The Phantom picks her up and places her on a bed. When they arrive, the Phantom shows Christine a mannequin resembling herself in a wedding dress, and she faints. She is essentially kidnapped by the Phantom and taken to his underground lair. Now here is where Christine's ordeal begins. After being visited by her childhood friend, Raoul, she is then visited by the jealous/possessive Phantom.
Christine is then thrust into the lead role by the Opéra's ballet mistress after the owners are told she's been "well taught".Īfter her triumphant performance, she admits to her friend, Meg Giry, that she has been tutored by her "Angel of Music", a figure that her sick father often said would help Christine after his death. After a rehearsal incident involving the "Phantom of the Opera", the resident diva quits the show and storms off stage. When we first meet Christine, she is a young chorus girl at the Paris Opera House. Now while many call it the greatest love story in musical theatre history when we look at the piece through the eyes of Christine Daae, it's not much of a love story at all.and there's a sequel. In the past, we've looked at shows such as Oklahoma!, Grease, Beauty & the Beast and Carousel. Today, we dip into another fan favorite, The Phantom of the Opera. The Phantom of the Opera, Her Majesty’s Theatre thephantomoftheopera.When looking at some of our favorite shows through the eyes of different characters, perspectives can change, plots can shift and what might be comedy could become far darker. You’ll find me agitating for a West End revival of Love Never Dies.
But for a glorious slice of camp escapism, executed at the highest possible standard, this show is hard to beat. Is the love triangle convincing? Not entirely. Much has been made of the decision to scale back the orchestra (previously the biggest in the West End) from 27 performers down to 14 I don’t have the original set-up as a point of comparison, of course, but the score still feels suitably epic. Her character is hardly an empowered heroine, yet the actress makes her vital and engaging Donnelly, meanwhile, makes a nuanced Phantom, despite the part’s cartoonish trappings. This is the West End at its crowd-pleasing best, buoyed by a standout turn from St Louis as Christine, who flits effortlessly through the show’s many musical styles. Second act opener Masquerade is especially dazzling, while that gondola journey down into the depths, lit by hundreds of candles that emerge from the darkness, makes an unforgettable set piece. And yet one question kept haunting me, like a disembodied voice terrorising a theatre: surely a show doesn’t run for 35 years on the West End without good reason?
What were my grounds for this aversion? None, really, aside from the vague notion that Phantom, with its massive light fixtures, made-up operas and dry ice, is the most Andrew Lloyd Webber of Andrew Lloyd Webbers, and therefore something to be endured, not enjoyed. The Phantom of the Opera is a production that I’ve spent years avoiding as assiduously as I’d dodge, well, a creepy man in a half-mask trying to make me take a haunted gondola ride down to his sewer because he just, like, really wants me to listen to the songs he’s written. Chess? You had me at “music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus from ABBA.” Blood Brothers? It’s an anti-Thatcher parable showcasing Scouse accents of varying quality - extremely On Brand (I am yet to meet anyone outside my Merseyside secondary school who also had to study it as part of GCSE English).Īll of those musicals name-checked above are edging towards (or in the case of Chess, happily exist within) the realm of the uncool, but I have always written off one West End show as too kitsch even for my own dubious tastes. Les Misérables? Sobbed through it more times than I can remember (it’s a downward spiral from I Dreamed a Dream, which arrives… about 15 minutes into a near three-hour marathon). New West End Company BRANDPOST | PAID CONTENTĮre’s an embarrassing secret: I love nothing more than an 80s mega-musical with a synthesiser-heavy soundtrack.Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation BRANDPOST | PAID CONTENT.
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