Phantom of the Opera

Last week, I was blessed to have been invited to watch the Philippine staging of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. I grew up listening to the music. I grew up with the lyrics as my sister, Margaret kept playing the cassette tapes over and over again. Back then, I never even bothered to pay attention to the storyline. I knew the music and lyrics. Only lately did I even bother to Google the story, watch the Hollywood movie version through the computer and finally through the good invite of a friend whom I call Engima [that's his online handle], I was witness to one of the world’s best musical productions.

 

To start off, the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is the FIRST musical I’ve ever watched at the Cultural Center of the Philippines [CCP]. Imagine that! At 35 years old, I’ve never watched any show here at the main theatre. Sure I’ve watched movies and short plays in their smaller theaters back in college and graduate school days. But that’s about it. I’ve never watched a full production at the main theatre. For instance, I did not know that there are seats in the main theatre for our national artists. Nobody is allowed to sit there except the national artists themselves. They can come in anytime to watch any play being shown as they’ve earned their right as a national artist. Second, I have always wondered why the seats on the sides were generally more “expensive” than the seats in the main orchestra section. This was explained to me that the theatre was the “in” place to be seen back then. Back then is defined as decades ago, during the early days of the theatre and when society was much smaller. In short, the seats were designed to identify people of repute and designed for people to be talked about. Makes me wonder, in this day and age of instant messaging and automatic uploads on social media sites such as Facebook — how does this come into the picture then these days?

 

I may not be able to answer the questions that I have come up with here, but I do know that as a whole, I utterly enjoyed watching the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA! Having watched numerous local plays, I can now conclude that in terms of overall production value this has got to be the best one I’ve seen in my life. The second runner up would be the musical RAMA and SITA taken from the Ramayana that was staged in UP Theatre during the late 90s. I am referring to overall production to the following. One, acoustics of the place is just amazing. The orchestra was felt throughout the threatre and this truly amazed me. Two, the set design did not feel like it was a stage at all but felt more like life was actually being acted right before my very eyes. Three, the costumes were astounding. I recently passed by Greenbelt 5 en route to another meeting and saw other costumes coming from the musical. The setting of the musical PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is during the late 1800s up to the early 1900s. So you can just imagine the level of detail of the costumes from the women wearing long gowns and the men wearing their formal coats and tuxedoes. In short, it was a true visual feasts and something that I would like to watch again just to go gaga over the costumes.

 

So what about the music? It’s been said of concerts and the same is true of musicals, that the thing you hear over cassette tapes, the radio, streaming internet and CDs is a far cry from the “live” voices of people. How does it differ? I guess the one big difference is that you can’t “feel” the emotions of the person who is singing the songs when you listen at a song played over the radio as opposed to something that you hear live. It’s the biggest difference that makes live performances unique and something to look forward to. It is the reason why people would still go out of their way to listen to their favorite musician or rock band because at the end of the day, the fans want to feel a level of connectedness that transcends music and emotion. The cast of Manila’s PHANTOM OF THE OPERA was able to capture this as it was able to capture the hearts of its audience. I could see emotions swelling, eyes welling red with tear drops as the characters of the play moved from one emotional high to another.

 

In college and also in media work, there is a principle called “repetition”. This means that if a line, a word or a song is sung over and over again it becomes the central theme of the entire piece. This is true of any tv advertisement or radio commercial, song or piece of literature. For the musical PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, the overall theme that played over and over again is the song MASQUERADE. The chorus of the song goes like this:

Masquerade!
Paper faces on parade.
Masquerade!
Hide your face, so the world will never find you!
Masquerade!
Every face a different shade.
Masquerade!
Look around -
there’s another
mask behind you!

The more I think about it, the more I could see the genius behind this song and how it is well played as the theme of the musical. One, the Phantom of the Opera is a man who is disfigured. He lives in a Parisian society that equates physical deformities to inner ugliness and darkness. In some ways, this is lived out by The Phantom as he becomes obsessed with Christine who spurns his love and yet is able to sacrifice herself near the end in order to save the love of her life. Two, the song itself is trying to tell the audience that everyone wears a mask. It is human to wear masks because we are all afraid to be rejected, afraid of being hurt and afraid of facing the truth that faces us each morning that we face the man in the mirror. It is this reality that I saw in the Phantom as he struggles to accept who he is and what he has become. As I mentioned earlier, he lived out his own hideousness by killing people and also by his mad obsession equating it with true love.

 

 

Flash of mauve.
Splash of puce.
Fool and king.
Ghoul and goose.
Green and black.
Queen and priest.
Trace of rouge.
Face of beast.
Faces.

Take your turn.
Take a ride.
On a merry – go – round
In an inhuman race.

 

Inhuman? Yes, the play shows the darkest and bestial natures of man and also how one can be easily swayed. For instance, the Phantom was right that Christine’s lover only fell for her when he heard her sing at the opera. Would he have fallen in love with her in a different setting? Would he even bother taking notice? In the real world, people fall in love with another person because they notice something that they like, something that they admire and something that they covet. But true love in the biblical sense of the word is not about oneself and what one can get. It is about giving oneself to another. In this Christine trumps the play as she delivers a standing ovation of sacrificial love for making the choice of staying with the Phantom in order to save a life. That is true love. It is this very emotion that moved the Phantom to let her go to leave her own life. In a sense, real love can utterly transform a person into something different and something otherworldly.

Masquerade!
Grinning yellows,
spinning reds.
Masquerade!
Take your fill -
let the spectacle
astound you!

Masquerade!
Burning glances,
turning heads.
Masquerade!
Stop and stare
at the sea of smiles
around you!

Masquerade!
Seething shadows
breathing lies.
Masquerade!
You can fool
any friend who
ever knew you!

 

I can see that the musical PHANTOM OF THE OPERA to be timeless. It will keep on playing at West Side and Broadway in the years and decades to come. It’s been there for more than 25 years now and still it draws a crowd.  Why does this play even draw a crowd till now? Is it really the amazing performance? Is it the music and lyrics? Or is it because of the overall chemistry of how the actors live out their characters and sing from their hearts combined with the strong musical score and the timeless lyrics makes it truly a remarkable performance?

Only time will tell if I am wrong with my assumptions. I do know this, the performing arts has the capacity to move people in mysterious ways. Done right, it can pierce through the hearts of men and make them see glimpses of their souls and fragments of eternity. The bigger question now is, will the realities of seeing one’s face resembling that of the Phantom’s stop us from living out full lives? Or shall we be eternally scarred by our past, of who we are and be defined by what society has called us? To rise above these expectations and truly learn to love from our hearts and live a life of purpose is what will make our lives echo into eternity much like how this musical has lived this long and will outlive its creators.