"This is going to be my first West End show. I'm going to see it on March 30th. I have a few questions for those who have seen it:
"So is the Phantom just this super nice guy, or does he still have an edge/dark side?"
He has an edge in the beginning but unfortunately he turns into super nice guy pretty soon. Overall Kimloo has too much of a soft, kindly voice. He forgets to keep a certain posture and imposing persona as he is meant to be a big shot mogul within Coney. Yes, the Phantom has moments where his voice goes soft, but in this it felt like he stopped acting like the character after his first scene.
"Does Raoul have any sort of redeeming qualities, or is he pretty much a drunken ass all the way through?"
Yes, he does have redeeming qualities. And he doesn't behave like a mean drunk. he only has one scene where he's "drunk" at a bar, but he still doesn't act like he's royally smashed on alcohol. Yes, he does have redeeming qualities. In his bar scene he sings a beautiful song in which he questions himself and how someone like Christine could still love him despite him not feeling like he could ever be the man he once was. If anything, I found his character the only interesting one and the only one who somehow feels true to Phantom of the Opera in some weird way.
"They don't call the Phantom Erik, do they?"
No.
"How does the score stack up against the first show?"
Well it obviously doesn't have as many hits as the first show but then I don't think anyone, including myself was expecting that or meaning to hold that against Andrew Lloyd Webber. It's less about needing more good songs and more about a certain amount of horrible songs that should be entirely removed.
The Coney Island waltz is beautiful, and the different parts of it serve as musical themes that are specific to certain characters, but never get fleshed out into full stand-alone songs. Which they should and would sound marvelous in my opinion.
The "Really Beautiful Song" (I don't know what it's called, but that the chorus line) is, well, really beautiful! It's the son's theme song but it first gets used as build up music during the sexy epic Aida-like flame moment that I mentioned in my earlier review-ish post.
That moment gets followed by the Phantom singing "Till I Hear You Sing" which is the best song.
Then there's a great song that Christine and the Phantom sing together on the breathtakingly gorgeous Art Nouveau balcony of her room.
After that, there's a song (title has Devil in it--sorry don't remember the chorus line to give it a title). It has four actors (including the boy) singing different lyrics to it all at once. A great suspenseful build-up moment.
That's it. Lover Never Dies is alright, but it needs to be tightened and re-choreographed in my opinion, as well as her outfit and hair. Yuck. Sierra sung it marvelously, but the bow with her hands up in the air expecting the audience to applaud felt too self-gratuitous. Yes, it's understood that we're in the role of the audience she's performing for, but it still felt a bit pushy.
"Are there any big spectacles like the chandelier?"
Apart from the opening sequence (which is incredible), no. There aren't.
"Are there any little bits of the previous Phantom's score in the show?"
YES. Christine and Raoul don't know that the producer who's hired her to come over to do a show at Coney is the Phantom. When her son stops playing with a small wind-up piano toy to go off to bed, she picks it up and suddenly the melody is the creepy Phantom 'voice-over' theme. You know, the one that shows up when he's not on stage and he's haunting the people of the opera.
Later on, that "Little Lotti" song (or whatever it's called) is used very beautifully but with new lyrics sung by him as he does a voice over for his "goodbye" letter.
There's one other point where Christine is ready to go on with the show where I think the Phantom sings the same song that Raoul sang in the third act during the plotting of having her go on with "Past the point of no return" but, I think, with new lyrics.
These moments all fit in really well and are subtle. It never feels like Webber is cheating or anything.
The Phantom's lair / Room has a massive central set piece that is meant to be a semi art deco-egyptian / art nouveau statue of an angel with wings spread out, framing the two windows on either side. This first appears during the flame moment. This is obviously a visual metaphor that alludes to her being his "angel of music"
When Christine meets the Phantom for the first time again and they do that awful duet talking about their one night stand from ten years ago, he approaches her from behind and they sort of do that iconic pose from the first one but she's now pushing away his hands with her hands in a similar artistic way, refusing to go there again.
"Also, I've never been to the Adelphi, obviously. I was on a budget, so the tickets we bought are in the Upper Circle, Row H, seats 34-35. Will we be able to see everything alright?"
I don't know. there are a lot of backdrops that are way far deep at the back of the stage, which I didn't like. Who knows.
Updated On: 2/25/10 at 05:03 PM
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