I saw the show three times in L.A. when it opened. I was lucky enough to have house seats for all three performances. The first two were with Michael Crawford as the Phantom, and the third time was with Guillaume.
I should start by saying that Michael Crawford gave a LEGENDARY performance as the Phantom. He took the role to places I've never seen since. It had to do with his eccentricity, both vocally but especially physically with the role. He moved in an unearthly way around the stage.
Guillaume sang the role very well. Much better than I expected, and his acting (most of which is behind that mask) was very good... but he was fairly stiff physically, and that made it far less interesting to watch overall. Guillaume had spent so many years in front of a camera on Soap and Benson, and I find this to be a very common thing with film and TV actors. They are so used to hitting marks, holding them, and acting for a tiny lens, that when they're on a large stage in a theatre, they forget to open up and move around. They come off stiff, stilted and "land-locked" in their acting. I don't mean to imply that he was terrible, it was just a weaker performance than Crawford's.
I saw the show years later in NYC with Howard McGillin. I would place him third on my list, after Crawford and Guillaume.
An interesting thing happened, though, when I saw Guillaume in the show. It was the same cast in L.A. (with Dale Kristien and Reece Holland as the other two leads), but after Michael Crawford left as the Phantom, it became "Christine's" show, which is what I think Lloyd Webber had always intended, since he wrote it for his wife. She was the focus, the star and the main character of the musical. When Crawford was in it, it was HIS SHOW, no question. He dominated the entire evening from start to finish. Such a landmark performance! And hard to match by Guillaume... or anyone else, for that matter.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
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