Las Vegas Weekly

January 9, 2010 · 2:23 PM

Photo Gallery: Viva Elvis commemorates Elvis’ 75th birthday

By Robin Leach

The cast of Viva Elvis at Aria in CityCenter commemorates what would have been Elvis Presley's 75th birthday on Jan. 8, 2009.

Photo: Brian Jones/Las Vegas News Bureau

The original plan was for Cirque du Soleil to open its seventh and newest Strip production last night, with the premiere of its $100 million spectacular Viva Elvis to coincide with the anniversary of what would have been Elvis Presley’s 75th birthday. Construction delays and other staging headaches delayed the move and onstage rehearsals, pushing the premiere back to Feb. 19.

Instead, the cast is amid three weeks of rehearsals and fixation before resuming preview performances. Executives at Cirque’s Montreal headquarters, however, decreed that Elvis’ birthday should be marked with a special performance of the show last night. I watched the spectacular and joined the audience, several in sequined Elvis jumpsuits, in a rousing standing ovation.

Then before curtain call ended, the cast celebrated Elvis’ 75th birthday in true Las Vegas-style. An epic masterpiece of a cake from Bellagio and Aria French pastry chef genius Jean Philippe Maury was rolled onto stage center as the cast sang “Happy Birthday” and a black-and-white portrait of the King of Rock and Roll appeared on a giant rear screen.

The cake included a solid chocolate guitar and Elvis silhouette. After the show, cast and crew enjoyed the taste treat with 75 lucky members of the audience who had snapped up 75 special tickets at $75 each -- I paid $135 for each of my two tickets.

Our thanks to contributing photographer Brian Jones of Las Vegas News Bureau and our friends at Cashman Photography for providing the shots from last night. I posted another photo of the cast and cake on my Twitter page last night.

I’m not going to review the show at this juncture because it is still in previews, Cirque is still making changes based on audience reaction, and that’s the job of the professional critics in another month after the final changes and tweaks. But I will tell you some of the thrilling highlights I experienced last night:

*The “Jailhouse Rock” number is extraordinary, with a dance routine featuring acrobats, aerialists and dancers tapping out footsteps while upside down and upright. That’s a miracle. I have never seen upside down dancing before!

*The world’s largest blue suede shoe moves onstage and turns into the basis of an amazing series of tumbling gymnastics.

*There are two highly emotional, heart-tugging sequences in the colorful, nonstop assault of music: The two male and two female acrobats in each of the two re-created Elvis and Priscilla wedding rings were beyond incredible, and the re-created wedding moment ends with Priscilla’s wedding gown being unfurled and becoming a drape for the movie images of their first kiss as Mr. and Mrs. Presley.

*Cirque proves it has no equal with the gravity-defying comic book superhero characters on the largest, most colorful trampoline structure ever built for a Las Vegas stage.

*The opening jukebox set with the flipping carousel of Elvis albums is a high-energy, kick-off dance number matched by the truly Las Vegas glitz and glamour finale with dancers in traditional feathered head-dresses marching down a giant illuminated staircase. It brought many members of the audience to their feet to dance and applaud with loud cheers.

*Just how do the two dancing cowboys set fire to their twirling ropes from a blazing campfire onstage and two-step through the hoops of flames until they crumble and disintegrate?

It’s obvious to keen entertainment eyes that some in-between-acts tightening is mandatory, some dialogue reworking is imperative, and some bare spots on the huge stage need to be filled and lit better, but this is already an extravaganza of epic proportions. The band is so good and enthusiastically exuberant, Elvis would have hired them himself to go out on tour! The female singers are a gospel trio powerhouse when singing solo or together.

Writer and director Vincent Paterson, who previously staged and choreographed world tours for Madonna and the late Michael Jackson, was spot on when he told me earlier: “The show is 65 percent totally new, unique and different musical entertainment and 35 percent of the Cirque trademark successes.”

The audience last night simply loved the show. They didn’t want to leave the theater. They stood politely in line waiting to take photos at the bronzed statue head of Elvis. They mobbed the Elvis retail store. I chatted with many of them on the way out of the theater, with all of them raving about the production. I found a man who’d made the journey on Elvis’ 75th birthday from Mississippi, where Elvis was born.

“If he was still alive, he would have loved this tonight,” he told me. “He was the greatest. He changed the world of music. This is going to preserve for all time the good memories we have of the King of Rock and Roll. You couldn’t ask for better.”

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter at Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.

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Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter at Twitter.com/VDLXEditorDon.

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