(The real tragedy of Phantom is that she can’t have both.) Christine sees this duality in the Phantom and is forced to choose between him (her art) and Raoul (Jordan Craig), an aristocratic friend from her childhood who is now courting her. We’re also moved by the Phantom’s obvious weakness: his need for love despite his self-hatred over his mangled face. If we can succumb to the “Music of the Night” (also one of Phantom’s strongest songs), we can successfully tap into our ids and create or perform freely as artists.
As high concept as that previous sentence reads, Phantom hooks us by using this dark, misty setting as a metaphor for the subconscious mind. Not only is a masked ghost haunting the building and causing random accidents when his demands aren’t met, but he’s also a gifted composer who has been secretly giving Christine nocturnal voice lessons in his subterranean lair.
Set almost entirely within the Opera Populaire (a fictional stand-in for the Paris Opera), young ballet dancer Christine (a radiant Katie Travis) gets her chance as the new featured soprano when a piece of falling scenery chases away the company’s reigning Prima donna, Carlotta (an hilarious Trista Moldovan). What’s it all about: Based on the 1910 French Gothic novel of the same name that was partly inspired by some suspicious real-life happenings at the Paris Opera, The Phantom of the Opera enthralls as both a doomed love triangle and an evocative metaphor of the creative process. Anyone who wants to again experience Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ( Evita, Cats) superbly-crafted opus in a gleaming new production that hasn’t lost its ability to astonish since making its debut 30 years ago. Who should this see this: Anyone who hasn’t yet seen the standard all Broadway musicals are measured against.
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