About a week ago, Centre in the Square had a contest on their Facebook page - name a movie that featured Debussy's Au Claire de la Lune on its soundtrack for a chance to win tickets to see their upcoming Piano Battle show - and I entered, and found out at 2:30 yesterday afternoon that I had won tickets to see the show at 7:30 last night. Short notice, but I sure like free, so I texted Dave and he was able to get home early from work for a surprise night out.
After a quick bite (we were disappointed to see how many of the "nice" restaurants downtown Kitchener are closed on Mondays, but I don't know why we're always surprised to so enjoy the dinner salads at Bobby O'Brien's), we headed to the theatre - and thoroughly enjoyed the show. The concept: two classical pianists, one dressed in black, one in white, each play a song (something powerful, something lyrical), and after each round, the audience holds up cards to vote for whoever they believe "won" that battle.
The music itself was undeniably impressive - these are very talented performers - but the "battle" aspect seemed a bit strained. I notice this YouTube video is from 2011, and the in-between patter and smack talk that they engage in has probably been the same for all those years; it felt tired and unspontaneous, rattled off quickly in sometimes incomprehensible German accents, and didn't add much to my enjoyment. And as for the voting - they seemed to just takes turns "winning" and advancing their grand pianos across the stage towards a finish line so that they could end in a tie and have an audience member come up and give an impartial count of a final audience vote; I have no doubt it ends this way at every performance. I get that classical musicians probably need a hook to get people out to their shows today - the theatre wouldn't have been giving away tickets if this had been sold out - but I wish that everything hadn't felt so over-rehearsed. On the other hand, watching them play while blindfolded or while playing ping-pong with one hand was impressive and entertaining.
As we were leaving the theatre, Dave (who sounded slightly reluctant to go see this show in the first place) was saying how much he loves classical piano and that we should look into going to a concert without the whole battle concept. Well, where did that come from all of a sudden? Free or not, if he's in, I'm in!
