Well, I am supposed to be doing homework right now, but instead I am going to write this while I'm still ticked off...I finally listened to the soundtrack of Love Never Dies which is the new Andrew Lloyd Webber show playing in West End, London. It opened in March, and prior to it opening I was ecstatic about it. It is the sequel (the Andrew Lloyd Webber sequel) to the Phantom of the Opera. I am a huge Phantom of the Opera Phan. It started when I was like 12/ 13 (I can't remember exactly how old I was but I do remember what I was wearing when I first heard it-lol-I may have been 14...? I don't remember) when I was in Washington visiting my aunt and uncle and cousins, and we were going on a road trip, and they played it in the car. I was hooked! I remember my cousin Jill and I singing in the car, and I would convince her sing all the male parts while I sang Christine's role. I feel really bad about it now, being that I am a horrible singer while I am told Jill is excellent, but it's in the past. But I fell in love immediately with the Phantom.
I think I was too young to really grasp the sexuality of the Phantom at the time, but over the years he has had some sort of hold on me that I can't describe. I can't resist him. I will literally play the POTO and go into a trance. I was playing it the other day in my house while trying to clean and had to sit down because it was almost too emotional for me to handle. I mean...I have heard and seen the Phantom a million times and it still affects me like it did the first time. And it's not just the stage production! It's the story, itself. I have read the original, written by Gaston Leroux and recently read the book PHANTOM by Susan Kay which is by far, the best book I have ever read in my life (and I read a lot) and is told so beautifully with a different ending than the original, but one I could accept. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful book!
Either way, after watching this video I was even MORE excited....and then I read "the book".
What is it about the Phantom that keeps me such a devoted Phan? Well, the only way I can describe it is at one point in my life I felt like I could relate to him. Hard to explain and not something I like to go into too much detail about-so I won't, but I always felt like I could understand (to a certain extent) the pain in which the Phantom endured. As well as the fact that I loved him. I still do. I would have never have abandoned him, like Christine did. NEVER!
So when I found out that LND was coming to West End, I asked all my family members for money for Christmas and my 30th birthday so I could travel to London to see it. This video was released to get all the Phans revved up for the opening of LND. The song is beautiful and Ramin Karimloo has a a nice Phantom-like voice....he's no Michael Crawford, but who is? And Sierra Boggess is stunning. She doesn't sing in this video but she doesn't need to...
Either way, after watching this video I was even MORE excited....and then I read "the book".
Ohhh that horrible book, written by Frederick Forsyth, The Phantom of Manhattan! I was clenching my teeth throughout the whole thing. It angered me so much how he degraded Gaston Leroux as a writer (the original writer), stated that ALW's version was the only version that made sense (the real version) and then proceeded to write a horrible sequel, which had Raoul an abusive husband and father. A drunk. Christine sexing up the Phantom prior to marrying her impotent husband, and the Phantom, money hungry living in Manhattan, dressing like a clown and worshiping some sort of Devil/ God of money?....Stupidest book I have ever read in my life! (and I read a lot-lol) I wanted to cause the author physical pain while reading it, it made me so mad. And what was ALW's Phantom sequel based off of? The Phantom of Manhattan!
Now from what I can tell from the soundtrack, it is not totally the same as The Phantom of Manhattan...there are some changes to it (Thank God) but it is still the same general storyline. Suddenly we are no longer wondering what happened to the Phantom after that night he set Christine and Raoul free. We no longer feel the devastation and pure satisfaction we felt when leaving the theater the first time we watched the show. We know what happens and sadly enough-we know it all works out in the end. Who wants a happy ending? Not me!
I am sure that stage show is great. I am sure there are wonderful special effects, and sets and a really cool flying trapeze act which makes up for the fact that the plot is horrid. I don't know? I haven't seen the stage show yet. I have just listened to the score......And the score....it was----good. No really it was good. It didn't hold a candle to The Phantom of the Opera, but it was good compared to Mary Poppins. South Pacific (I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair). Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat....Jesus Christ Superstar? Rocky Horror Pictureshow....these were all the things that were running through my head while listening to it, but not once did I think Phantom except for when they would randomly throw an original Phantom song in there (Little Lotte)....but the score lacked the mystery, the rage, the sexiness, the darkness and beauty that the original score had. There were a few high moments, such as 'Till I Hear You Sing, Devil Take the Hindmost & Love Never Dies....Still no where comparable to Music of the Night, Past the Point of No Return & Think of Me, but still good. There was a song Bathing Beauty which was by far the most annoying song in the bunch but unfortunately the one that gets stuck in your head more easily, and to your dismay and frustration really difficult to get out.
Ramin Karimloo makes a good Phantom although he lacked the danger and sex appeal I so loved about the character.(And him posing naked for a magazine spread with nothing but a Phantom mask to cover his privates did not make him seem any sexier to me.) His voice is pleasant but he is NOT my Angel of Music! Sierra Boggess has a beautiful voice, as beautiful as she is beautiful but I felt like most of the time I was listening to Ariel from The Little Mermaid, which I guess, technically I was since she is the original Little Mermaid from the Broadway show. She needs to lose the Disney sweetness and drop the Ariel act because it is still clearly lurking in her voice. She would come out of it once in awhile though, and I could see her potential as being a wonderful Christine.
But what seriously bothered me the MOST was how every single character in the show was changed (and not in a good way). The Phantom seems to have gone through anger management. Christine and Raoul have no love. Raoul is no longer Prince Charming on a white horse, he is a drunk and a cruel man. I think he is right up there with the way the Phantom USED to be (and that bothered me, because for someone who has gone through so much, wouldn't he appreciate his family a little bit more?) Meg Giry is a....hooker? & Madame Giry...her pimp?....and whose bright idea was it to add "The Freaks"-Gangle, Squelch & Fleck?
Hahahaha! I mean....Come on Lord Andrew! What were you thinking!? And his response is, is that we need to look at it as a "stand alone show" and not compare it to the original. That's pretty hard to do Lord Andrew!.....(sigh) I may still see it?....I'd have to immediately go down the road to Her Majesty's Theater though, afterwards to see the original in order to repair the damage which I inflicted on myself.
In the meantime, I plan to join the cause
& get this STUPID song Bathing Beauty out of my head!
Questions I have....? SPOILER ALERT!
1. Why would Madame Giry follow the Phantom to Manhattan and bring her young daughter with them, Meg (only 16)? Didn't the Phantom just murder someone? Doesn't that prove he is a bit dangerous? You really want this crazed man to maybe fall after your own 16 year old daughter instead? Wouldn't it just be smarter to stick him on a boat and say "au revoir" forever?
2. Why would Christine go back and cheat on her fiance with the Phantom the eve of her wedding? Didn't he just try to kill her fiance and threaten to imprison her forever against her will? I realize that he set her free and there was love there, but she was truly frightened of him. I believed it in the book PHANTOM but in that book I thought she went back more out of pity because she knew he was dying.....
3. How many virgin couples having sex for the first time, do you know have mad passionate sex all night long, again & again?....I think ALW forgot how awkward losing your virginity is.
4. Would Madame Giry REALLY prostitute out her own daughter?
5. Would Madame Giry (once a choreographer of the corps de ballet for the Paris Opera House) REALLY allow her daughter, a trained ballerina, work as a burlesque dancer in some sorta of circus freak show?
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