"The Phantom"?

Hi...

Does anyone remember a musical called "The Phantom" by Maury Yeston? Did anyone go see the musical? How was it compared to Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera"? Were there any similarities?

I bought the CD and listened to the music and loved it! I was wondering if this musical is playing anywhere. I tried searching the internet and couldn't find it playing anywhere. If anyone has any information on this, I would definitely appreciate it. Thanks!

If i am not mistakin Satah Brightman was in a production in London ( or was asked to be in one )

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I love this version It's very special and deserves to be on Broadway someday. The movie version with Charles Dance and Teri Polo is vert good, too.

Not as visually stunning as ALWs (but then what musical is?)- but the story is more emotional and the music is just as good.

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I believe that Sarah Brightman was asked to be in a completely different Phantom of the Opera by Ken Hill, which is how Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh went to see it at the Theatre Royal Stratford East and got the idea to do their own version.

Updated On: 10/24/06 at 11:29 AM

I know this show played the Papermill Playhouse in NJ quite a few years ago. I wasn't able to catch, but everyone I know loved it and preferred it over the POTO.

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"I believe that Sarah Brightman was asked to be in a completely different Phantom of the Opera by Ken Hill, which is how Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh went to see it at the Theatre Royal Stratford East and got the idea to do their own version."

Also, I believe they were originally going to try and produce Ken Hill's version too.

"The operas been invaded by a Phantom! The operas been invaded by a Phantom! (Phantom!) The opera's been invaded by a ghoooost! By a ghost! By a ghost! If you follow him you're following a Phantom...He wears a mask! A mask! A terrifying mask! He wears a mask! A terrifying mask!"

That would be the aforementioned fugue. The line readings in that song on the recording are jaw-droppingly awful, too. (and this is a paraphrase)

Manager guy (I can't remember his name): My poor Carlotta! Can I get you a drink?
Carlotta: Yes. Something laced with hemlock. (she screams)
Manager guy: J-j-j-oseph Buquet!
Carlotta: He was my costume man.
Manager guy: We sent him down below.
Inspector: Well, someone has sent him back up!

Ouch.

I'm not 100% sure, that's what I've heard. Is there a possibility that somebody in the U.S. had the right to the novel, but not in the U.K.?

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tourboi, that is indeed on the CD. And they threw in another groaner in that song:

Erik: What did you think of it when you first saw it? My face?
Dad: It could have been better.
Erik: Not a good face for a tenor, I remember thinking.
Dad: Not even for a baritone.

Throw me in with the dissenters that think this version is awful. Funny enough, it was through this version that I was introduced to the "Phantom of the Opera". I remember being very intrigued with the idea of the Phantom - a disfigured musical genious that lived beneath the Paris Opera.

It was probably about a year later that my dad played a tape of ALW's version. I was hooked from the first chords of the Overture.

On a side note, I saw Glory Crampton as Maria in West Side Story about five or so years ago. I remember I was initially excited because I recognized her as being the Christine from the Yeston/Kopit "Phantom". Turned out she was horrible - bad acting and her singing sounded like a warbly sixty year woman.

God, I thought Phantom was just terrible. The songs were so bad and so corny I couldn't even listen to them.

I remember seeing a local company do it and in big bold letters on the flyer was, "This is NOT the Andrew Lloyd Webber Hit."

Pretty sad when that's your tagline.

"Webber's "POTO" beat it to Broadway, as it was already established in London due to the fact that the novel is public domain there. Yeston had trouble securing the rights in America"

How can that be true? Under U.S. Copyright Law at the time, works entered the public domain 50 years after the author's death (it has since been extended). If Leroux died in 1927, then the work would have entered the public domain in 1977. Did I miss something?

I think the problem with "securing the rights" was more about the fact that Cameron Mackintosh and the Really Useful Group put some restrictions on where the Yeston/Kopit show could play in proximity to the ALW show (also explains that sad tagline Maile quoted above--all about avoiding legal trouble). Certainly not the kindest move by Cam Mack and RUG, though kindness is not exactly what they're known for.

That said, I have not been impressed with what I've seen and heard of the Y/K version and I think the ALW score (and even the somewhat mediocre book) serve the story much, much better. People forget that the original novel is not one of the great masterpieces of French literature--it's just a very good mystery/romance--so it's not a tragedy that ALW's version doesn't do much with most of the characters. I'd rather see an adaptation like ALW's, where the characters aren't fully drawn out and the book stays more or less true to the original, than an adaptation that creates fuller characters at the cost of groan-inducing deviations from Leroux. Granted, I suppose I'd have to see a full-scale production of the Y/K version to truly judge, but as someone who has both seen the ALW version and read the novel numerous times, I can safely say that ALW (and Charles Hart, and Hal Prince, and Maria Bjornson) captures the novel's soaring gothic melodrama perfectly.

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Home is a gorgeous song.