Sometimes it’s good to know where to stop. Experimentations are good; it’s good to listen to something different from the usual, on condition that we know the limits of what we attempt. Some things can be done and some others not.
I am wondering for many years what has made Tarja Turunen and Mike Terrana “stuck” so much to each other. Much as I am searching, the only thing that I find in common is that they are both excellent musicians, the one as a singer and the other as a drummer. However, I don’t think that they match up well.
Here we have a live performance of the two artists accompanied by a Philharmonic Orchestra in Zlin, Czech Republic in the April, last year. We mainly listen to projects by Bach, Puccini, Strauss, Mozart, Rossini and other great classical composers. However, while they are performed excellent by Tarja, the … “Beat” of Terrana gives a bad result. Except of this, sometimes Mr. Terrana seems to make a joke of them. The meddley of Led Zeppelin somewhere in the middle of the set, isn’t something special just as “You Take My Breath Away” by Queen. Sometimes it’s better to avoid performing tracks like these (Kashmir, Immigrant Song and Stairway To Heaven in this case). Even their creators, sometimes avoid covering them…
The only “original” moments of this concert is “The Reign”, “Into The Sun”, “I Walk Alone” and “Witch – Hunt” (written by Tarja herself and if I’m not mistaken here we can listen to it for the first time) and of course “Swanheart” by Nightwish.
Regarding the image and footage quality, the DVD gets a good mark, however I have to say that this concerns the classical side of Tarja and has nothing to do with her personal releases, neither of course with her past at Nightwish. As for Terrana … I hope he will forgive me, but he is good only … at the photo shoot. He is being on the background and the experiment for him has failed.
