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Sanna Majuri and Koit Toome in the mood of Miss Saigon.
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THEATRE
Helsinki City Theatre has premiered an internationally renowned branded product, the grand musical Miss Saigon. The production is of high quality and "real" looking, as are such musical products produced under strict quality control under license.
In addition to Miss Saigon, composer Claude-Michel Schönberg and libretto director Alan Boublil have collaborated with producer Cameron Macintosh to create another successful musical, Les Misérables.
Miss Saigon, whose story is also familiar from Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly, is a thoroughly composed work. It is tragic, like an opera and, on the other hand, a traditional American musical with light-hearted singing and dancing scenes.
It is a “love story” between a Yankee soldier and a Vietnamese prostitute in the wake of the Vietnam War. At least it’s about people escaping from a reality that is too distressing for them. The collision of cultures and realities creates a human tragedy.
The ensemble of Miss Saigon at the Helsinki City Theatre is professional and competent. The group of dancers, singers and actors from all over Finland and Estonia sings cleanly, strongly, impressively. The ensemble also dances very ordinary musical numbers, spiced up with convenient stripping.
The thoroughly composed work is dominated, carried away and also chained by music. Rather than acting, one could talk about smooth stage action and varying degrees of empathy with song interpretations. Puntti Valtonen’s Engineer, the Host of a Sex Club, stands out not only as a comic counterforce to the production, but also because in Valtonen’s role, singing is subordinate to stage work.
Strong singers
Sanna Majuri, who will graduate as an actress from the Theatre Academy in the spring, sings well. Across the board, Miss Saigon’s songs are demanding – not only rhythmically variable, but they also ask for a wide range of voices from their performer. This justifies the fact that the key roles are primarily played by singers. But luckily there are also actors who sing wonderfully. The American wife Ellen, played by Maria Ylipää, is the gem of the performance. Overall, the strong dramatic singing and presence elicited spontaneous applause from the audience.
Chris, played by Estonian singing star Koit Toome, does not reach the level of actors despite his singing skills, even though his confusion in the women’s rotation is very sincere.
There are two crews in the key roles. It would be interesting to see how the performance changes when the casting of the roles varies – there are talented singing students, singing teachers and thus also a few actors. Of course, everyone has musical theatre experience, but still – the strengths are different.
Sounds in harmony
The theatre orchestra conducted by English conductor Nick Davies plays enjoyably. Miss Saigon’s music is typical, transnationally understandable and melodic musical music. At the Helsinki City Theatre, the sound technology is also playing and the songs can be heard.
The text is often unclear, but the reason is not the technical implementation, but perhaps the skills of the performers and the Finnish translation. Kristiina Drews and Jukka Virtanen have translated the musical into Finnish as speech-like, vulgar, even coarse – certainly realistic speech in the life of whores and soldiers, but fiction and the musical framework are not realistic in any other way. So there will be a v-style.
The direction of the Swedish director Georg Malvius realizes the boundary conditions of Macintosh productions – the stage images are almost the same as in the London version of Miss Saigon – including the helicopter, Cadillac and military parades.
I was left wondering if it is possible to create an impact in a musical without the parade scenes that the totalitarian dictatorship found to be good. On the musical stage, red flags fly from time to time – sometimes with swastikas, sometimes decorated with stars. These visual effects and choir scenes exuding crowd power have famously captivated millions of people from Berlin to Bangkok.
Of course, the confused child performer is adorable and the archive films about war orphans are touching. However, the epic story, which flows like a spectacle before the viewer’s eyes, only thrilled as a drama when the concubine met the wife, the man the man. And the viewer knew more than the characters in fiction.
Salla Aas
Alan Boublil & Claude-Michel Schoenberg: Miss Saigon. Finnish premiere on the big stage of the Helsinki City Theatre on 26.2.2004. Music: Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics: Richard Maltby Jnr and Alan Boublil, translation: Kristiina Drews and Jukka Virtanen, orchestral arrangement: William Davis Brohn, director: Georg Malvius, conductors: Nick Davies, Johanna Almark and Henrik Wikström, choreography: Juri Nael, set design: Ellen Cairns, costumes: Sari Salmela, lighting design: Juha Westman, sound design: Eradj Nazimov and Jyrki Sandell, vocal coach: Irina Milan, starring Sanna Majuri, Koit Toome, Lauri Liiv, Maria Ylipää, Puntti Valtonen, Gary Revel, Laura Taimisto, Robin Haapavaara, Susa Saukko, Pauliina Kiuru, Emilia Nyman, Hanna Kaila and Helena Haaranen.
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