Beauty and the Beast In Concert – Orchestra of the Music Makers | The Flying Inkpot
Review by Derek Lim
One of the great things about Disney’s 100th anniversary year, which started at the end of 2022 and ended in July 2024, is the sheer amount of older material that has emerged, and the opportunity to look at it with fresh eyes.
For those who grew up in the 80s and 90s, the ‘Disney Renaissance’, which started with ‘The Little Mermaid’ (1989), and continued with ‘Beauty and the Beast’ (1991) and ‘Aladdin’ (1992), provided the soundtrack to many of our lives. Many of these scores were written by Alan Menken, whose score to ‘Beauty and the Beast’ was featured tonight at the Esplanade Theatre by the Orchestra of the Music Makers (OMM) conducted by Joshua Tan Kang Ming and accompanying the complete animated film.
For those who never got to watch it on the big screen as kids, and those who have only watched the 2019 live action remake, this was a wonderful opportunity to revisit the classic animated film on the silver screen. Right from the Disney intro, there was magic – with the opening voice-over over orchestral music grabbing the audience’s attention and setting the scene commandingly. In this presentation, all spoken dialogue was from the original movie, while all music and sung vocals were performed ‘live’ by OMM, the Voices of Singapore City Chorus and five soloists.
The solo vocals were beautifully sung. Vanessa Kee’s Belle most closely approximated that from the movie. Light and silvery but with strength, she sounded totally at home in the role. As the boorish Gaston, Preston Lim’s powerful baritone carried heft. While Eric Larrea as Lumiere retained the French accent of the original animated movie, Leslie Tay doubling as LeFou and Beast, and Akiko Otao as Mrs Potts, struck it out on their own and did not attempt to emulate the original singers. In ‘Gaston’, Disney fans familiar with the hammed-up character voice of Jessi Corti would have found Tay’s ringing tenor less cartoon, and more art-song.
Tan led a tight performance of the score, and the live sonorities of the orchestra made their mark, with growling brass in the castle scene sounding appropriately mysterious in the opening scene, and each section realising Menken’s colours gloriously – especially in numbers such as the festive “Be Our Guest’ and the triumphant final ‘Transformation’. The chorus also did well in their appearances in ‘Belle’ and the later ‘Mob Song’.
By the time the credits rolled to the reprise of “Beauty and the Beast”, the audience’s appreciation was palpable. The heartfelt applause and numerous curtain calls were a fitting reward for the orchestra, chorus, and soloists, who gave us an enchanting evening of Disney magic.
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