BUY

General		Extras
Category	Concert	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1998	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	65:00 minutes	Other Extras	Biography
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	2,3,4,5,6	Director
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision Australia	Starring	Michael Crawford
RRP	$39.95	Music	Andrew Lloyd Webber et al

    The songs are as follows: Gethsemane, Galway/I'll Take You Home Kathleen, Tonight, Before the Parade Passes By, When I Fall In Love, Love Changes Everything, The Phantom Of The Opera, All I Ask Of You, Music Of The Night, Not Too Far From Here, On Eagle's Wings, and Spirit of the Living God.

    Michael Crawford intersperses these songs with anecdotes and thoughts in a very warm and intimate manner, which is a feat to do in front of a large audience. He comes across as a very warm and charismatic man, and the audience just love him, giving him fully three standing ovations. I remember fondly seeing The Phantom Of The Opera a number of years ago, and the songs from that musical, as sung on this disc, sent shivers down my spine - especially the song of the same name. It is clear why he was garnered with award after award for his rendition of The Phantom.

    Highly recommended if you like Michael Crawford. I will never watch another Some Mothers Do 'av' 'em in quite the same light.

Video

    Sharpness is a problem for this transfer, and the culprit goes by one name: 'edge enhancement', a name which strikes fear and terror into the hearts of us who are anal about picture quality. Whilst definition is certainly acceptable for the most part, important detail is lost in long shots of both the audience and the stage, which is a real shame because the image could have been exceptional. I understand that since this has been targeted for television from the outset, edge enhancement has been jacked up, but the technician's hand has slipped a bit on this one and been a bit heavy-handed. Apart from that, the image is textbook perfection, and smooth as silk, with absolutely no low-level noise. Shadow detail was exemplary at all times.

    The production quality for this concert is very slick, and the stage lighting is superb and dramatic. Luckily, the colours on this disc are rendered wonderfully, being fully saturated and natural looking, with absolutely no chroma noise or bleeding. Reds, blues, greens and yellows give nice dramatic cues and are very important for this presentation.

    There were only a few instances of minor MPEG artefacting, and apart from that was not a problem, with no other artefacting of any kind.
 

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain
Film-to-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts	N/A
Overall

Audio

    Dialogue was very clear and crisp both during the performances and the interludes, with no lip-sync problems.

    The audio has a very natural sound to it, and has been engineered with care. Crisp and clean, with a full sound, the songs come across very nicely and will please the most discerning critic in this regard. I listened to the soundtrack variously in both stereo and Pro-Logic mode, and found the latter to be far nicer in terms of imaging and presence, anchoring Michael firmly in the centre with the audience in the mains and rears.

    The subwoofer got good use, nicely rendering the bass and adding important weight to the performance.
 

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    The menu is static.

Song Selections (12)

Biography

    The video transfer is very good, only let down by excessive edge enhancement which could have been avoided.

    The audio is essentially perfect, capturing the concert nicely.

    Nothing much in the way of extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall