Phantom ending

[justafan2]

Posted: 4/10/08 at 6:50pm

OK---I'm very ashamed to ask this---having seen Phantom almost 20 times, but.....(spoiler alert for anyone who has not seen this show)....
What happens to the Phantom at the end?
Does he just leave?---( always thought it was his ultimate act of love---giving Christine away to love Raoul...)
Or does he die?
I just finished a discussion with friends and there were many opinions on this.
Updated On: 4/13/08 at 06:50 PM

[tourboi]

Posted: 4/10/08 at 6:50pm

You'll have to wait till PHANTOM 2 to find out.

Seriously, I think it's up for the audience to decide. I always thought he escaped and left to live a quiet life elsewhere.

[adamgreer]

Posted: 4/10/08 at 6:51pm

He certainly can't die, as he is the subject of this misguided sequel that Webber is writing now.

[justafan2]

Posted: 4/10/08 at 6:56pm

The Phantom 2 argument is the one I used---stating that he didn't die---he's coming back in a sequel. My friends stated that maybe Phantom 2 is a prequel and doesn't take place after the ending of the first. ????
(I also thought he went away---broken-hearted, but alive)

[adamgreer]

Posted: 4/10/08 at 7:01pm

No, it's set after the events of The Phantom of the Opera.

Christine and Raoul have a teenaged son who is also a "musical genius." The Phantom lives on Coney Island at a carnival run by Madame Giry, who has apparently undergone quite the career change from ballet mistress at the Paris Opera House, to Carnival Lady.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/playbill/20080409/en_playbill/116638

[Cape Twirl of Doom]

Posted: 4/10/08 at 7:04pm

I like that it's ambiguous. All we know is he escapes from the mob and is never heard from again. The proposed sequel is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. There is just no way for a sequel to work without destroying the original ending.

(See, now if the sequel was actually a prequel, that I think could work. But everything I've read about it has said that it will take place after the events of PHANTOM.)

[justafan2]

Posted: 4/10/08 at 7:10pm

Thank-U, adamgreer---I just sent the link to my friends.

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 4/10/08 at 7:36pm

Are they serious with that plot for the sequel? A carnival? And then what, does he team up with Daisy and Violet Hilton?

[RyToast1]

Posted: 4/10/08 at 7:44pm

I wish he had died...then we wouldn't have to deal with Phantom of Manhattan (even though Coney Island is in Brooklyn).

gahhhhh

[puppetman2]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 12:39pm

In the original novel, the skeleton of the Phantom is found many years lated still in the basement of the opera house with the ring he had given Christine on his finger.
There really is to way to explain what happens to him. He simply disappears and that is the wonder of the end of the show.

The sequal is a bigger mistake than CARRIE.

[zepka102]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 12:43pm

What I think would be great about the sequel is if it ends with Christine waking up and it's all a nightmare. Then the ending of the original musical would STILL be open.

[Justin D]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 12:47pm

I always thought that he just stays in the back of the chair till some stage hand helps him out.


lol

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 12:50pm

I never much cared for ALW to start with, but the Phantom sequel sounds like he's really lost it. Coney Island? C'mon!!!

[bwaygal1]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 12:54pm

In the book he dies. I don't know if he kills himself (it's been awhile since I read it). But he is certainly dead and under the Paris Opera House not in Coney Island.

This is building on the film-the part Mme. Giry talks about in the movie.

[gypsy4]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 12:54pm

isn't the sequal going to be taking place more like in the 1930's?

[bwaygal1]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 12:59pm

Well I guess the film is an entity all alone then, because (SPOLER ALERT) Christine dies in the film. (She's dead by WWI I think.) She wouldn't be alive in the 1930s.

And the Phantom probably wouldn't either.

[alex2155]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 1:00pm

yeah I think he dies...although it could be left up the the audience to decide, but a few months ago I heard one of the cast members discussing the sequel on the bus and she was saying how she didn't know how it would work because he dies but how maybe we will haunt her or his spirit will guide her or something. But I guess we will just have to wait and see what they do.

[philcrosby]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 1:07pm

I only have one thing to say to Lord Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton about the planned sequel to PHANTOM .....


.... ANNIE 2.

[KrissySim]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 1:09pm

No, Lloyd Webber is wrong. His project will fail.

Erik leaves opera, boards a sailing ship to Seychelles, there meets a Lebanese bellydancer, forgets about Christine entirely, marries her and retires from Phantom life entirely. With his Phantom savings he buys and operates a cinnamon plantation. It's the children he raises with the bellydancer who become the terror of the next generation with many sequels.

(My way of saying I don't want a sequel. And I've never really cared for Lloyd Webber's work either.)
Updated On: 4/11/08 at 01:09 PM

[MCfan2]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 1:36pm

As a passionate "Phantom" fan, I think the sequel is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard in my life. (Right up there with giving Butler the movie role. Grrr.)

Considering what happened to his score at one point, could we maybe all chip in and collect some money to buy and send ALW a whole houseful of cats?

[Sally]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 2:00pm

I like the original Phantom of the Opera, and as far as I'm concerned it ends perfectly and ambiguously with the Phantom just disappearing and Meg holding up his mask as the orchestra plays five strong chords.

This sequel is like having a third leg, unnecessary, awkward, and probably ugly. Unless I am very much surprised, the show will not run long (pardon the sorta pun), and most theater goers who like Lloyd Webber and the original Phantom of the Opera will still be able to see the original.

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 2:19pm

I totally thought this was going to be a thread about when it was closing.

[Theatreboy49]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 2:28pm

This is one of my all time favorite endings in musical theatre. He dissapears and Meg picks up the mask. I just love it. And the sequel must die. ALWQ wont listen to reason but its a horrific idea and will be the worst show ever.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 2:35pm

Christine is dead and the beginning of the stage version, too. Raoul must have made a special trip back to Paris to get that music box.

[winston89]

Posted: 4/11/08 at 2:45pm

Well if you look at the movie your basically seeing two stories in one. The first one that you see is the story that takes place in black and white and starts off at the auction. It is there that he gets the music box. Through out the course of the movie you see him take it to her grave. And you see him stop and look at things that remind him of the past and that bring us to the musical.

As for Christine being dead in the stage version. She is at the beginning during the auction. The rest of the stage musical is a flashback to when the Phantom was haunting the theatre.