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Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Sound of Musicals, 欢迎回来【曲外之音】. And welcome back to the studio, Oliver.

Hello again.

So the musical we're going to talk about today is something that has been requested by a few of our listeners, actually more than just a few. This is The Phantom of the Opera,《歌剧魅影》. This actually is very, very popular in China. Is it the same in the UK, for example?

It is quite popular in the UK. I think you can play, most people, they are the main music, and they would recognize it. It's more popular in the US, I believe, it's very popular in the US, though.

Yeah. But the musical started in London, debuted in London, right?

It did.1986 in London was when Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera debuted. It's based on a book. Another French novel, just like Les Mis, Les Misérables is a novel, another French novel from 1910, so they changed it into a musical.

This is probably one of the trends, you just take an old French book and turn it into a musical.

It seems to be the case. It seems to be quite popular.

Yeah, and this is again one of the longest running musicals both in Broadway and also West End.

It is the number one longest running in Broadway, and the second longest in the West End after Les Misérables. Les Misérables is number one in the West End.

Les Misérables is still the number one.

The Phantom of the Opera is number two. So those French novels, musicals are taking over.

And do you know this is on the gossipy side? So Andrew Lloyd Webber, actually wrote this for his then fiancée Sarah Brightman. 他当时是给还是他未婚妻的莎拉·布莱曼写的这样的一个musical, and then basically almost like type casted her as Christine, one of the main characters.

Little gossip. I didn't know that. No.

Let's hear the story. Again. I will give you the impossible task of summarizing the story.

One day, I'll ask you to do this.

Sure.

It sets, the main story is set in 1881. There is a little prologue at the beginning where it is years later.

Um.

But, the main story is in 1881 in the Paris opera house. And it's whilst they're rehearsing one of their shows, Hannibal, there are…the lead singer goes away. She's not happy with everything, and she leaves because there's rumors that there is a phantom, this spirit, this ghost, this thing haunting the opera house, and bad things happen sometimes. Lights break, things fall from the ceiling, little bit like a curse really.

Honestly, I think theater folks, like theater people have a lot of superstition. This tends to happen in theater a lot.

Yes. Actors and theater folks are very superstitious. One of the superstitions is not to say, I'm going to have to say it, not to say the name of Macbeth.

The Scottish play.

The Scottish play is what you should say, not Macbeth. I hope nothing bad happens now, but they are very superstitious. And in this opera house, the phantom is their superstition. But with the lead singer leaving, it gives one of the dancers, Christine, a chance. And she can sing very well. She has a very good singing voice, and she takes over the lead role. And she talks about how this she calls it The Angel of music has been teaching her. The Angel of music is…

…is actually the phantom.

Teaching her to sing well. It turns out, yes, turns out it is the phantom, but she never sees him yet. She hasn't seen him yet. He has been speaking to her from behind the mirror. Naturally there's lots of work with mirrors in this musical which is quite interesting.

And there's a man called Raoul who is a noble, who is paying for this opera house. He's funding it. And he was a childhood friend of Christine, and they both love each other, and they both want to sort of be together. And that makes the phantom angry and jealous.

So he shows himself to Christine, and takes her into this labyrinth, this underground layer that he has underneath the opera house on a lake, under the opera house, it's very dramatic place.

Creepy.

Very dramatic place, very, quite creepy. This little boat going across the lake is probably one of the most famous images of this show. Christine sitting at the front of the boat with the phantom pushing the boat behind. Maybe people have seen that, it's one of the famous images from this.

The phantom goes through several things to try to impress Christine. He wants her to be his. He wants her to stay with him, and to make music with him, to sing for him. But she ends up choosing Raoul, this noble man who was her friend from childhood, and the phantom is very angry with this. And to get what he wants, he creates accidents, he makes a big chandelier, a light, drop from the ceiling and crash onto the floor.

And he killed people, right?

He does, in the end, he kills two people to get what he wants. And the first one is at the end of the first half of the show, he kills one of the workers at the opera, and drops him onto the stage as well. He's not afraid of doing bad things to get what he wants because he wants Christine.

And he's very possessive, at least he just sounds very possessive.

He is very possessive through his dialogue and his music, the songs he sings, whereas they are my favorite, they are very nice. They do have Lyrics which are all about possession, obsession…

Ownership.

Desire, ownership, exactly, and he wants Christine, but really, he wants her voice, he wants her to sing for him. That's his obsession.

But the way it ended, a little bit surprising to me, because if you get used to how possessive he is, you sort of see a tragedy coming. And for example, he's probably going to kill both of them, both Christine and her lover, but it didn't happen like that.

No, the end of the show after, all of these events have happened, the end of the show has Raoul captured by the phantom. And Christine is given a choice. The phantom says to her, You marry me or he dies, and that's the option. And Christine doesn't choose, she shows the phantom by singing to him, and telling him he's not alone, really, showing him that he is not alone.

And the phantom is really moved by this. This could be the first time he's ever been shown genuine…

Kindness.

Care, by kindness. And he's moved by this. So he releases Raoul, and he shouts at them both to go to leave. Because at this point, they are in his layer underground. There is a lot of angry people coming to get him. This is after he has killed his second person. So lots of people want him gone. So they're coming down to get him. They want to kill him, they want him gone.

So they're coming to get revenge, and he tells Raoul and Christine to leave, go, get out, leave me alone.

And he disappeared.

Yes, it's a very interesting ending. While he sits down on this big chair when the chair is seen again, only his mask is on the chair, only his mask is sitting there, because the phantom throughout the show wears this iconic mask. Sometimes it's half a face or sometimes it's over the eyes. It changes throughout the different shows, but it's an iconic mask of the phantom.

Yeah. The mask is to hide his deformity, right? And he's got basically, he has a deformed face.

He does. Yes, from birth, he has been deformed, and part of the reason why he hides underground and uses a mask is because of this deformity; and because he was viewed as a freak. When he was younger…

Rejected.

Yes, rejected, his mother, he says his mother saw him with fear. Mothers shouldn't see their children with fear.

But we are going to get more into this in the second episode, The Phantom of the Opera. But before we wrap up the first episode. I just want to say that this whole story sounds rather Gothic. The original novel was part of Gothic literature. Right?

It was, it's part, it's one of the later Gothic novels. Normally when we think of Gothic, we think of Frankenstein and Dracula. Those are the sort of the classic gothic, but this one is definitely a uh, a gothic, a later Gothic novel too, and they changed it into a Gothic musical.

And then there's definitely a lot of Gothic elements in the music, in the set as well. But we're going to get into that later in the second episode.

In our first episode about The Phantom of the Opera, we have given you a little bit of background of the show. And also Oliver, as always done a great job, summing up, giving you a short overview of the story, of the plot.

And we are going to go deeper into the story, the conflicts and of course, the music in the second episode. But, meanwhile, leave us a comment in the comments section. Share with us what you think of the musical, and what other musical requests you have. Thank you, Oliver for coming to the show.

Thank you.

We'll see you next time.

See you later.