Lord of the Rings Slideshow - 5/21/08

Afternoon all!

Above you will notice a slideshow of photos taken last night at the Filene Center season opener of Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring featuring live symphonic and choral accompaniment. Provided I get the proper approvals from each artist's publicist, I will post a series of choice shots from each performance throughout the summer, courtesy of our house photographer for the evening. This should be particularly exciting once we delve into more visually spectacular and theatrical shows (i.e. Earth Wind & Fire, Riverdance, Hippiefest, etc.)

Last night was cold, but Wolf Trap enjoyed a solid turnout for our first of two LOTR productions. After concluding my press office duties which included meeting and discussing the poorly reviewed new Indiana Jones flick with WJFK's Kevin McCarthy (BDK), I headed down to the pavilion to catch the middle hour of Jackson's epic first installment in the LOTR trilogy. The movie, was great as always, but I'm still amazed at how the orchestra and choral singers were able to PERFECTLY recreate the score, which had been stripped from the film in its entirety.

I've seen Fellowship of the Ring quite a few times, and am aware of when certain elements of the score start and stop which only heightened my awe of the musician's 100% accuracy. Even something as minute as a string cue set to Gandalf blowing smoke from his pipe was transitioned to live performance. I'm sad to say that I missed the final battle scene when the Urukai attack Boromir, which I'm sure was beyond epic with the live score booming underneath the giant HD screen. Perhaps I'll return tonight to catch the rest of the film - it is after all the only performance scheduled on U.S. soil for the remainder of 2008.

Talk soon,

Graham