Weird POTO video....

weird I cant stop watching it.. I feel bad for Sarah for doing that.

It's quite a bizzare video, made before it came to Broadway and possibly before it opened in London. The lycics are different as well.

looks like Phantom meets the 80's.

kinda reminds me a teeny bit of Ken Russell - dont you think he would have done a spooky, trippy job with the movie instead of Joel Suckmaker?

---

The music video is indeed directed by Ken Russell. In addition to this one, music videos of All I Ask of You and Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again were also made. All the songs became big hits before the show even opened in London.

There was an entire LaserDisc full of ALW videos released about 10 years ago ... in addition to the Phantom videos, there were three from Joseph, and videos from Aspects of Love, Requiem, and others.

They still play this video in the bar I go to.

---

THis is random but.. what is Christine wearing at the end.. its very weird and very ugly.

Did someone say LaserDisc???

I'm still luring guys back to my apartment with the prospect of Betamax...

---

As terrible as the Brightman/Harley "Phantom" video is (which probably explains where Schumacher got the idea for Raoul's bad hair), it's *NOTHING* compared to Russell's Brightman/Cliff Richard "All I Ask of You" video, with the two in front of a screen with changing backgrounds, a la a karaoke video. The real showstopper is at the end, where do this "spin in romantic ecstasy" thing, and Sarah's wearing (1) a form-fitting mermaid dress that (2) goes down to her ankles and (3) these high heels, so she can barely walk, let alone "spin" convincingly. True hilarity.

That said, Russell's video for Crawford's "The Music of the Night" (also featuring Brightman) is quite wonderful, and his "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" video wasn't bad--and clearly inspired Schumacher's staging of the number in the film (though he should've borrowed Russell's idea of incorporating flashbacks between young Christine and her dad).

weird video....i thought it was interesting though just to see how it was back then

That was a VERY BAD music video.

I actually like that phantom...don't ask me why, I just do. I suppose it is because he has such a strange voice, like what I would expect the phantom to have.

interesting though......................................................................................................

This is where rockfenris, king-fan of the gothic musicals, comes out in force:

The Phantom of the Opera was (originally) intended to be some kind of rock-opera a la Jesus Christ Superstar, with a bit of the camp of the Ken Hill version. Sarah Brightman was to be apart of another version of Phantom, which was by Ken Hill, and that's how Lloyd Webber got the idea of doing it in the first place. Hill had staged his version, as a bizarre camp musical with classical / opera excerpts. Lloyd Webber offered to add some incidental music and produce it in the West End, but this lead to (obviously) what is now (probably) the most successful musical of all time...

The lists of lyricists is strange. Alan Jay Lerner was going to write the lyrics, yes - THE Alan Jay Lerner! - and was very close to starting. Just before he could, he fell into sickness and never recovered. I'm presuming this took place after Richard Stilgoe got involved, and the rock opera concept became more of a romantic musical...

In the early stages, Lloyd Webber turned to Jim Steinman to write the lyrics for Phantom of the Opera. They worked on it for two weeks in London, but Steinman was called away on duties on a Bonnie Tyler album (bizarrely, it didn't do too well: but Phantom is still playing today LOL. Wouldn't you be kicking yourself!). Steinman is none other than the songwriter / creator of Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell, Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart and the German opera Tanz der Vampire, which became the greatest flop in Broadway history "Dance of the Vampires". Now his tribute show, The Dream Engine, is beginning a run of the country.. and Bat Out of Hell 3 with Meat LOaf is set for release in 2006.

From My Fair Lady to Bat Out of Hell, The Rain in Spain to Paradise by the Dashboard Light, Phantom has had the most interesting, bizarre and weirdest history of a musical: although I suppose most musicals do. This one, however, is more interesting. Plus there are about a dozen other versions of it. If movies can be remade, and sometimes successfully, do you think the same can be said for musicals? If a writer came along, in twenty years, and had an equal - perhaps more successful - hit with the Phantom story, do you think that would ever happen? After all: the Phantom movie has been remade many times, and to reasonable success. And with Hollywood holding so much influence over Broadway, you never know what will happen. But let's not now hope that every successful Broadway musical will be re-written by another writer LOLOL

(Go easy on me. It's New Year's Day and I've had a lot to drink. I've probably pissed off all of the BWW Community by now)

But, back on track, that video is a representation of the rock opera version of Phantom of the Opera. It was a very very different show. All of the romantic stuff, like Music of the Night and All I Ask of You, was written afterward. Phantom is, believably, the only song kept from that earlier version: which leads me to say: "OMG! WHAT DO THE CUT SONGS SOUND LIKE!!!"

Hahahaha

---