Search - Scents of Light :: Scents of Light

Review

09/11/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

""musical set on a German concentration camp during World War II? Not the likeliest of ideas, but this is one of the many reasons making this new Portuguese show so welcome. It is a first of it's kind ever to have been staged in the country, which has virtually no musical theatre traditions at all. When I first heard of Scents of Light, my initial reaction was that someone out there was bravely trying to break the old barriers and come up with something new and original. The resulting show is full of emotional depth and courage. (...)
The central dream for the creative team consisting of composer Artur Guimarães, lyricist and book writer Pedro Costa and director-choreographer Sara Lima was to try something that had never been attempted in Portugal: to create a fresh new musical from scratch using all original material. Based on the released cast recording one can tell that they got their dream fulfilled in one very promising piece of musical theatre.
(...)
Musically Scents Of Light is strong and Artur Guimarães has a great sense of melody. This is most evident in some duets and even more so in the beautiful choral writing heard throughout the piece. Musical is through sung and obviously its authors have been strongly influenced by Les Miserables, Miss Saigon or other quasioperatic musicals. (...)
Book writer and lyricist Pedro Costa wrote the show in English as the authors felt it would be the "natural language for musicals", but they are currently working on a Portuguese adaptation as well. (...) I found Costa's writing to be good and for someone using English as a second language his lyrics are quite remarkable. (...)
There are many beautiful and dramatically strong moments in the score. I personally find the title duet for the doomed lovers Joshua and Hannah plus On The End Of The Light, a solo for Hannah beautifully sung by young Raquel Lima to be the most emotionally charged moments in the score. Some choral pieces like Hope, Marriage At Stalag III and earlier Arbeit Macht Frei are hauntingly beautiful. The opening number Guten Morgen with repeated "This is Stalag III" choral interjections is a good opening number and sets the scene perfectly. The songs for Joshua and Andreas are all very interesting and their anthem War certainly has lots to say in these trying times and easily finds many parallels in our own. There are quite a few numbers in the score used to reflect characters inner turmoil (or "inner monologues" as Sondheim calls this technique) and they work very well in a similar way that Stars or On My Own stop the show in Les Mis. It Was Not Supposed To Be This Way is a strong piece for Andreas, when he is faced with his final choice between friendship and duty. (...)
Guimarães uses different musical styles with ease and Scents Of light contains massive classical sequences reminiscent from Andersson and Ulvaeus' score for Chess combined with pure pop sounds fused with occasional march tunes and tangos. All in all, I find the score evocative of place and time. It is sung beautifully by the largely unknown cast and could do well internationally as well. (...)
Scents Of Light is all about that flicker of hope left and I do wish that this wonderful new musical will find a place not only in Portuguese theatres, but also abroad."Matti AijalaFP - www.scentsoflight.com"