#dreiiii

[zion-x]

Colors

You asked this question a lot and I’ve been meaning to answer this one at the most concrete answer I could give. “How much do I really love you?” 

They say love is colorful. That’s because love has many ups and downs. Love has many representations. Love goes through every color. Red, represents your base love but it also represents anger. Blue, represents peace in your relationship but it also represents your downs and loneliness. Yellow, represents happiness and sunshine in your relationship but it also represents your holdbacks and steps you didn’t and cannot take because of cowardice. Green, represents healing but comes also with pain, when there is pain there is also a point for healing. Orange, represents joy in the relationship but also delineates tension. Pink represents hope but also depicts a lack of willpower, self-reliance, and self-worth. The point here is that, yes love is colorful, but it does not represent one side. The representation of one cannot exist without the other. 

However, there are also colors that are always disregarded. Colors that when put together won’t create the feelings given by the others. These colors are the colors of nothingness. Black and White. White represents purity or innocence but also sterility, detachment, disinterest, isolation, and emptiness. Black represents strength, seriousness, power, and authority but also villainy, war, chaos, despair, and death. So, how much do I really love you? Is my love for you is colorful? Is my love for you can be seen in the colors of the rainbow? Or is my love for you a plain black or white? What are the colors that represent my love for you? The answer is none. My love for you is not as colorful as the rainbow or as plain as paper and ink. Cannot even be represented by our favorite colors. When my eyes are open, I see different gradients but my love for you is not there. When my eyes are closed, I see emptiness but my love for you is not there. Does that mean, I don’t love you? No!.  

Because my love for you is as colorful as the colors I’ve never seen before. It’s the colors, I cannot name. The colors with no concrete representation. These colors exist but I cannot comprehend them. It has shades of all colors that I think will make up black but no, it makes up a whole new color. A more colorful color that no one could comprehend. It’s a color that exists, that simply exists, and that only represents one thing which is my love for you and its rate, its size, its value. So how much do I really love you? I love you to the point that I can see colors that I have never seen before. I love you. -For the person who’ll let me believe that colors have love. -Until we meet.

[ninallthatjazz]

Review – Tanz der Vampire Köln, 21.5.2018

This Monday I finally got to see Tanz der Vampire again, and it was another great show!

I was asked to write a review by the lovely @3andastra3 and @grafenkind, so here we go:

The show in general:

The overall experience was once again incredible. My first time seeing it was in Hamburg and I have to say I liked the venue (Musical Dome Köln) better this time around.

The foyer was suitably decorated, with candelabras standing everywhere, tables sheeted with black satin and adorned with black roses, the bar covered in cobwebs (fake ones of course 😉).

As always, the cast and orchestra gave their all, you could tell. The show was energetic and impressive. The ensemble was superb, especially the dance ensemble really impressed me with their flawless performances. There are very few things I can criticise about all in all, one being that the music was very loud. It sometimes hurt my ears a bit and I couldn’t hear the singing from time to time, they weren’t loud enough in comparison. It was the same in Hamburg, even though I sat in the back last time, so I’m pretty the reason wasn’t because I was now sitting so close to the orchestra.

Also you could hear things being moved offstage from time to time, which was kind of distracting.

But these things didn’t bother me all that much and I was still able to enjoy the show.

The costumes:

I will keep this short and not compare the costumes to the ones in Vienna (I may do that after I have seen the Vienna show live as well), but one thing I noticed was that the costumes worn by the ensemble during Ewigkeit were very over the top. Meaning that they looked too fake, you could clearly see where the wigs began, some of the Vamps had vibrantly coloured costumes (they wore gloves for the bony-hand effect, which was slightly ruined again by, for example, green fingertips), and the fabrics were not very authentic (lots of sheer fabrics that don’t really look like they belong to the 19th or earlier centuries).

But other than that the costumes were great. I especially love the deep violet of the grafly cape, and the big shirt Herbert wears in the bathroom scene.

The cast:

David Arnsperger – Graf von Krolock

David is my first (and as of now only) Graf, and I loved him just as much as I did last time. His voice is smooth and deep, and he likes to sing very softly at times, which I like a lot.

Unfortunately those moments were drowned out by the music sometimes (as mentioned earlier).

His last note of ToFi and the first half of his last “Gier” during Unstillbare Gier for example were completely lost, which was very unfortunate.

His acting is also superb, his Gier was heart wrenching and his stage presence during Gott Ist Tot was incredible.

The only thing I have issues with is that his Graf is not nearly agitated and seductive enough for my taste.

He seems very calm and at peace, except for very brief glimpses during Gier. In my eyes the Graf is an impulsive, aggressive predator, whose power and vampiric nature breaks out from time to time.

Unless he is talking to a potential victim, then he becomes this smooth, alluring creature.

His Einladung seemed more like a fatherly figure giving a lecture to his daughter. The most seducing he did was during Vor Dem Schloss, when he was caressing the sponge (which was quite good, I’ll admit).

This may be partly due to his looks; David has a rounder face and adorable laughing lines – which makes him look very likeable, not like a Graf of darkness :)

What I really liked was that he had great comedic timing. My favourite moment was in Vor Dem Schloss when he slightly turned his back to Abronsius and Alfred after saying “Ich las ihr Buch ‘Die Fledermaus’, genial! Ich war gefangen!”, only to let his smile fall in an instant and to roll his eyes annoyedly.  

Also, I love his ‘physical acting’ – he is incredibly good at doing the grafly walk (it literally looks like he is hovering a few inches off the ground, even when he’s walking down the spiral staircase, which I was very impressed by) and using his claws for full effect; he successfully hypnotised Alfred (and me) with his fingers.

All in all he is definitely a great Graf, would be happy to see him again!

Maureen Mac Gillavry – Sarah

I like Maureen as Sarah, she has a great voice and it sounds great with both David’s and Tom’s.

She does have a slight accent, and every now and then I couldn’t quite understand a word or two, but it didn’t bother me. I really liked her acting – there were many little moments where she was very expressive, sometimes without saying a single word.

For example at the beginning of Draussen Ist Freiheit, you could see from her movements that she was torn between running away to seek out the Graf and staying to talk to Alfred. She was very close to running away, but when Alfred called her name, she stopped and you could see she was fighting every urge to leave and instead turned around to talk to Alfred.

And after she turned and while biting Alfred her movements were very freaky, and her voice sounded almost like a demonic growl when she said “Blut Liebling, leck es ab” – it actually scared me a bit!

Tom Van der Ven – Alfred

Tom is such a great Alfred. He too has a slight accent, but I liked it. He has a beautiful voice and is also a great actor – I especially loved his shenanigans with the professor, which were played out perfectly! There were lots of little moments that I hadn’t picked up seeing the play the first time around, like Alfred getting the Professor ready for bed during Eine Schöne Tochter.

Victor Petersen – Professor Abronsius

There is no better Professor. Period.

Victor is so so SO good at playing the Professor, I kept forgetting that he is not actually a 70+ year old man. His mouth moves faster than my ears can pick up sounds (Bücher was incredible!!) and he hits high notes like nothing else. He kept squealing after screaming “Meuterei!” and I nearly cried from laughing. His chemistry with Tom is palpable and, again, I loved seeing them on stage together.

Christian Funk – Herbert von Krolock

Christian is very different from most Herberts, at least visually; he has a very strong jaw and looks very masculine in general. But within seconds of seeing Alfred he was batting his eyelashes like his life depended on it and it was incredible. He was playing the part of melodramatic heir perfectly, I especially loved his dramatic entrance at the beginning of the Ballsaalszene, only to then stand in the corner, sulking and inspecting his nails, when the attention was on his dad and Sarah XD

Christian has a rather deep voice for Herbert, but I really liked it. Especially during Carpe Noctem he sounded very powerful, which was great! I could see him play the Graf some day 😊

Jerzy Jeszke (Chagal), Sara Jane Checchi (Magda) and Yvonne Köstler (Rebecca) were all great as well, but there was nothing in particular that stood out for me to share here.

Other memorable moments:

There were a few more special moments that stood out, and I thought I’d share them with you too:  

During Carpe Noctem the nightmare-Graf’s trousers had ripped at the back of the waistline; it was barely noticeable, but I was afraid they would give up completely during the rest of the scene – thankfully they didn’t 😉

Alfred would get these dopey expressions whenever he was thinking of Sarah – and in the Gruft, when the Professor said “denk an Chagal’s Tochter!” he even bit his lip on top of that. Pretty sure he wasn’t exactly thinking decent thoughts there XD

During Wenn Liebe In Dir Ist, Christian and Tom came each other really close (whether that was intentional or not I don’t know), at one point I even thought they were going for a kiss. Instead they both had to grin while dancing and staring into each other’s eyes. It was such a precious moment, I didn’t even care that they broke out of character there <3

When the Graf bit Sarah I didn’t see any blood at first. I did notice there was a little bit on her neck later, but the grafly lips were squeaky clean – either David doesn’t like to get his face dirty, or he accidentally took a sip of the blood before the bite and there wasn’t much left :D

When the three humans are discovered while dancing in front of the mirror, Alfred smashed his face right into the Graf’s belly. He stayed there and slowly moved his way up the Graf’s torso, face still pressed against his clothes, and when he tried to look up his vision must’ve been completely blocked by the Graf’s cravat. I’m not sure if this makes sense, but it was quite hilarious at the moment XD

The Graf’s response to the Professors “haha, Dreiiii!” was to growl. Like, a real low, dangerous growl, before asking “seid ihr bereit?”. I got the shivers, it was incredible.

So, this is all my brain could process from that great experience. If you liked this review and are interested in me writing another one after seeing the show in Vienna this Saturday, let me know!

[zion-x]

My Plan? His will be done.

My Flesh

Set its plans for the year

List its wants for the year

Outline its needs for the year

Got itself ready to face the year

But I hope this body won't tear

For this physique is nothing from what he could bear.

He

Has the best plan for this year

He

Knows what I really want for this year

He

Drafted what I really need for this year

He

Readied me to face this year

He who knows everything

He is the king

I will follow the king

God is with me, I can do everything

#2020 #NewYear #Day1of366 #First #Dreiiii