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Phantom To Become Longest Running Show on Broadway Come Monday — Page 2

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#26

re: Phantom To Become Longest Running Show on Broadway Come Monday

Posted: 1/6/06 at 11:20pm

I saw the second performance in "88 and got to see it again in the fall of 2001. It was in pristine shape and Howard McGillin was the Phantom. He was so sensual and what a beautiful voice that man has! He was also very touching in the role. I'm glad he's back and has the honor of playing the part on its record breaking night. I like the show - so lush and romantic. I'm a sucker for shows like this.
#27

re: Phantom To Become Longest Running Show on Broadway Come Monday

Posted: 1/6/06 at 11:51pm

I happen to like the show - and I suppose the overwhelming majority of 80 million people who have seen the show across the world do,too!

Btw, it will complete its 8,000th performance in early January, at the West End where it really originated re: Phantom To Become Longest Running Show on Broadway Come Monday
#29

re: Phantom To Become Longest Running Show on Broadway Come Monday

Posted: 1/7/06 at 1:00am

The lit candles aren't real... there ARE fire effects, but a large majority of the candles are computer-chip replicas that flicker like the real deal without running the risk of "burning the theater down".
*~* Every time you double-post, God kills a kitten. *~*

Kay, the Thread-Jacking Jedi
Quando omni flunkus moritati (When all else fails, play dead...)

"... chasin' the music. Trying to get home."

Peter Gregus: "Where are my house right ladies?!"
(love you, girls! - 6/13/06)

#32

re: Phantom To Become Longest Running Show on Broadway Come Monday

Posted: 1/7/06 at 1:55am

a lot of important elements from the book aren't included and hidden with tedious love songs.The personalities in the book, the arguments between christine and raoul and how totured christine was by the phantom is unknown in the musical. I have to admit some of the music is touching but i don't think there is that much brilliance to it. It's kinda corny, actually, and to have it as the longest running broadway show... well that's just what appeals to the masses. it has nothing to do with being the best.

"Heck, this show was THE show that got me into Broadway, and now i'm a Sondheim Fan."

^ I think that's soooo funny because that's exactly what happened to me. 2 years ago in my freshman year of high school, i was slightly obsessed with this musical because of the movie which is kind of embarassing to admit, but i don't think it was the show to get me into broadway, Candide was.
Bottom Line: This show should be history. i can't take it when high quality art is dismissed and when low quality art is praised beyond belief.
#36

re: Phantom To Become Longest Running Show on Broadway Come Monday

Posted: 1/7/06 at 2:39am


If something achieves, good on it.

If something fails, it has its reasons. There are many reasons why this show works...

I think it's under-rated on this board, actually. I mean, look at the lyrics. They took me a long time to warm up to, but everyone is so used to them they immediately just dismiss them with everything else. The alliteration abounds, the subject matter is on the dot, and it's really great to "enunciate" the words. To this day, being one of the most fussiest musical fans on the planet, I have immense joy singing the lyrics to some of these songs. "Slowly, gently, night unfurls its splendour! Grasp it, sense it, tremulous and tender!" See the alliteration? There are far too many examples...

The music is lush, the motifs are constant (anyone here a Wagner fan?), the sets are gorgeous, the direction was spot-on, the feeling was brilliant. This is how I wanted Dance of the Vampires to come together. It also depends on the energy the cast give the songs. When done wrong, WISHING and ALL I ASK OF YOU are really painful and boring to sit through. When done right, you feel very moved. I know the extremes I've had with them is: almost crying in WISHING, but also being extremely bored with it. Plus I almost always fast-forward this section of the CD. But give it a chance...

I dunno: I just like the way it came together. The lyrics are a real treat for a singer to sing, and the grandiosity of singing that music. It's like you're on top of the world.

I can't describe it. That's the reason why I don't mind this show. But I would have liked if Sweeney Todd had Phantom's honour instead

Who can explain it, who can tell you why? Fools give you reasons, wise men never try -South Pacific
#37

re: Phantom To Become Longest Running Show on Broadway Come Monday

Posted: 1/7/06 at 3:34am

How can you say a show doesn't deserve to be the longest running? To me it's as simple as if a show doesn't have viewers they close it and if does it stays open. Obviously it has had enough interest. It's probably one of the most well known shows in all of musical theatre. I have brothers who have never seen a show in their entire life but they know and have heard of Phantom. It's not like there calling it the best show ever they are simply celebrating a show that has been popular enough to continue running.
#38

re: Phantom To Become Longest Running Show on Broadway Come Monday

Posted: 1/7/06 at 3:40am

I'm so glad that it's breaking the record. Cuz, even now, after years and years, this show is so touching.

Those complaining might just need to see a different cast, cuz the current BC isn't so great. If you can catch Gary Mauer, Elizabeth Southard, and John Cuida/Michael Shaun Lewis on the tour, you be be BLOWN away. I saw them for my 6th performance, and i was astounded. Quite possibly the best performance of any peice of theatre I've ever seen.

PS - Something kinda cool...I predicted Monday Jan, 9th would be the record show back in August.
#39

re: Phantom To Become Longest Running Show on Broadway Come Monday

Posted: 1/7/06 at 5:51am

In honour of this I will post my review of the Broadway performace of January 30, 1988 as broadcast of my radio program:

"The big news on Broadway last week was the opening of Hal Prince’s dazzlingly staged PHANTOM OF THE OPERA with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe.

Visually, the production has brilliant scenic effects and transitions that will leave you breathless. Once the scenery stops moving, however, we’re in trouble. The story telling is horribly muddled. Those unfamiliar with Gaston Leroux’s novel (strangely uncredited in the playbill) will be lost at times thanks to the way the book has been cobbled together by Webber and Stilgoe.

After all these years Webber has still not learned how to use music effectively to heighten the drama. The show is loaded with music but only three major songs emerge and stand up to repeated listens. The best of the three is “Al I ask of you” the climatic Act One duet for Christine and Raoul, the young lovers of the story. All the tenderness and passion is contained in Webber’s glorious melody. But the vapid lyrics take us nowhere, so we are left to wait for the action to continue after the song.

Similarly the Phantom’s duet wit Christine, “Music of the Night” again marries a superior melody with an inferior lyric.

The title song with its contemporary sound and heavily synthesized orchestration seems to have wandered in from some other score. The tune, however, provides a thundering organ prologue to accompany Hal Prince’s miraculous transformation whisking us from the decrepit Paris Opera house of 1911 back to its halcyon days of 1881 when the story takes place.

Throughout the show, however, the organ theme is repeated far too frequently and while opera parodies abound but they are not authentic in style, or amusing.

At the performance I attended Patti Cohenour sang Christine, since Sarah Brightman does not play Saturday matinees. Having heard Sarah Brightman on the London cast recording, I must say I prefer Cohenour’s warmer tones to Brightman’s steely soprano.

Opposite her is Steve Barton trying desperately to develop Raoul into an interesting character even though the script doesn’t really give him much to work with. All he needs do is show up looking dashing and sing the love songs. That, Barton does…sensationally.

Rounding out the central romantic triangle is Michael Crawford in a history-making performance in the title role. Years from now Broadway fans will talk about this the way they now talk about Alfred Drake in KISMET or Richard Kiley in MAN OF LA MANCHA. Crawford acts and sings it so well they he keeps the audiences spellbound… exactly the effect his character should be having over Christine.

Sadly most of the rest of the talented cast are dead wood playing mere cameos though Judy Kaye is given an amusing turn as the tempestuous opera diva.

Maria Bjornson’s ravishingly beautiful designs go a long way to helping conjure the glamour of a bygone era. It is against these sets that Hal Prince creates stage pictures that appear and disappear as if conjured by a magician.

What Prince, Bjornson and the authors are unable to do is make us care about any of these characters. So, instead of being an audacious new modern musical what we have here is a throwback to the days of operetta, and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA despite some fine moments is not consistently interesting or entertaining.

When one considers the fertile source, this is all the more regrettable."

Re-reading this 18 years later I still stand by what I wrote!


Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks."
Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!

I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com

#40

re: Phantom To Become Longest Running Show on Broadway Come Monday

Posted: 1/7/06 at 6:07am

"This does not deserve to be the longest running show."

Not disagreeing with you, but what show DOES?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I remember days
Or at least I try
But as years go by
They're sort of haze
And the bluest ink
Isn't really sky
And at times I think
I would gladly die
For a day of sky
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
And Starbucks will use the words 'large' and 'small', not pretentious crap like grande and tall.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"You could get away with anything if you call it art and tell people who don't like it that it's cutting edge culture." --vmlinnie
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
#41

re: Phantom To Become Longest Running Show on Broadway Come Monday

Posted: 1/7/06 at 6:29am

"that a show that has become such a lackluster production will be celebrated for its greatness. "

I don't think after 7000+ performances ANY show will remain as fresh as it was after its 1500th performance! Not RENT, not CHICAGO (as much as I would like to see it take the title one day...), not THE LION KING.

But any show that still after all those years and performances manages to sell tickets and attract people night after night, deserves the title. You don't have to like the show itself but not every show manages to stay open not even nearly as long as POTO has and I think that is a remarkable thing and the show deserves the title it is going to take over.
#45

re: Phantom To Become Longest Running Show on Broadway Come Monday

Posted: 1/9/06 at 6:36am

I think it is wonderful that so many of you were taken to see this show at a young age and it was what opened your eyes to the magic of live theatre and musicals in general, but do you really think it is a truly great musical? (And I know how hard it is to divorce the sentimental attachment because it was your first!)

I wish the book and lyrics were better. The rest (staging, cast, design and music) are all fantastic but a play/musical succeeds or fails because of its text and the empty repetitive lyrics have always bugged me. That plus the adaptation of the novel is clumsy leaving out important details.

I much prefer Maury Yestons THE PHANTOM which played regional theatres (and was recoreded by RCA Victor.) I often wonder if Hal Prince had chosen to direct the Maury Yeston version instead, would it still be running 18 years later?

Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks."
Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!

I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com

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