Date: Fri 08-Sep-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Illustration: C

Location: A-10

Quick Words:

Phantom-Webb-Bushnell-Views

Full Text:

CLASSICAL MUSIC VIEWS-

"PHANTOM OF THE OPERA": REALITY OR PHANTOM?

(with photo)

By Vadim Prokharov

The Phantom of the Opera ; music by Andrew Lloyd Webber; book by Richard

Stilgoe and Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the novel Le Fantome de L'Opera by

Gaston Leroux; directed by Harold Prince; choreography by Gillian Lynne;

production design by Maria Bjornson; music direction by Glenn Langdon.

With Thomas J. O'Leary, Diane Fratantoni, John Schroeder, Kelly C. Hogan,

David Cryer, Roger E. DeWitt, Kathy Taylor, Ray Friedeck.

The Bushnell, Hartford, through October 1.

HARTFORD - When someday an excessively curious student of history is digging

through dusty books to find out who Margaret Thatcher was, it is very possible

that he will find the following description: Margaret Thatcher - a minor

political figure of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's era.

This is in the future. Right now Webber's three musicals play on Broadway,

three in the West End, and touring companies spread them all over the world.

It is not just theater any longer, it is a cultural event. Social

anthropologists and semiotic scientists should study this phenomenon very

attentively. They will understand a lot about the cultural atmosphere of the

last two decades of the 20th Century. Scholars would do well to take a field

trip to the Bushnell, where the national touring production of The Phantom of

the Opera is playing through October 1.

The musical is based on the 1911 novel Le Fantome de L'Opera by Gaston Leroux.

It did not sell very well, but over the years it has inspired no less than

seven movies and at least seven musicals. Every time, Leroux's novel was

interpreted differently.

The original story is a combination of horror and romanticism; this is how

Andrew Lloyd Webber and director Harold Prince see the story. And though the

music most of the time borders on sentimentality, the composer has, still,

gotten across the main idea of the plot's undercurrent: the superiority of the

inferior, of the wounded who wants to be appreciated and loved and who wants

to love, however menacing and erotic that love can be.

It is this omnipresent and everlasting myth to which any human being can

relate that has attracted the creators and the audiences to Phantom again and

again in any disguise, even if (or, perhaps, because) it culturally takes the

audience backwards, bombarding it with super emotions and simple but appealing

musical thoughts.

The musical is a hit. The word "hit" implies a one-time impact, though. This

musical is more like a wave which sweeps the audiences - still craving for the

pain of love (discarding it in real life, though) - as well as the other, more

positive pop-music tendencies.

This musical is the best way for the listeners to correlate to their everyday

emotional problems and at the same time to escape from them into the world of

opulence and lush and bitter sweetness. The production, designed by Maria

Bjornson, is mesmerizingly spectacular; the direction is professionalism of

the highest order; and the music is... fathomable to such a degree that it

enters the listener's mind seemingly forever. The listener deciphers the music

and identifies himself with its "visual reality" without spending an iota of

his mental energy.

The brilliant singing and the masterful acting of Thomas J. O'Leary (The

Phantom of the Opera), Diane Fratantoni (Christine Daae), Kelly C. Hogan

(Carlotta Giudicelli), David Cryer (Monsieur Firmin), Roger E. DeWitt

(Monsieur Andre), and Ray Friedeck (Ubaldo Piangi) certainly do not hurt the

production. Surprisingly, the less brilliant singing and the less masterful

acting of John Schroeder (Raoul) and Diana Gonzalez (Meg Giry) do not hurt it

either.

Will this opera ever die? Some day it may - but don't expect it to happen in

any foreseeable future, though - when people understand that their attachment

to shows like this is inside their minds. When it does happen - nothing under

the skies lasts forever - a man of the future, perhaps, will recall the last

paragraph of Leroux's novel: "And, now, what do they mean to do with that

skeleton? Surely they will not bury it in the common grave!...

"I say that the place of the skeleton of the Opera ghost is in the archives of

the National Academy of Music. It is no ordinary skeleton."