Love by Cirque du Soleil at the Mirage
Hotel Las Vegas
Love is a 2006
theatrical production by Cirque du Soleil which combines
the re-produced and re-imagined music of The Beatles with
an interpretive, circus-based artistic and athletic stage
performance.
A joint venture between Cirque and The Beatles'
Apple Corps Ltd, it is the first production that Apple Corps
Ltd. has partnered in. Love is written and directed by Dominic
Champagne. Music directors are Sir George Martin, producer of
nearly all of The Beatles' records, and his son, record
producer Giles Martin. Love plays at a specially-built theatre
at The Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas. A soundtrack album of the
show was released in November 2006.
On June 26, 2007, the
surviving members of The Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo
Starr, and the widows of George Harrison (Olivia Harrison) and
John Lennon (Yoko Ono) appeared on CNN's Larry King Live at The
Mirage Hotel.
The Love project at the
Mirage Hotel arose from discussions in 2000 between George
Harrison and his friend Guy Laliberte, one of Cirque's
founders. Three years of negotiations between surviving members
of The Beatles, Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, The Beatles
widows Olivia Harrison (representing George Harrison) and Yoko
Ono (representing John Lennon), The Beatles' holding company
Apple Corps Ltd. and the MGM Mirage culminated in an
agreement.
The first executive
producer was Neil Aspinall, then-manager of Apple Corps Ltd.
Dominic Champagne shares the Show Concept Creator credit with
Gilles Ste-Croix (a founder of Cirque), who is also credited as
the Director of Creation. The Creation Director is Chantal
Tremblay.
Tickets went on sale
April 19, 2006. Preview performances ran from June 2 to June
29. During these shows, the June 16 and June 17 which were
attended by McCartney, changes were made nightly based on
audience reaction, cutting or adding sections to add
polish.
In attendance at the
gala opening on June 30 were McCartney, Starr, Ono, Cynthia
Lennon, Julian Lennon, Olivia Harrison, Dhani Harrison and Sir
George Martin. It was the biggest reunion of The Beatles'
'family' since the band's breakup. At the end of the show,
McCartney, Starr, Harrison, Ono and Martin went on stage.
McCartney requested the crowd, "Just one special round of
applause, for John and George!"
On June 26, 2007
everyone met for the one year anniversary of the show at The
Mirage, where the Love show is staged. McCartney, Starr,
Harrison and Ono were interviewed by CNN's Larry King shortly
before the show began. The group unveiled a plaque at the
Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas in memory of John Lennon and George
Harrison.
The loose story of the
production traces The Beatles’ biography in broad strokes from
The Blitz, through the band's founding and climb into
superstardom, their psychedelic and spiritual works and their
break-up in 1970. The finale is a joyous celebration of The
Beatles' "reunion" that the show itself
represents.
Love traces this path
without relying on literal or historical representations of
individual people. Its landscape is inhabited by fictional
characters plucked from The Beatles' lyrics. Sgt. Pepper, a
central figure, encounters many familiar faces, including Lucy
in the Sky, Eleanor Rigby, Lady Madonna and Mr. Kite. In an
exception to this stylistic choice, the "Here Comes the Sun"
scene features a character resembling Krishna. Similarly,
several scenes include mop-topped, dark-haired figures in black
suits resembling Teddy Boys. The international cast totals 65
performers. Each song or medley is the name of a
scene.
Unlike other Cirque
productions, which feature live music, Love uses prerecorded
material from The Beatles catalog. Many of the original Abbey
Road Studios recording session tapes have been reorchestrated
and inspired Love's dance, acrobatics, as well as visual and
theatrical effects. Love samples 130 songs to create 26 musical
pieces. The songs are mixed so that the lyrics and
instrumentation from one song blend into the next. One musical
highlight of the show is a new version of "While My Guitar
Gently Weeps", which matches the first studio demo of the song
with a string arrangement written for Love by Sir George
Martin. A commercial soundtrack of the show was released in
November 2006.
The Love stage at the
Mirage Hotel was created by French designer Jean Rabasse. The
Love theater at The Mirage houses 6,341 speakers and 2,013
seats set around a central stage. Each seat is fitted with
three speakers, including a pair in the headrest. The sound
system was designed by Jonathan Deans. The stage includes nine
lifts and eight automated tracks and
trolleys.
Video images on two
walls above the audience on two sides of the auditorium
emphasize elements of the show and provide transitions.
High-definition projectors also create enormous images
(designed by Francis Laporte) on four translucent screens that
can be unfurled to divide the auditorium. A total of 28
projectors are used.
The Love theater, which
replaces the Siegfried & Roy theater at The Mirage, is said
to have cost more than $100 million.
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