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Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Sound of Musicals, 欢迎回来【曲外之音】。

In the previous episode, Oliver and I were talking about Phantom of the Opera, one of your favorite musicals, as I'm saying this Oliver, I'm just thinking it's a very common mistake that people will make, because Phantom of the Opera, people think oh, this is the opera, but it's not, it’s a musical.

It is. It is a musical, but it does have a strange mix because it is in an opera house. You do see opera shows during the musical, so it's a combination of a typical, traditional musical, and opera, so it's an interesting mix of the two.

I have to say music-wise, this is not my favorite musical. It's not because the music is not good, it's just that it’s so unlike traditional musicals.

I do agree that the music in this is not my favorite either, but there are two songs which I think we'll talk about later, which are my favorites.

Before we get into the music, let's talk about the conflicts, the detailed conflicts of the show. Last time we finished off by saying this is a gothic tale, 就是一个哥特式的故事。

So there's a lot of horror suspense element. There's this almost like tragic element to it as well.

And you mentioned Frankenstein as one of the quintessential gothic piece. If you think about the story of the Phantom, it’s not that much different from Frankenstein, both are quote unquote freaks, and both are rejected by the society.

Yes, definitely, both of them are rejected not just by society, by the person who made them.

So it's more than just society, it's far more personal than that. It's your creator sees you as a monster. What do you do with that? It's impossible for us, impossible for me to comprehend that in my head.

The Phantom in this story and the creature in the Frankenstein story, they didn't choose this life, but because of being rejected so many times, they sort of changed, deep down there's something in them that changed, that made them do these malicious evil things.

There is. Yes, there is, I can't remember the name for it, but it's related to Frankenstein, it's the Frankenstein problem or the Frankenstein paradox or something. It's an idea that is who is the monster.

Yeah.

The one we see as being the monster or the ones who created them, because society made the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera. They saw that he was deformed, disfigured and not normal, so they put him in a cage, and people went to see him for fun. It was a show they went to see the freak, and that is one of the reasons why he is, in this, the villain really.

Honestly the villain side, I would say so obviously in the music in the very beginning, the overture, the main song that Phantom of the Opera, you can just hear gothic elements, it's scary the beginning of a spooky tale.

Yes, the music they play and the instruments they use, there's lots of big grand instruments playing these dark notes and the dark tunes, it's very gothic, very gothic.

Let's hear this bit.

This is almost like the quintessential gothic music.

It is, it is. I do it myself when I'm talking about something scary, I'll just go dengdengdengdeng…but I don't even think about the Phantom, I just think about the scary gothic music. um…

The lyric goes The Phantom of the Opera is there inside your mind or inside my mind, Christine said.

Inside my mind.

Yeah, it’s almost like an evil hypnotism.

It is. There's a lot of that feeling through the show. When it begins, the Phantom is not the Phantom, he's the angel of music to Christine. And he takes her away to this underground world of music, and he sings quite a nice beautiful song to her the Music of the Night.

Yeah.

I think it's a beautiful song, but even that has these dark undertones to it, and this idea of control and obsession is there.

You talk about Angel of Music[zy1] , this is another contrast, the stark contrast between what is beautiful, and what is ugly. Obviously, the deformed face of the Phantom would be considered really grotesque by most people, but then there's the beauty in the music that he enjoys so much.

Yeah, there is lots of duality, two sides to his character. The show is the Phantom of the opera, but then he gets called the angel, Phantom is bad, angel is good. He is ugly, he is a freak, but he makes beautiful music. And he is very clever. He is one of the most intelligent characters in the show, he uses magic and showmanship to scare people, so he uses good and beautiful things to get what he wants, which is fear in some ways, there's lots of different sides to him there.

Which is your favorite piece of music in this?

My number one favorite is Music of the Night. It's the song the Phantom sings to Christine to convince her to join him, to be with him, to stay in this underground lair and to make music with him. It's my favorite in the show, and I think it is one of the most powerful in the show.

Yeah, and it's so vivid and so detailed the whole description, the lyrical goes nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation; darkness stirs and wakes imagination.

Imagination.

Yeah, silently, the senses abandoned their defenses, it's really apt as well, because he's so used to living underground in the darkness in the lair.

Yes, his darkness is where he thinks he belongs, it's where he thrives. In darkness, nobody can see his deformities, they can hear his music and they can hear his voice, and there's nothing wrong with those. It's the light, it's the sight, he talks about light being garish, turn your face away from the garish light of day, that's he has done. His whole life, he's tried to escape from light to see to stop people from seeing him.

And there's some really truly gothic… to me, they're quintessentially gothic lyrics in this one, he says, close your eyes and surrender to your darkest dreams, purge your thoughts of the life you knew before, close your eyes. He almost like a dark lord, luring the innocent victim that sort of image that is to meet the quintessential gothic.

It is, and I like the fact that when you listen to the song, it's got fantastic music to it, it's nice and soft and flowing music.

Exactly.

And then the lyrics themselves are like, oh hang on, that's darker than what I thought it would be.

I know.

And then even at one point, he talks about only then can you belong to me? He wants to control her, he wants her to be his.

So let's listen to this bit.

I can really see this sort of contrast you just talked about, the softness, the gentleness of the music, and the creepiness, the darkness in the lyrics.

Yeah, it's definitely a stark contrast there.

But there’re also things that are quite soft, for example, there is a duet between Christine and Raoul.

Yes, there is, which I think contrasts again quite nicely with Music of the Night. Christine and Raoul’s duet is called All I Ask of You. And Raoul is saying how much he loves Christine, and the only thing he wants is for her to love him and trust him, and that's it, that’s all he wants, that’s all he asks of her.

If you compare what Phantom says, you know, surrender to your darkest dreams; and Raoul in All I Ask of You says no more talk of darkness, forget these wide-eyed fears. I'm here, nothing can harm you, my words will warm and calm you. Him and Phantom are almost like day and night.

They are. That is a great way to describe them, but if I'm honest, in terms of characters and in terms of what they can offer, I prefer the Phantom, Raoul shows society, turn away from darkness, forget about the bad things, don't be scared, we're altogether.

But the Phantom is asking her to go into the darkness, she will get beautiful music and the life she wants, if she goes into the darkness.

It's like the absolute obsession with music and the beauty that music represents.

It is, and if we think about his character, it does make sense because he's been on his own in the darkness, music does take on for him a different quality. When you take away the light, when you can't see, then your hearing gets just a little bit better.

Yeah, heighten senses.

But with the right music, that's all you need, exactly, heighten your senses, he even says it.

And that's all you need to hear, fantastic pieces of music.

Even though sometimes you read the simplified versions of the plot, and you see like the Phantom falls in love with Christine, but actually he didn’t, he didn't fall in love with Christine, it was just with her music, what she represents the voice.

I think he does fall in love with her, but only at the very end of the show. Throughout the most of it, it is an obsession with her voice, he doesn't see her, he sees her voice, he wants her voice for his music, he wants to control her. But then at the end, when Christine shows him this kindness, he has never known, he does start to see her to love her. And that's when he lets Raoul go and tells those two, Christine and Raoul, to go away, to stay away from him. Because he suddenly sees that he does love Christine, and she shouldn't be in this world of darkness with him.

I feel sorry for him at the end, I feel very sorry for him, it's a sad ending. Even though the two good characters Raoul and Christine do go away and be happy together, the bad guy is left alone, and I feel sad and sorry for him, yeah, it's unusual.

But that's the thing, I think that's the beauty of a really well executed piece, it's not just good guys, bad guys, it’s not so black and white. The character of the Phantom is so round and dynamic, it's not just the flat character where you just don't like him, he's done a lot of bad things, but no it's very complex character, so I think that is the beauty of the entire story, of the musical as well.

It is, yes. I do like a good story, but I much prefer a story which has layers, so you can find something new every time, you watch it.

Exactly.

And that's why a lot of you have requested this. Obviously, today what Oliver and I said, these are our interpretation of the show of the musical of the story. I'm sure you have your own versions, your own understandings, leave us a comment in the comment section, and also put down your requests for new musicals, so we can continue this segment. Thank you, Oliver for coming to the show.

Thank you.

We'll see you next time. Bye.

Goodbye.