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'Casino Royale' In Concert - September 30, Royal Albert Hall, London


antovolk

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Casino Royale will be screened for the first time with the score performed live by a full symphony orchestra as part of our ever popular Films in Concert series.

This will be the first time an entire Bond score has ever officially been performed live, as the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra play David Arnold’s powerful score in sync with the film on the big screen. David Arnold, who has scored five Bond films, will discuss his collaboration with the 007 franchise in a pre-concert question and answer session.

Tickets on sale 9am UK time tomorrow - http://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/events/2017/casino-royale-in-concert/

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Who else went to this yesterday (or is going today)?  I confess to not having seen the film before so I probably paid less attention to watching the orchestra than I did to watching the film, but both were really good.  Before the film started David Arnold was introduced and interviewed by David Walliams, whose Little Britain series is bookended with a fine theme by the composer.  This lasted about fifteen minutes before the 84-piece Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and conductor Gavin Greenaway came on stage after a short break.  I noticed that the orchestra was beefed up with a few specialist players such as trumpeter Mike Lovatt, a stalwart of the John Wilson Orchestra and one of the best in the business.

 

Some of the dialogue was a bit tricky to hear at times, but that may be due to where I was sitting in the circle directly opposite the screen.  Those seats give you the best view of the screen but the sound can be swallowed up a bit, so I would not have objected to subtitles.  The music sounded fantastic however, highlights being the extended African Rundown and Miami International chase sequences.  David Arnold himself came out unannounced to play the guitar during the end titles.  During the opening song, Chris Cornell's vocals were heard but with the music played live by the orchestra.  There was an intermission just before the start of the poker game in Montenegro.

 

There were quite a lot of men in the audience wearing dinner jackets and bow ties, I suppose pretending to be James Bond.  In the immortal words of Alan Partridge, "Stop getting Bond wrong!"

 

 

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The main theme (I don't mean the song but the actual melody of it that Arnold himself wrote) is one of the best Bond themes ever.  Probably the most perfect representation of the character. It is such a good theme that it should become a fixture for the character like the Monty Norman theme.

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On 01/10/2017 at 1:47 PM, Omen II said:

The evening concert yesterday finished really late, but there are now a few videos of the concert emerging on YouTube.  Here is David Arnold playing the guitar in The Name's Bond...James Bond.  Listen to those fabulous trumpets!

 

 


The best 'hero' theme music ever? Quite possibly, yes.  

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Wow! Aside from the fact that we have Williams dressing up like Colonel Sanders and waving a stick around in front of the orchestra and perving on Ray, American concerts suck compared to the rest of the world. We didn't even get Titanic Live, did we? Fuck this country. The Royal Albert Hall is like Disneyland for film score fans.

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I attended the Sunday evening concert of the North American premiere for Casino Royale with the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap-Vienna, VA. 

 

As a result of my research on this concert via the YouTube videos of the RAH premiere, I noticed that the cut that was shown at the concert was the international cut that has 22 seconds of additional footage.  The two scenes—the bathroom fight and the Montenegro-hotel stairwell fight—were the ones that got extended.  If you look at the 2-minute mark in this YouTube video where Bond bashes the bad guy with the swivel door…

 

 

 

….that shot was not in the USA cut.  You can read about differences between the USA and the International cuts, here

 

So, I was wondering whether this version will play at the Wolf Trap concert.  If the production company that produced the concert, Film Concerts Live, is forced to play the re-edited USA cut at Wolf Trap, they may have to transcribe the music that was re-edited for those said scenes on to the score pages for the musicians to play.  Well, at Wolf Trap when I saw the shot of the bad guy getting his head bashed by that door, I know I was watching the international cut.

 

I did notice these changes in the score performed at that concert:

  • The start of the Madagascar scene where Bond and a partner were watching their bomber suspect engaging in a snake-vs-mongoose fight: In the film’s sound mix, there was some exotic “percussion” playing at the start of that scene, where as there was no music played, at all, at the concert.
  • The start of the foot chase between Bond and the bomber suspect: In the film’s sound mix, there was exotic percussion.  At the concert, that percussion was replaced by a tambourine.

 

Other than a brief rain storm at the venue (although I didn’t get wet at my pavilion seat, the rain hitting the wooden structure and the claps of thunder were audible) and a challenge to find a taxi after the show to take me back to my hotel room, I’m glad that I made my attendance at the concert.

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