Phantom or Phantom?

[1peter4:10]

Posted: 5/12/07 at 4:46pm

I just learned that at the same time Webber was writing "the Phantom..." another team was writing music for the same show. It was released under the name "Phantom", so as not to confuse the two. I was really excited to hear it- and then very disapointed.
Phantom pros: The phantom has a name
The Phantom of... pros: everything else

What do you think of these two shows using the same story?
Does anyone like "Phantom"?

[shesamarshmallow]

Posted: 5/12/07 at 4:58pm

Most people I know prefer Phantom to Phantom.


(The Yeston to the Lloyd Webber.)

[bob8rich]

Posted: 5/12/07 at 5:06pm

Maury Yeston's "Phantom" score is awesome - far superior IMO to ALW's musically boring version. There is also another (aborted) Phantom of the Opera musical that Ruper Holmes began work on - and the title song can be heard on the Varese Saraband "Unsung Musicals 2" CD (a great track with with super vocals by Davis Gaines).

[BDrischBDemented]

Posted: 5/12/07 at 5:13pm

I dislike both, truth be told.

[AC126748]

Posted: 5/12/07 at 5:29pm

Yeston's score features a lot of gorgeous music: "Home", "My Mother Bore Me", and "You Are My Son", just to name a few. It's also more faithful to the original source material.

I hate Webber's Phantom with a passion.

[The Scorpion]

Posted: 5/12/07 at 6:47pm

It's also more faithful to the original source material.

Have you actually read the original novel, or did you just make that up? The Yeston/Kopit version, though it has its pretty moments (I personally prefer Kopit's television miniseries that came out of it), is not in the least more faithful to Leroux's story than the ALW version.

There are actually far more musical theatre adaptations of The Phantom than you might think. I only really care for two of them, though: ALW's and Ken Hill's version, the latter being the first of all the musical Phantoms and IMHO vastly superior to the Yeston/Kopit version.
Updated On: 5/12/07 at 06:47 PM

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 5/12/07 at 6:54pm

AC126748--The only thing Yeston's Phantom has that the original novel has in the names Erik and Christine. Everything else is COMPLETELY changed from the novel.


There are some pretty songs in the Yeston version, but it sounds too much like a disney cartoon musical, or like the Anastasia movie musical. Plus, the complete story changes turn me off it more than anything.

[brandonthomsen]

Posted: 5/12/07 at 7:04pm

I actually had the great fortune of being in one of the earliest productions of "Phantom," directed by Philip Wm. McKinley (Boy from Oz). Yeston/Kopit Phantom is radically different from ALW's, and it is much more a traditional book musical. I think that ALW's is more faithful to Leroux's book, but Kopit really makes sense of the story. Phantom/Erik is very human, and there is a gorgeous musical sequence in the second act that explains how Erik came to be the Phantom of the Opera.

There was a made-for-tv movie in 1990 with Charles Dance as the Phantom, written by Kopit as a way of launching the musical. It contains real opera and none of the songs written by Maury Yeston. Much of the film dialogue is in the stage production.

As is the case with ALW's, it is very easy for the characters to be played broadly - stock character types. If not acted honestly, the piece will seem amateurish. Kopit gives Erik a nice sense of humor.

While I adore both versions, ALW has the spectacle and the lushness, Kopit/Yeston has the heart.

[DoReMi]

Posted: 5/12/07 at 7:57pm

Yeston's version is the best.

[sparrman]

Posted: 5/12/07 at 8:36pm

Where the Yeston/Kopit version gets good, in my opinion, is the second act. The first act is dramatically pretty pedestrian, lovely songs aside. But the careful threading of "You Are Music" through the show is a master stroke. Erik sings a pretty song to Christine...then we find out where Erik learned it...and then it gets sung to him at the end. Quite a tearjerker, if done well.

Because of the very involving second act, I say the Yeston/Kopit version is worlds better than the totally uninvolving Webber version.

[Dibbledl01]

Posted: 5/12/07 at 11:44pm

Yea, there is rarely any material linking Yeston/Kopit's musical back to the original Leroux novel. I enjoy both scores but, probably because the Yeston/Kopit version is so radically different then the original novel, I find that a distraction. It makes a wonderful story period (especially the 1990 Charles Dance movie which I ADORE) it's just distracting. To me it's just giving a story written on a fan-fiction website a musical score and putting it on to the stage.

And there is something about Webber's score that keeps bringing me back. It's lush and big and I love his use of bringing back the melodies of certain songs into some filler music and into various other songs in the production (probably also a nod to the orchestrations director). It just tugs at my heart whereas Yeston's score just makes me nod my head and say "yea, that was nice"

The talent of the actors also has a lot to do with how someone is going to react to the songs and the overal score. I have seen too many actors in Webber's version just stand on stage and sound pretty and that's when it gets boring and extremely repetative. The sames goes for Yeston's score. If each score is delivered correctly the do wonders.

[Walcer]

Posted: 5/13/07 at 12:02am

Updated On: 5/13/07 at 12:02 AM

[ljay889]

Posted: 5/13/07 at 12:24am

There are some pretty songs in the Yeston version, but it sounds too much like a disney cartoon musical,

- And ALW'S version sounds like recycled synthesized 80's garbage.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 5/13/07 at 1:24am

I posted this in another thread about this same topic, but since we're gonna repeat the topic again and again I'll just repeat my post too.

I find Yeston's Phantom to be very bland with some hysterically bad lyrics and a book that strayed way too far from the original novel for my taste. Yes, some of the lyrics by Richard Stilgoe and Charles Hart for the Webber version are not any better, but they are, in my opinion, a bit more polished and more appropriate for the time period.

I did find some of Yeston's music slightly enthralling, but not as emotionally driven as Webber's. In the end though, music aside, I think Andrew just got on board with better collaborators and a better director by far. No one could save the Yeston material in the same way that Harold Prince saved Webber's Phantom of the Opera.

[sparrman]

Posted: 5/13/07 at 10:54am

I'm not sure something can be "slightly enthralling"...

But yeah, Yeston does have some clunker lyrics. "Where every English horn/Makes me feel glad I'm born"...

Posted: 5/13/07 at 7:42pm

We all know that ALW's has many hideous and vague lyrics but I'm glad others agree that Yeston's in spots aren't much better...

I dunno, it's my least fave of Yeston's scores though I do like it well enough to play it every so often. While the script is much more coherent I think it's missing ALW's over the top romantic lushness--which really is what his and Hal Prince's musical is about IMHO with the characters always being almost window dressing. Which, I hate to say it, is fine for me--it works

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 5/13/07 at 7:59pm

Well, first off you have to look at the source material. In the original novel, the characters were all pretty "blah" and almost to the point of really corny (and some characters went beyond corny) but the unabashed romantic element was prevalent throughout and there was no apology for it. Yes, some of the plot was, in many places, were filled with "WHAT?!?" moments, but again . . . it was unapologetic in it's romantic thinking. I think Webber and Prince captured this very well and even made improvements over the original source material by giving Erik a voice of his own and made you really believe that he loved Christine and would do anything to have her.

The problem with Yeston's version, is that it COMPLETELY changed the plot to give it more of a back story to why Erik was the way he was and what brought Christine to the Opera house, but in doing that, it ruined the unforgiving romanticism of the novel. To me, the mystery of Erik was taken away and Christine was so stale of a character (I am only going by the cast recording since I have never seen the show) and Carlotta was even more of a corny character than she ever was in the ALW version. And I wouldn't have a problem with a back story of Erik if it was done right and stuck close to the original plot of the novel, but like I said before, it goes in a completely different (and I think) wrong direction.

People complain about the lushness and the spectacle of the ALW version . . . well guess what folks, that is how it is portrayed in the novel. The Chandelier falling is a VITAL moment in both the novel and the show and people act like it was something stuck in the ALW version to make it more special effect oriented.

Both have it's problems and I am in NO WAY saying that the ALW version is a perfect representation of the novel, but it is a lot closer than the Yeston version and that is my biggest gripe above all else.

[tourboi]

Posted: 5/13/07 at 9:55pm

Most people I know prefer ALW's to Yeston's. And if you suggest that Yeston/Kopit's version is closer to the original novel, you are VERY mistaken. They keep the Phantom's name (Erik), and that's about it.

The Yeston/Kopit Phantom is drastically different than the original version. He's the old Opera Managers SON?! How very Star Wars. Carlotta is married to the new owner of the Opera House? Raoul is gone, and Phillipe (Raoul's brother in the novel) is now Christine's love interest? Christine opens the show selling songs (a la flowers in MY FAIR LADY). And to top it all off, the gothic romantic mystery that fueled Leroux's novel has been watered down to MUSICAL COMEDY!

I'm sorry, but ALW's version is MUCH closer to the original source in both plot and tone.

[MungoGypsy8232]

Posted: 5/13/07 at 10:07pm

ALW's has so much potential, but falls short in my opinion.

[beyondblessed]

Posted: 5/13/07 at 10:41pm

what about Phantom Of The Country Opera with music by Michael Duff? Anybody ever see that? How'd that make you feel?

[tourboi]

Posted: 5/14/07 at 12:33am

The idea makes me vomit a little inside.

[Urban]

Posted: 5/14/07 at 3:35am

I really do believe Carlotta's solo "This Place is Mine" is one of the best Diva songs ever written. It is brilliant & hilarious.

Otherwise, oddly enough, I actually prefer the ALW version.

Oh, and I personally thought Christine was a bigger drip in the Yeston version then she was in the ALW version (though since Christine is a huge drip to begin with, it isn't that difficult).

Posted: 5/14/07 at 8:30am

Thaty's the thing, while I think ALW"s is underwritten and too vague, when you try to give backstory and character to thes epeople, at least in Yeston's to me it kinda comes off as silly. Maybe the story works best as a vague piece heavier on atmosphere than logic (did the Kopit miniseries keep the plot point that the Phantom's life is sustained by beautiful music and music like Carlotta's kills him?? LOL)

E

[Jonny boy]

Posted: 5/14/07 at 12:13pm

I agree that Yeston's version is far more superior!

[xoxRogue]

Posted: 5/14/07 at 12:21pm

There are some pretty songs in the Yeston version, but it sounds too much like a disney cartoon musical,

That was my impression the first time I heard it. Not to say that it was bad, just not to my liking.

There was a made-for-tv movie in 1990 with Charles Dance as the Phantom, written by Kopit as a way of launching the musical. It contains real opera and none of the songs written by Maury Yeston. Much of the film dialogue is in the stage production.

I love that movie.