‘THE Phantom of the Opera,” now in its 12th year on Broadway, is charging $80 for the best seats at the Majestic. I’d never seen “Phantom.” It tells – or rather, doesn’t very clearly tell – an odd horror story about a disfigured composer lurking in a foggy, watery space beneath Paris’ Opera Populaire around the turn of the old century.
There, surrounded by a corpse on a throne, an organ and lots of candelabras, he writes great operas for an ingenue singer he has a crush on and whose career he’s determined to promote by all means, fair and foul.
Wearing a white half-mask and a cloak, he whisks her down in a boat and urges her to “turn your face away from the light of day and listen to the music of the night.”
Of course, nothing is easier to make fun of than the plot of an opera, and “Phantom” is a pop opera set in the world of opera. And since it’s about the devotion of a composer to a star, many observers have read the work as a thinly disguised parable of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s adoration of his then muse, Sarah Brightman, who originated the role of Christine Daae.
(What’s with that last name? It must come from the original Gaston Leroux novel, which has been filmed many times, most memorably with Lon Chaney and with Claude Rains.)
The central story of “Phantom” is of a woman torn between beauty and the beast; between handsome, bland aristocrat Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, and the ugly demon who churns out music in the sewer and is such an effective agent (killing rivals).
Actually, this beast writes only one killer song – “The Music of the Night” – and it’s for himself, not for his lady love and sole client. But this is the dynamic – a woman strangely drawn to the dark, cellar-dwelling Id and slightly bored with the sunny, juiceless Superego – that has won “Phantom” its rapt following.
Plus a swooping chandelier and some nifty explosions to keep guys awake. Plus the necessary ball, here on New Year’s Eve, like the one in Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard.”
The problem is that “Phantom”‘s strained music and insipid lyrics (I heard “clothing … loathing” at one point) never get the story of a torn woman or an obsessed man. “You were warm and gentle,” croons Christine, sung with a bland and detached competence by Adrienne McEwan.
Huh? He’s killed at least two people.
There’s no sexual tension in the piece, or in Hugh Panaro’s rather chilly and remote Phantom. As Raoul, John Schroeder has little more to do than look dashing and sing stuff like “Love me,” but he seemed more animated than the leads.
A jealous triangle – older lover, younger beloved, also-young third party – is at the heart of Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard” and is better realized there, although story-telling is nowhere Lloyd Webber’s forte.
But if the “Phantom” part left me cold, the “Opera” element is fun. The musical contains some sharp takeoffs on operatic war horses and two vivid second-banana performances – by Liz McCartney as Carlotta Giudicelli, a hefty diva threatened by the rise of Christine, and by Larry Wayne Morbitt as Ubaldo Piangi, a huge baritone who is Carlotta’s lapdog.
Carlotta and Ubaldo are first seen starring in “Hannibal,” a hilarious pastiche of “Aida” set in ancient Carthage and adorned with elephants, horse-faced gods and scantily clad slave dancers. Later, Carlotta is in a “Marriage of Figaro”-like contraption called “Il Muto.”
But the Phantom, ticked off because Christine didn’t get the lead, wrecks the opening night. Damn that Phantom! I wanted more of “Il Muto.”
The Phantom’s own opera, “Don Juan Triumphant” (he kills Ubaldo and plays the lead himself at the premiere), is a ponderous bore.
Like the Phantom, Lloyd Webber thinks he’s this great romantic poet, but unlike the Phantom, Lloyd Webber is really a parodist, a comedian. But romance sells and parody closes on Saturday night.