masquerade

Okay, my Phantom of the Opera review.

Singers:
The men were generally not as strong as I would've liked. This included the Phantom (John Cudia). He wasn't Michael Crawford unexpressive (Granted, I'm basing this on the cast recording, but the man had no emotional range. Phantom angry, Phantom tender, Phantom scary, all sounded exactly the same. Boo.), but he wasn't as powerful as the Phantom really should be. The guy playing Piangi and the girl playing Meg were both very nasal and seemed to be singing in a funny accent. This may have been intentional, especially for Piangi as he was most likely singing way out of his voice range. According to the program, he had previously played Old Joe in Showboat. Old Joe's a bass and Piangi's a tenor, so.... Andr and Firmin were great, again not hugely powerful, but very funny. Carlotta was brilliant! Considering she's done this part over 4000 time (according to the program), that's not surprising. She's also most fo the reason why you noticed the lack of power on anyone else's part - any time she was singing, you couldn't hear anyone else. This was awkward during "Notes" and such, but shows her projection. Madame Giry was fine, not a stand-out singer, but then the role isn't supposed to be. Christine (jennifer Hope Wills)was okay, too. Oddly enough, she seemed to lose power in her high range (that's wierd 'cause most people have trouble singing high quietly) and her voice wasn't as full in that range as I expexted. She also cut off the high note at the end of "Think of Me" a bit short. All in all, she was decent, though.

Acting:
Um, it was kind of stilted, but I think some of that is intentional, as they are trying to imitate 19th century operatic style and operas aren't exactly known for good acting. The second act was certainly better than the first as far as seeming more natural goes.

Technical:
BOOOOOO! They've done some incredibly stupid things! First of all, the chandelier is now round ball lights covered in beads rahter than dangly crystal bits like it was the last two times I saw the show (this was my third). It looks like something you'd get at IKEA. Lame. Second, when the Phantom was throwing fireballs at Raoul after "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again," they were these tiny little sparks. No wonder Raoul wasn't scared! Before, the Phantom mimed throwing "something" and there was an explosion where it landed. That was much better. The wall of fire at the end of that scene was also scaled back a lot. Instead of a blast of fire that covered the whole stage, blinded everybody, and singed the eyebrows off the first 10 or so rows, it was four distinct jets about halfway up the stage that you could actually keep your eyes on the whole time. Way less spectacular.

Now on to the absolute dumbest idea in history. You know how if you look at a monster that's actually a guy in a rubber mask for too long it stops being a scary monster and just becomes a guy in a rubber mask? Yeah. Before, you never saw the Phantom's disfigurement. He covered that side of his face with his hand when Christine unmasked him in Act I (he still did that this time) and in the last scene of Act II, he only took it off for, "An eternity of THIS (rips mask off) before your eyes." The disfigured side was upstage then so the audience still didn't see it, and then he put the mask back on. This time, Christine unmasked him on stage during "Past the Point of No Return." The guy looks like freakin' Beetlejuice and he just stayed that way for the whole rest of the play! I cannot adequately express how lame that was! It also makes that thing were Meg finds his mask at the end a little stupid because he wasn't wearing it when he disappeared. Dumb, dumb, dumb. And they make that guy go through two hours of make-up evey night for that crap-ass effect. Idiots!

All in all, save your money and go see something else! The okay vocal performances do not outweigh the absolutely retarded technical decisions this production made. Actually, if you could get someone to sneak you into Act I for free and then go home at intermission, that might be worth it. You'd get to hear a lot of the good singing and avoid the abysmal special effects that ruined Act II. Anyway, I'm pissed off. Thank God I didn't watch the movie first! It's supposedly awful, so I always said I wouldn't watch it unless I had an opportunity to see the stage version right after it to erase the potentially awful image from my mind. This production would've failed miseraby at that.