THE PHANTOM MENACE

Last night’s opening of The Phantom of the Opera, a refurbished revival of previous national tours, proves one thing: Since Andrew Lloyd Webber’s baby was born almost 30 years ago in London, the only thing that’s improved is theatrical technology, not aesthetics or storytelling or performers.

In an overwrought, overblown production overseen by Matthew Bourne (of the gender-switching Swan Lake fame) and original mega-producer Cameron Mackintosh, the sets and lights have been beefed up by Paul Brown and Paule Constable, respectively, but aside from a gorgeous giant gilded proscenium and an impressive staircase with vanishing steps, the only thing that visually impresses is Maria Björnson’s original costume design.

The lush orchestrations (Webber and David Cullen), romanticism, clever pastiche of opera circa 1880, and heart-tugging, luxuriant melodies all remain. But even if you have never seen Phantom before, expect to lose an alarming amount of lyrics. Mick Potter’s scandalous sound design gives dialogue, orchestra, singing and effects equal importance, making this nuance-free production more suitable for an outdoor rock concert venue than the theater (I’ll concede that the Hollywood Pantages’ acoustics are daunting to overcome).

The story, for those three people who don’t know, involves a facially disfigured man who lives in the tunnels below the Paris Opera House. He is so smitten with Christine, a young ingénue, that he hypnotizes her, teaches her to sing, and threatens the new owners and opera stars with disaster if his own opera is not performed with his beloved in the lead. In his warped mind, the unloved genius assumes this will make her marry him.

Raoul, a childhood friend of Christine’s, sees her in a performance and decides that he is the one for her, which only further infuriates the titular opera ghost. Interestingly, after Raoul becomes secretly engaged to Christine, the Phantom kills innocent stagehands instead of the swarthy lothario’”one of the multitudinous head-scratching story holes in Phantom.

Original director Hal Prince instinctively knew that in order for Phantom to work, the now longest running show on Broadway had to be a spectacle on the scale of grand opera’”but the performances had to be truly credible. Make it too intimate and the storytelling cracks show, as in the filmed adaptation; make it too bombastic, and there’s no emotional connection, as in this version.

Director Laurence Conner certainly succeeds in the staging of the 1881 opera productions within Opera, aided by Scott Ambler’s choreography, which hints at the horizon 25 years later and Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Connor also creates intimacy with some of the smaller roles (Morgan Cowling is especially appealing as Christine’s friend, Meg, a dancer in the ballet), but the production is compounded by strange or less-than-impressive vocals from the leads: As the troubled troublemaker, Chris Mann’s approach to character development is to speak some lyrics’”this isn’t My Fair Phantom, you know (coincidentally, Mann’s claim to fame is TV’s The Voice, the same major credit as Sasha Allen, who was unfit to play the lead in the current national tour of  Pippin).

Katie Travis is well-suited for Christine, but I missed the warmth and crystalline power of previous Christines; she also lacked chemistry with Raoul, played by Storm Lineberger, who veered dangerously close at times to sounding like a Transylvanian Muppet. While some numbers (“Masquerade” “Notes”) clearly worked and “sounded” great (given the lost lyrics), it just seemed like everyone was trying too hard. Like the unloading of a two-ton elephant, nothing landed right. And in case you think bad reviews can kill a show, this thing is booking through 2020.

photos by Matthew Murphy & Alastair Muir

The Phantom of the Opera
North American  tour
reviewed at the Pantages Hollywood on June 17, 2015

tour continues into 2020
for info, visit Phantom on Tour