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Hyde
Park
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Charlotte’s
Performance
by
DutchMark Webmaster of CharlotteChurchFans.nl
Mark@CharlotteChurchFans.nl
This
is a summary of the performance of Charlotte that started at
4.30pm. Since we were not allowed to make any kind of
recordings, I took plenty of notes and tried to write as much
down Charlotte said in-between songs as I could. The quotes
are not always exact and complete though. But the moment
Charlotte entered the stage I totally forgot about not being
allowed to make a video recording (see UKMark’s report).
But
before I start with the actual performance, I want to tell you
about the warm-up Charlotte did at about 2pm. This actually
turned out to be a rehearsal with the New Symphony Orchestra.
Charlotte was wearing a bright red top and dark trousers. Her
hair was long and flowing naturally, falling in front of her
face every now and then. I must say I personally prefer seeing
her with this hairstyle and these kinds of clothes; it’s a
more natural but very stylish look.
Charlotte
rehearsed about 5 songs, discussing with, and sometimes even
instructing, the conductor on some musical issues. She
definitely has her own opinion about the interpretation of the
songs. For example on the last high note of ‘La Pastorella’
she sings, she wanted to hold the note for a couple of seconds
(which is much longer than on her CD) before she wanted the
orchestra to continue. The first time the orchestra started to
soon, before she finished her note, and she told the conductor
how she wanted it to be like (I could not really hear her say
it, but could tell it by the gestures while singing that last
note). They did it again and this time it went ok.
Unfortunately during the real performance the orchestra
started too soon again.
During
the rehearsal we were allowed to come close to the stage
(about 20 meters) and take some pictures.
Well,
I won’t keep you waiting any longer for the report of the
actual performance.
Charlotte
starts her performance with:
1)
Tonight
(from the musical West Side Story)
“It’s
absolutely wicked to be here. I can’t believe there are so
many of you.”. This must have been the largest audience,
about 70.000 people, that Charlotte has ever performed for.
Then she introduces her next song, telling how she performs it
everywhere she goes.
2)
Pie Jesu
(by Andrew Lloyd Webber)
“My
whole family came out here today. They are sitting over
there”, she says with a giggly voice. Her family is sitting
in the VVIP section, about 10 meters from the stage. She
“waves hello” to them.
“The
next song I will be singing is one of my favorites; actually
it’s my all time favorite. It’s from the musical Porgy and
Bess and it’s called
3)
Summertime”
(from the musical Porgy and Bess)
She
introduced her next song written by Giacomo Puccini. She
excitedly remarks being able to pronounce that difficult name
right. The song is of course
4)
O mio babbino caro
(from the opera ‘Gianni Schicci’)
I
can’t help myself closing my eyes every now and then to
really enjoy the music. This performance was so much better
than on her CD.
“I
decided to sing this song since it’s my nanna’s favorite.
It’s called ‘If I loved you’, from the musical
Carousel”
5)
If I loved you
(Rogers and Hammerstein).
She
talks about her recent tour in the USA and about having to
have her hair died to red.
“My
next song will be one that I’ll be recording for my new
album. It’s called
6)
Bali Hai”
(from the musical South Pacific by Rogers and
Hammerstein)
She
did some nice “Hawaiian” hand movements during the
beginning of the song. This was my absolute favourite so far.
“I’m
going to experiment a bit now. I’m going to sing a Barbara
Streisand song.” “Oh my god”, she says with a high
voice. “So Streisand fans, please forgive me”.
Then she introduces the song.
7)
Papa can you hear me
(from Yentl)
It
was quite good, but to be honest it lacks a bit of drama that
Streisand manages to do so well.
“You’ve
been a wicked, wicked audience”, she says and thanks all the
70.000 people. She introduces her last song, La Pastorella,
and tells what the song is about. “It’s about a girl
getting up at about 6 in the morning, not at all like me, I am
more of an 11 o’clock girl.”. The audience laughs. “She
looks at all the boys. Not at all like me, you can ask my mum
and dad”, and she points toward where her family is sitting.
8)
La Pastorella
(Puccini)
When
she finishes, the audience applauds loudly. Charlotte applauds
to the audience and the orchestra. She waves one more time and
leaves the stage”.
It
had been quite a performance lasting about 30 minutes. For me
it was the first time I heard Charlotte perform live and I was
impressed, not only by her singing but also by her stage
personality. The difference between the rehearsal and the
performance was unbelievable. During the rehearsal it was
‘Charlotte the teenage girl’ singing and then she
‘transformed’ into this more mature stage personality.
Although the concert had not finished yet, it had already been
worth every penny. The sun shined brightly during her entire
performance, making the experience even more pleasant.
It
was also quite exciting being able to hand Maria Church the
T-shirt we prepared as a gift for Charlotte. She promised to
give it to her (more detail about this in UKMark’s report).
Based
upon the songs she sang for this performance, I’m sure we
can expect many famous songs from various musicals on her
fourth CD.
Our
picnic with Charlotte in the park
Site Map
by
Mark of Team UK
UKwebmaster@charlottechurch.net
Four
months had passed since I bought my ticket to the event of the
year. And what a long four months they were. We had been
planning the day ahead for weeks when Roeland, Dutch Mark and
myself would meet up for Charlottes biggest concert to date in
the UK.
My
morning started early, being woken by the 4 alarms I had set
to ensure I didn’t oversleep! I arrived at Waterloo station
and headed for the arrivals gate for the Eurostar train
Roeland and Dutch Mark were to arrive on at 8:45. I didn’t
know what to expect, or what they looked like, but luckily we
had given brief descriptions of ourselves during the web chat
the night before. We spotted each other immediately.
We
headed for a restaurant. Roeland was keen to sample an English
Breakfast with the great British banger! (sausage). After this
we checked out the newspapers in a local bookstore for any
articles on the event. There were several features on
Pavarotti but nothing on Charlotte. We decided to spend the
rest of the morning site seeing.
Mid
morning the skies turned grey and it started to rain. This was
accompanied by the sound of distant thunder. We hoped this
wasn’t an omen for the afternoon. Having walked along the
Thames for a while, taking in the sites of the Millennium
Wheel and the Houses of Parliament, we made our way to the
nearest Underground Station. By this time the rain was
becoming more persistent. We decided to head for Hyde Park and
take in some food before the gates opened at 1pm.
As
we surfaced from the Underground at Hyde Park Corner, the
skies looked more promising. It was quite close to 1pm so we
thought we’d better head straight for the event, rather than
miss any pre concert activity.
Hyde
Park is enormous! Screens, some 8ft high, surrounded the
concert area. It took us 15 minutes to find the right entrance
gate. It was minutes away from 1pm and – the sun was
shining!
We
were finally let in at around 1:10pm. Our gate was for VIPs
(us!), the press and VVIPs. There was a separate queue for
each but as everyone using this gate had allocated seats there
weren’t many people waiting. We were two hours early after
all. We were handed our complementary cooler bags and given a
VIP wristband.
Our
VIP seating area was immediately in front of the stage (see
the brochure scan). We reckon it was approximately 100 seats
across and 40 seats deep. The seating area was surrounded by
barricades to segregate us from the other 66,000 ticket
holders who had been queuing for the best positions on the
grass.
We
took our cameras out and started to take pictures of the empty
stage. Immediately, a security guard approached Roeland and
Dutch Mark. ‘I’m sorry guys …. You can’t use those in
here’, said the guard. Bemused, we asked what the problem
was. Their cameras had detachable zoom lenses, which for some
obscure reason classed them as ‘professional recording
equipment’. We debated the issue at some length but were
informed the film would be confiscated from the cameras if
they were used during the concert. The guard was sympathetic
to our problem and was quite reasonable but unfortunately
there was nothing he could do.
For
once, I was glad I only had a normal camera. It also has a
zoom lens but because it is integral to the camera they were
quite happy for me to use it. I therefore become the sole
photographer for the 3 of us. We soon forgot our
disappointment when we noticed a young girl walking onto the
stage – it was Charlotte! Charlotte was wearing a red jumper
and dark casual trousers.
It
was around 2pm by now and the concert didn’t start until
3pm, but there was Charlotte, rehearsing. There were still
only a few hundred people in the seated area and I had free
reign to walk up quite close to the stage and take pictures.
As the other guys weren’t allowed to use their cameras I
made sure I had plenty of shots from which to select the best
ones for this coverage.
Charlotte
must have practised for around 20 minutes, stopping from time
to time to discuss matters with the orchestra.
As
Charlotte finished one song she called out ‘mum’. We
looked around and noticed Maria standing in front of the
stage, obviously checking on her daughters’ performance.
This was our big chance to hand over the
CharlotteChurch.net T shirt we had made for Charlotte.
We
approached Maria – she had her back to us. As we reached
her, Mark said her name and she turned to face us. We
introduced ourselves, that we were from the
CharlotteChurchFans site and that we had a gift for
Charlotte. She acknowledged us and the site, saying that
Charlotte had been looking at the web site just the previous
day.
We
handed over the T-shirt. She thanked us for coming and hoped
we would enjoy the show. We shook hands with Maria and said
goodbye.
Charlotte
concluded her rehearsal and we waited for 3pm to approach.
Each
performer sang for around 30 minutes – Russel Watson, then
Charlotte, then Vanessa Mae. In between the acts, the Choros
Amici choir sang and Pavarotti made a brief and rather unusual
warm up appearance. Still, you don’t want to hear about
that, you’re interested in Charlotte’s big moment –
right?
At
4:30 the moment we had been waiting for arrived. Charlotte
walked on stage in a dark blue evening dress. She looked much
older than the girl we had seen earlier during rehearsals. I
will let the pictures do the talking here but she looked very
glamorous.
Charlotte
sang 8 songs, some of which I hadn’t seen her perform
before. American audiences will have seen much of the new
repertoire but this was our first time in the UK.
As
usual, her performance was amazing and her bubbly chats
between the songs entertained the crowd. The time flew by and
all too soon she was saying goodbye.
Anyway,
I took lots of pictures and luckily Dutch Mark decided to make
notes of the song order and what Charlotte said. Please read
Dutch Mark’s article for the details.
Pavarotti
came on stage at 6:30pm and the concert concluded around 9pm.
He wasn’t on for the whole time. Female opera singer
Annalisa Raspagliosi sang several duets with him as well as a
number of solos.
We
headed for the hotel Roeland and the Dutch Mark had booked,
looking forward to a drink and a meal and to reflect on the
day.
The
hotel was overbooked. We were whisked off in a taxi to another
hotel in the group a few miles away. Whilst we waited for our
meal we filed a small report to Dave at
CharlotteChurch.net to let him know how the day had gone
and when to expect the main material. After eating, we said
our farewells and I headed for the Underground to make my way
home.
It
had been an amazing day. Apart from the scheduled performance,
we had the unique opportunity to see Charlotte rehearsing and
even met her mother – and the sun shone throughout. - Mark
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