Phantom 25 Broadway

Please don't mistake the question I am about to ask as me being a jerk -- it's a dead serious question.

How can THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA be your favorite musical if you haven't ever seen it? Are you basing this opinion from only listening to the cast recording?

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Updated On: 9/23/12 at 10:00 PM

I knew WICKED was my favorite show before seeing just based from videos/cd/what I read. Same with "Company" which I loved the music before seeing the Raul video.

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It's tricky. You can see a film version of a musical, such as HAIR, and love (or hate) it based on that. But seeing it on stage is quite different. A lot of the film versions are drastically different than the stage version. I'm certain that the Matthew Broderick MUSIC MAN would turn anyone off from that show, but if you saw it live, you may have a different opinion.

Of course your liking to a piece is mainly determined by the production of it.

I've always been fascinated as to how someone becomes a "fan" of a show, or call it their favorite, when they haven't seen it.

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Well music does play a large part in, y'know, musicals...so I think its fair. I've never seen On The Twentieth Century, Caroline or Change or numerous other classic shows...any maybe never will - but they're staying on my list!

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A musical and a production of a musical are two distinct entities to me, even if they should, ideally, compliment each other. The production, in this case, a stage production being a delivery system/platform.

At its most basic, the whole of a musical is its written score, just like a novel is all you need to 'experience' a complex story, "the work" is contained in the music and lyrics.

A musical can be judged on its written music and lyrics alone.

The interpretation of its score by musicians and actors is performance and an art in itself. How effectively they tell the story through song is a whole other topic but it shouldn't go into deciding whether a musical is any good or not.

It's entirely possible to love a musical but loath its stage production. In the end, it's important to not allow performances or productions or interpretations decide if a musical is good or not.

Nothing wrong with basing how one feels about a musical on a cast recording, provided it contains most of the score and the performances aren't influencing one's assessment of it.

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Then you'd need to have it interpreted and performed for you, obviously. But the performance itself or that act of interpreting it isn't THE musical. It's a performance of that musical.

So you can have a totally crap cast perform it, but if you know what to look for and what's important, you can come away with a fair assessment of the quality of that musical.

Quality of the performance is a whole separate thing.

And libretto is definitely a basic element. Don't know how I overlooked that. Thanks for pointing that out.

I initially wrote a long-ass thing on orchestration but deleted it for length. Now I regret it because it addresses, in detail, specifically your comments on piano/full orchestral score as a basic element.

In short it is, but it doesn't have to be the full orchestration and a good single piano adaptation would suffice. To me, at least. Of course, it isn't what I prefer.

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Updated On: 9/24/12 at 01:24 AM

Lol I like how the entire thread is turning into a discussion of what constitutes calling a musical "favorite."

Mosspath, to answer your question, I don't believe any celebration has been announced yet. Believe me, we would know about it here if there was. If the date is blacked out, there probably is something planned for that day. Either they are closing it to the public, or they are waiting to release tickets until something is announced (that way they ensure an allotted amount of tickets are handed out to the important people).

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Well, if it is anything like what they did with the Les Miserables Anniversary celebration that would be a royal shame!

They invited so many creative team people and their families as well as prime "Le Miz student production kids" to the Imperial to perform, that the "invited leftovers" had to watch this celebration from a neighboring theater on a screen. And by leftovers I am talking about Broadawy stars that had starred as leads in the production for years. A few Valjeans had traveled from Europe to sit in a theater to watch a film of the celebration. What an insult!

Let's hope TPTB have the decency to do it right with POTO.

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