PHANTOM Question

[Phan#24601]

Posted: 4/3/13 at 9:13pm

Whenever I watch the film version of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, I get the impression that the Phantom actually wrote the song "Masquerade". Do any of you guys agree, or would any of you guys be able to confirm/deny this for sure? I feel as though the lyrics would be appropriate coming from him, especially:
"Masquerade, paper faces on parade!/Hide your face so the world will never find you."
It is also explained that he is a musical genius, and a wonderful composer, so even if "Don Juan Triumphant" was not his best work-except for "The Point of No Return"-but he meant to make that piece the best because he and Christine would sing it together, I feel like being a great composer could imply that he could write a wide range of different sounding songs.

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 4/3/13 at 9:20pm

Hmm I don't see it that way...

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 4/3/13 at 9:22pm

I could very well be wrong and will gladly bow to those who know the show by heart.

But I never took that song to be a "performance" written by any of the characters. To me, it's the chorus singing to set the scene and the popular sentiment, just as nobody actually writes the title number of OKLAHOMA!

[all that jazz]

Posted: 4/3/13 at 9:51pm

I never thought about that before, I guess I partly agree with Gaveston, but if you think about it, thats the same melody the monkey plays, so... I'm really not sure where I'm going with this, but there might be something there.

In regards to the phantom's talents, I think he wrote Don Juan badly on purpose to annoy the performers and the managers. He did write the LND title song for Christine which is absolutely breathtaking.

[boggess]

Posted: 4/3/13 at 9:52pm

In the context of the show, the characters aren't performing anything. They're celebrating at a masquerade ball, and because it's a musical, the celebration just happens to be in song form.

[Phan#24601]

Posted: 4/3/13 at 10:14pm

Yes, but the monkey does play the song and-at the end-the Phantom himself sings that part of the song even though he was not at the gala until the guests were done singing it.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 4/3/13 at 10:21pm

"In regards to the phantom's talents, I think he wrote Don Juan badly on purpose to annoy the performers and the managers"

In terms of the world the musical exists in Don Juan Triumphant is not supposed to be "bad," just written in a new musical language that supposedly pushes the boundaries of the operatic art form. French audiences, and I assume artists, didn't always take kindly to new styles. They hated the original production of Carmen and the premiere of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring caused a full on riot at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

Lloyd Webber was more likely trying to imply that the Phantom was writing one of those types of works which would change and influence the future of composing, not that it was badly written to annoy people (the Phantom is clearly far above doing something just to annoy somebody, especially by that point in the show).

As far as "Masquerade," since the idea of the Phantom building the music box comes from Mr. Schumacher and is not mentioned anywhere in the script for the stage show I would argue more along the lines of it being a piece that is already popular amongst the Parisian elite, hence it appearing at the celebration and in a music box. Though I would go more with what boggess said in that it's not meant to be viewed as a piece that everyone is performing, it's just the convention of musical theatre that everybody is singing to express their joy and celebration.

[AngelorPhantom1359]

Posted: 4/3/13 at 10:24pm

First off, the point of the masquerade theme is the motif that nothing is as it seems, and that the masks are what hide the true identities of people.

Second, Gaveston is exactly right, it's just a chorus number. If were going down this route then we'd have to ask what character wrote "Nothing Like a Dame" for the sailors in South Pacific or "Tonight" for Maria and Tony in West Side Story.

Third, the Opera Don Juan is not supposed to be intentionally "bad." The reason the people respond to the opera the way they do is because ALW was trying to convey the idea that the Phantom's music was ahead of its time and the Phantom was such a genius that he could write a score that was futuristic. The idea is that the people weren't used to music and operas sounding like that so it's metaphorical for the idea that what is unfamiliar to people is therefore bad or ugly, much like how the Phantom was shunned for his abnormal face and was immediately pigeon held into being bad and ugly.