At 8 AM on the morning after Viva Elvis had its official opening performance in Las Vegas, I Googled Viva Elvis to see what the entertainment critics had to say about the reworked Cirque du Soleil show. For two months, there had been many reviews panning the initial trial presentations of Viva Elvis. I was hoping the bugs had been worked out and the critical review would be positive.
Believe it or not, Google found over 2 million results for my search. On the first page of these, there was a selection called “News results for Viva Elvis,” and you could click on links to fifty different articles. As a service to ElvisBlog fans, I checked out every one of them. Here are my choices for the five most interesting, and they come at the subject from substantially different directions.
Best Look at Costumes and Backstage:
I liked the Lights, Vegas, Action blog of Vegas.com for several reasons. The text by Kristine McKenzie was organized into four categories: The Cast, The Music, The Costumes, and The Acrobatics. There is also a video showing snippets of several dance numbers as well looks at some costumes and other backstage stuff. And finally, there is a gallery of nine still shots plus three more in the body of the article. Click on the picture below to go to this informative site.
Most Glowing Review (and most intellectual):
I was a bit surprised to read the review on the Time magazine website and find it so complimentary. Time columnist Richard Corliss used his considerable writing talents to praise Viva Elvis using adjectives like spectacular, fantastic and ecstatic. I love the way he says that Cirque du Soleil shows are to the typical Broadway shows what Avatar is to the 1933 King Kong. Corliss tends to write in a scholarly manner, and he incorporates a lot of words we regular folks don’t use in everyday conversation. I’ll share the ones I had to look up, so you won’t have to do it, too. Éclat (striking effect). Hagiography (worshipful biography), Oeuvre (body of work), Oneiric (relating to dreams), Terpsichore (choreography), Caconical (recognized/accepted), and Chorines (chorus girls). You will enjoy this review, so click this picture to go to it.
Best Videos about Viva Elvis:
CNN.com has a good article by KJ Matthews on its website. I liked the analysis of how Viva Elvis differs from the Cirque show Love about the Beatles. There are actually three videos you can check out, and two are good. “A Look at Viva Elvis” covers the theater, the specially-built stage, set pieces, and backstage activity. You may have already seen this video on the Elvis Insiders website. I also liked “Sneak Peak at Viva Elvis,” which has excerpts of Priscilla’s interview on the Larry King Live TV show. The last video is titled “Elvis, Obama, and Vegas,” but you can skip it unless you want to hear President Obama doing damage control over his recent slam at Las Vegas. Click on the pink Caddy below to link to this site.
Best Description of the Elvis Songs Used in the Show:
There almost 40 Elvis songs used in the show, either in their entirety or in medleys. The deepest discussion of the music in Viva Elvis is found in the show preview on the Las Vegas Review-Journal website. Columnist Mike Weatherford has been writing regularly about Viva Elvis for two months, and this time he interviews Musical Director Erich van Tourneau. It is revealing when van Tourneau discusses trying to keep Elvis moving artistically – trying to imagine how Elvis would do his hits today. There is no video and only two photos. Click on the one of van Tourneau below to read the interview.
Most Detail About What is in Viva Elvis:
As you may know, Cirque du Soleil is Montreal based enterprise, so it is no surprise that the Montreal Gazette would cover Viva Elvis on their website. Columnist Pat Donnelly has written a lengthy article covering (in sequence) just about every element of the show. I don’t know how anyone could read his piece without yearning for a trip to Vegas to see Viva Elvis. Because there are no photos accompanying the article, here’s one I picked for you to click on to go to it.
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