The Phantom of the Opera – Illustrated Feature/Podcast

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The opening scene of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera,” as it stands today, is dark and dusty, as the older versions of the supporting cast stand awkwardly around the closed off stage as if they had never known each other. This scene has not changed one bit since the show opened more than 20 years ago (in 1988) at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. Every line, note and piece of blocking has been passed on from cast to cast of the many seasons it has been in that theatre, virtually seamless transitioning through the years.

The cast that fills the stage currently is phenomenal, with Jennifer Hope Willis as the main Christine, Ryan Silverman as Raoul, her lover, and John Cudia as the infamous Phantom. Their voices are beautiful together as they sing the melodies that nearly everyone knows, and Cudia as the Phantom is especially chilling as his voice haunts through every note.

The set is equally as gorgeous. With the simplistic sets for the interchangeable scenes, such as a curtain pulled to one side and a lone desk for the set of “Notes,” and a small dressing room pulled in for the “Angel of Music” scene, as well as the very well known and grandiose sets for the “Masquerade,” which has a two story, golden staircase which fills the entire stage and the “Wishing you were Somehow Here Again” scene which has an entire graveyard filling the stage and a giant tomb filling the background.

With a show that has been showing for longer than I have been alive, there is a lot of pressure to keep the audience interested. While the opening number is almost exactly the same as it was when the show opened, there have been many small tweaks that have been added throughout the years to attempt to revive the very well-known chords and tunes.

One of the tweaks that occurred has been a change in the lyrics. Every year or so the lyrics of the original cast are slowly wiped out to be replaced by something that Andrew Lloyd Webber has rediscovered as a better choice for the current show. For example, the original lyrics of the title song, “The Phantom of the Opera” used to be sung “Beneath the opera house, I know he’s there,” but has been changed to a creepier, more lingering, “In sleep he sang to me, in dreams he came.”  These lyrics and the execution of that exact scene are not very different than the original, but different enough to leave a more distinctive impression on the audience than one would have found watching the musical twenty years ago. They have also revised the lyrics to the “Angel of Music” scene, as well as the beautiful aria “Think of Me,” creating more vivid imagery in both that would make the musical as well-written as it could possibly become.

To create a sense of understanding with the audience that was originally imagined for the play’s counterpart – the movie – there was a scene added to the musical where Madame Giry tells Raoul the story of the Phantom’s beginnings. It is not a huge change, but the added scene gives a very different representation of the Phantom, giving him a little bit more humanity and a background, proving that he does, in fact, have a soul.

In many other musicals there have been revisions of the scripts, trying to create something that will continually be admired and will continually sell out their houses. “West Side Story” was revised when its revival went up, changing many of the lyrics from their original English into Spanish, trying to create the more real and gritty realization of the characters’ heritage.  Also, there was a change in the scene where Anita comes into Doc’s store looking for Tony near the end of the musical. It turns into a giant fight and an almost rape scene in the musical as it is today, however in the original blocking the scene was just obnoxious and rude, rather than the dangerous scene it has now become. In this revision as well, the changes are to interest the audience more than the original version would have.

In the original version of “Les Miserables,” the epic musical based on Victor Hugo’s novel with the same name, there was nearly seven hours worth of music. This was obviously not very sane for the actors, nor for the audience who could not be expected to spend an entire day living the life of a criminal, so very quickly, through even the first staged readings of the musical, it was revised to a shorter version. Through the previews and the first year of the musical, short scenes, such as the first song in the “Love Montage” between Cosette, Marius and Eponine, was cut, making room for the more meaty battle scenes and slight break of humor with the hilarious and slightly disgusting, “Master of the House.”

No musical comes straight out of a writer’s head exactly as it should be, and as audiences change over time so must the musical to compete with these changing perceptions. “Phantom of the Opera” is an old musical by today’s standards, but if it continues to keep up then there is a chance that it could even last another twenty years.