Andrew Lloyd Webber: The Royal Albert Hall Celebration! (1999)

 

This free Andrew Lloyd-Webber YouTube offering, a tribute concert for the composer’s 50^th birthday filmed over 20 years ago, makes an interesting contrast with the more recent Sondheim birthday concert filmed remotely during the pandemic. This is much more “the typical thing,” although it still features some unique differences from the average tribute concert.

 

It might not be fair to compare this concert to the recent Sondheim one, but since I saw them about a week apart, comparisons are inevitable. This, as expected, is much more lavish, with a big ensemble, fancy outfits, and a devoted audience. While things aren’t super staged, there are a few group numbers that are more choreographed and the Starlight Express sequence of course features chorus members on roller skates. But in turn, it’s also less intimate, less personal. The songs are trotted out one after the other with little meditation on what they mean for the people performing them. This, the usual type of birthday concert, is maybe more impressive, but the stripped-down Sondheim one certainly comes across as more heartfelt.

 

But as I said, this concert is also a bit different from the norm. For starters, performances are mostly grouped by show – there’s an Evita sequence, a Jesus Christ Superstar sequence, and so on. For the most part, the same performers sing the same roles throughout the entire sequence. For instance, there’s a grouping of several Phantom numbers, and in them, Sarah Brightman sings Christine, Antonio Banderas the Phantom, and Michael Ball Raoul. This creates a bit more of a throughline within each sequence. Also, there’s a comparatively small list of big performers – a large ensemble, like I said (plus a choir of kids during the Joseph sequence,) but there are probably fewer than a dozen big names appearing in the show, with most of them popping up multiple times. Elaine Paige, for example, sings the title role in the Evita sequence and returns later to do “Memory” from Cats.

 

The big emphasis here is on familiar actors in familiar roles. Quite a few of the performers previously starred in the roles they’re singing here, either onstage or, in the case of Antonio Banderas as Che in the Evita sequence, in a movie. There’s Donny Osmond with Joseph, Glenn Close with Sunset Boulevard, Michael Ball with Phantom and Aspects of Love, and so on. I’m a little mixed on this. Obviously, it’s great to see someone performing a song they made famous (to return to the Sondheim concert, did I fangirl out when Mandy Patinkin sang Sunday in the Park with George or Chip Zien sang Into the Woods? Of course I did.) But it’s also amazing to hear some of your favorite performers doing famous songs you’ve never heard them do before, from roles they’ve never played (another Sondheim example – I didn’t know how much I needed Lea Salonga singing “Loving You” from Passion in my life.) Here, there are few surprises.

I know it sounds like I’m being very down on this concert, and when I inevitably compare it to the Sondheim show, it’s not going to hold up as well. What’s more, I’m a much bigger fan of Sondheim than I am of Lloyd-Webber and am much more familiar with most of the performers from than show compared to this one. So that’s probably a little unfair. That said, it is still a good concert. It’s fun, with some great singing, nice performances, and a lot of delightfully late-‘90s fashions.