The Phantom of the CCP

I have just watched Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera at the Cultural Center of the Philippines with the family courtesy of my sister D.  Such is the life of a penniless engineer and master’s degree holder.  I enjoyed the show and having my family along with me made it even more memorable.  I was able to catch the show on Broadway almost a decade ago and I think I was more impressed then with the actors and the production.  Still the company I was with made all the difference.  Back on Broadway, I was with someone whom I won’t even care to mention.

The show itself was more or less as I remembered it from years ago.  I was just surprised during the “The Phantom of the Opera” sequence as it featured less of the technical side.  It didn’t have the spinning spiral staircase from which the Phantom and Christine descended. There were also long moments when I could not see anything but a black stage with swirling smoke from the fog machine.  I don’t know if they somehow downgraded the production or maybe there were technical glitches that night.  Even the “Track down the murderer…” sequence has these ‘empty’ parts.

I don’t think there were enough trapdoors as I was able to see the Phantom runaway after taking Christine’s engagement ring.  I think he was supposed to drop down through a trapdoor at this point.  I think he and Christine are also supposed to disappear into thin air during the “Point of No Return” sequence.  The candle sticks during the "Phantom of the Opera" sequence are also supposed to rise through these trapdoors, they simply glided from the sides in this production.

The actress who played Christine was able to sing her notes (at least as I can tell) and she did enunciate her words very clearly.  I don’t know if the high note at the end of the Phantom of the Opera was sung live (I’ve read that it was recorded in some productions) but it seemed like it as there was some effort.  I just thought she could do more with breath control as well as singing some of the parts legato. (My voice teacher would be proud I remembered the term.  Hehe…)  At times, I did not sense emotion in her words while she seemed too melodramatic at other times.  I did like her singing “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again”.  She sung it quite beautifully and with what I thought to be the right amount of emotion. Finally, this Christine was a graceful dancer - which reminded me that Sarah Brightman was a dancer before she became a singer.

Now, the actor who played the Phantom was just superb. His voice did sound muffled at times but he still sang and acted the role quite well.  I like his low notes especially in “Music of the Night” (I noticed some of the tenors who sang the role have difficulty with the low notes in this song) but he was able to handle the high notes as well.  I believe this is one of the hardest roles in the whole of musical theater and to be able to sing and act it as well as he did is quite a feat in itself.

We watched the show from the dizzying heights of Balcony II.  I would have liked to watch the show from a seat closer to the stage where I can at least see the expressions on the faces of the actors but someone as penniless as I cannot complain and should just be thankful for seeing the show.