If I could just share some thoughts about my favorite musical for a moment-- forgive me. This is not a typical blog post for me, but I have words to say.
Andrew Lloyd Webber's version of Phantom of the Opera was never my particular favorite until I played in the pit for a [very mediocre] high school production of it this past spring. I, like most musicians, I think, have a love/hate relationship with playing in orchestra pits. On one hand, you play the same show a million times - if you like it, that's great. If you don't, that's miserable. There is a bell curve of learning the music, getting to know all the tiny cues, then level of playing and level of enjoyment is at its peak around the third production, and then everything after that is boring and automatic. Oh, I remember being bored to tears when Rolf was finally getting around to kissing Leisel for the 5th time, knowing I still had more than an hour left to sit through. (I also was sixteen going on seventeen that year, so perhaps I've gained a bit more musical maturity and/or boredom tolerance since then)
I really enjoyed playing in the pit for Phantom much more than I expected. Mostly because my previous pit experience was with musicals that contained a lot more dialogue - where with ALW the music is almost constant, so my brain was occupied enough through the whole thing that the end almost just snuck up on me each time. (also there were only 3 productions of it, so I didn't have time to get tired of it)
This past weekend, as I mentioned a few posts ago, I attended the Nashville Symphony Halloween event, the silent film from 1925: Phantom of the Opera, accompanied by a very talented and entertaining organist. This movie was much closer to the plot of the actual book... The first time I read the real novel, I was young, and it only took me two days, I stayed up until the wee small hours of the morning because I couldn't put it down!
The 1925 film tried its very hardest to be scary:
Following the depiction from the novel, the Phantom actually looks like a skeleton behind the mask, instead of Gerard Butler (who couldn't be unattractive if he tried, let's be honest).
In 1986, Andrew Lloyd Webber made a few revisions to the story, and of course they made the movie of it in 2004, featuring the shrill but beautifully dainty Emmy Rossum, and the intentionally rock-not-opera vocal style of Gerard Butler.
The story became musical; he added a little bit of humor and a lot a bit of melancholy - the Phantom's story now tearing at the heartstrings of the audience, instead of large, blatant attempts to repulse them. There is still no doubt about who Christine would end up with, but still, one is tempted, and torn a bit, and wonders what would happen if Raoul actually did let her go with the Phantom.
What was the Phantom's plan, anyway? I'm not sure he really thought it through other than "win over Christine and live happily ever after." Would they live forever in the underground mazes and deserted torture chambers beneath the opera house? I suppose he'd let her continue to sing, but at least he'd stop terrorizing the opera house proprietors and patrons. What if she had a child? Or seven children? What was his practical plan of continuing that endeavor? Perhaps a musically genius reclusive family that writes and performs their own music? What if one of the children was tone deaf?
Or was his actual plan a grim Romeo & Juliet idea of being together forever in death? Because he couldn't stand the thought of his Juliet being happy with Raoul after his own death? How could they realistically be happy, without a major life change from one or the other of them?
In 1925, the phantom kidnapped Christine using the very coach that Raoul planned to whisk her away in, to escape to England after the show. (Christine, like any good 1920s heroine, fainted gracefully and was out for most of the scene) Unfortunately, in his hurry, the coach overturns, Christine spills out onto the cobblestones, and the hoards of angry villagers are too close in pursuit for him to realistically continue on with her. He abandons her in the middle of the street, and runs for his life, but is eventually overtaken, his head chopped off and thrown in the river.
In 2004, the phantom slips silently into the night, "learns to be lonely," and presumably dies of heartbreak shortly after the end credits. In both the book and the ALW musical, though, he loves her so much that he knows she would be happier with Raoul, and he finally accepts that he has to let her go. How understanding of him, for all his mental illness and irrational jealousy up to that point.
Anyway, I like it. The music is good, the story is beautiful, operas are neat, and Gerard Butler is hot.
What do you think?
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