‘Musical Dreams’ at Mandarin Oriental

The invitation from Mandarin Oriental was specific about the dress code: black only please. The members of the Chaine des Rotisseurs, an exclusive group of gourmets and food lovers, and the hotel’s top corporate accounts for whom the enigmatic Musical Dreams evening was presented in two separate occasions, were intrigued by it and strictly conformed to the request. The Musical Dreams dinner musical was a brainchild of the multi-awarded manager Helmut Gaisberger, who ensured that every detail was in place – from the level of lighting on the dinner table, the aquarium centerpieces, the services by "unseen" waiters, the dreamy effect of the performances, the elegant and fastidious six-course menu that was served in tandem with the Broadway selections, the luminous piano which showed only the keys and gloved hands of the pianist who entertained inbetween the courses, to the tea candles that marked the paths to the tables in the pitch-black ballroom.

Helmut, who in the Les Miserables finale did the part of Jean Valjean, announced that 75 percent of the cast were his colleagues from the hotel, the rest from Stages Production, the affiliate theater company of Trumpets, Inc., which staged /produced the program in collaboration with the Mandarin. The guests, who exalted over the divine menu which lived up to the hotel’s reputation as the home of culinary champion, were equally impressed with the dramatic centerpieces and the "puzzling" intricacies of the production details as with the extraordinary talents.

To all those who experienced it, Musical Dreams was indeed one unique magical experience that comes only once in a long while!