begain the production. The stage version began, just like the movie, with an auction that then sent us back in time. It was amazing when, with a big flash of light and the loud, haunting strains of the organ, the chandelier was raised to its spot on the ceiling. That song was *amazing* -- of course, the whole show was! :-)

As I hoped, my favorite songs from the movie were just as amazing live. "The Phantom of the Opera" had an *awesome* scene with fog rolling off the stage, "underwater" candles, and lots of awesome special effects. And, of course, "All I Ask of You" was just as amazing and beautiful as I hoped it would be. I love that song. . .and wow! Christine's dress was *gorgeous.*

Actually, all of the costumes were amazing. Very intricate. I could really see a lot of detail with the binoculars! It was spectacular.

The chandelier crash was, well, lame. It kind of floated to the ground and rested in a nice little heap (no crash, no nothing), but it was still cool. It threw me off because I was expecting it later in the show.

The ride home was fairly quiet (at least on my part), too, due to the fact that we were all tired, but mostly because we had all enjoyed the show so much and didn't want to ruin the moment at all. :-) Would I go see Phantom again? Absolutely. Now to find a way to see it on Broadway. . . :-)

(I couldn't take many pictures, and this is one of the best ones I did manage to get)