Phantom of the Opera

[rm]

So, since Patty's mother was in town last night, we went to see Phantom of the Opera. Despite the fact that I live here and actually like musical theater a good deal, I'd never seen this.

I have, necessarily, an affection for backstage plots; the time period is of particular interest; the costumes were quite pleasing (oh, the inverted box-pleats on the romantic lead's greatcoat!); the voices were excellent; the show is a technical marvel (stage manager, I salute you); the voices were exceptional; the spoof of Baroque opera almost killed me; other than the two very famous melodies everyone knows from the show I thought it was surprisingly complex musically (and made me want to see some real opera again) and all in all the show had much more energy than I generally expect from a Wednesday night performance of anything so long-running. I had a very good time.

But now that I've said that, OMG, WHUT?

Of course, to call it a two-and-a-half-hour musical about rape vastly understates the bizarreo-world factor of this musical, although it's hardly an inaccurate statement.

At first, I was merely staggered by what this show must do to thirteen-year-old girls. I mean, it's just utterly designed to be seductive to anyone who doesn't want to own their sexuality and is drawn to any sort of narrative of submission, ordeal or apprenticeship. I should have, in fact, been all over this shit. At thirteen, I surely would have been. And the gaggle of girls that age we saw in the bathroom surely were.

But honestly, it's much, much weirder than that. Because is it about Christine's latent desire for the Phantom? or just her latent pity? And she doesn't seem that into her boyfriend other than as someone to rescue her from her own desire for the ordeal. It all seemed a bit Snape/Hermione too, of course, and that was amusing to me, at least until the daddy issues showed up. Snape/Hermione never had daddy issues, at least the Snape/Hermione I read.

And wow, that's a lot of play and a lot of sex and a lot of heaving bosoms (I'm more of a total package sort of person, but I could not stop staring at Christine's chest in this. Oh My God) to not even obliquely mention the opera girl/titilation/whore factor (now sure, part of that is because hi, huge Baz Luhrmann fan here, and also historically aware, but really, the ridiculously uptight ballet mistress that I should totally be cast as? The sexually-repressed conduit of the show's sexuality? What the hell is that about?).

What a completely bizarre and vaguely intellectually offensive show. Man, when this first came out, gender and sexuality scholars must have been like "happy birthday to me" -- what a goldmine of crazy!

Comments

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

LMFAO! This was awesome to read first thing in the morning. And now I want to go see Phantom again.

[aynatonal.livejournal.com]

What that show did to me at 11 was pretty much permanently warp my budding sexuality. No question. I was obsessed. Like, listened to the cast recording every day for three years obsessed. Like carried the libretto around in my backpack for a year and a half obsessed. Like wore a pewter pendant replica of the Phantom's mask faithfully like some people wear a crucifix for six years obsessed. I've pretty much finished working through the repercussions, fortunately, (I gave up my nunlike devotion to the idea of being Christine when I started having sex in college) but yeah, you put your finger directly on the underlying appeal and the lingering effects.

[marieoroumania.livejournal.com]

I had a similar obsession with Little Shop of Horrors when I was 11 and to this day I have all the songs memorized. I have no idea what this might say about who I am today...

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Yipes.

My only contact with Phantom was singing the main song from it in school - at which I discovered that long practice with a church choir had given me a better vocal range than most...

Heaving bosoms! Now 100% agency-free!

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

This may be a sign of my own derangement, but I just laughed aloud reading this in a hospital waiting room.

'I mean, it's just utterly designed to be seductive to anyone who doesn't want to own their sexuality and is drawn to any sort of narrative of submission, ordeal or apprenticeship.'

Say hello to my high school circle of friends. Because seriously, the original cast recording of Phantom was a must-own among that group and all of us were a little warped in that regard. Then again, you know, queers and women between 14-18 in a conservative Midwestern town? There is a reason we hid out in the drama department. I swear, we were a boarding program and a Robert Sean Leonard shy of being Dead Poets Society.

Honestly, though, this may be one of the best quick breakdowns of Phantom I've seen in ages.

Re: Heaving bosoms! Now 100% agency-free!

[gement.livejournal.com]

Ha! Yesyes. I had the same drama club.

submission, ordeal, apprenticeship... thanks for these words, RM. Someone of my aquaintance, on first reading my writing, did me the high honor of saying "You do honor porn almost as well as Bujold." Since then I've called it honor porn, and was glad to have any handle for it at all.

Submission, ordeal, apprenticeship. I'll keep those around for when I need words for this thing in my head again.

The book, by the way, is even more so. My favorite bit that got cut is where the Phantom is SO BROKEN-HEARTED over losing Christine that he goes and lies around in his underground lake, trying to give himself pneumonia as the world's most protracted suicide attempt. I am not making this up. Leroux actually said this was his motivation.

[airspaniel.livejournal.com]

The book it's based on is intensely weird with the sexuality, and daddy issues abound, as Christine is only sixteen. But there is something that makes it oddly visceral and more affecting when you're actually watching these characters personified, heaving bosoms and all.

The show's a technical masterpiece, though. Andrew Lloyd Weber before he became the uninspired Stephen King of musical theatre. I suspect I was doing it wrong as a thirteen-year old girl, as I was always more interested in Meg, Madame Giry, and the opera within the opera than any of the sweeping rape romance.

[therealycats.livejournal.com]

I read the book a few years after seeing the play for the first time, and my GOD, the daddy issues. I said below that I'm not much a fan of Raoul, but given Christine's weird obsession with her father and Erik (and Erik as her father), no wonder he didn't understand half of what was going on in her sick little mind.

If I hadn't seen the play first I don't think I would be as all over Erik as I am now, but reading the book made my despise Christine.

[these-3-remain.livejournal.com]

What a completely bizarre and vaguely intellectually offensive show. Man, when this first came out, gender and sexuality scholars must have been like "happy birthday to me" -- what a goldmine of crazy!

This, exactly! It is a stunning show - and much better on stage than on film - but good lord, it wears on you after awhile. I find Christine to be so very much the Fainting, Screaming, Please-Save-Me, Infantile "Heroine" cliche that I want to smack her, and then smack the idiot that WROTE the part.

But oh, music. And oh, costumes. And oh, set design. And oh, creepy deformed man that lives in the sewers. LOVE IT.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I saw the movie yesterday. Let's just say I'm glad I'm 41 and NOT 15 or 25.

I found it incredibly seductive and felt for Christine, in a way I hadn't reading the novel or just hearing the music. I always thought her a little useless and flaky.

Any younger and less confident/feminist? I'd be a puddle. Point of No Return left me wanting a cigarette anyway. It wasn't Lecter mindfucking Starling, but it was damn close.

So yeah, what you said.
Not something I'm encouraging my girls toward seeing. Frankly, I'd rather they watch Resident Evil.

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

Point of No Return left me wanting a cigarette anyway. It wasn't Lecter mindfucking Starling, but it was damn close.

Jesus christ, yes, THIS. I can't stand the movie, but the stage version of JUST THIS SONG makes me "guh."

[cara-chapel.livejournal.com]

You're quite right about the seductive element. I wish I could see a longer and more fleshed-out analysis from you; you considered the musical from all the elements that I, as a young girl, didn't. I don't think I responded to it entirely as it was intended, though; more than identifying with and wishing to be Christine, I was much more interested in Erik, and identified with him (I have always identified with MALE role models more than female ones). I don't think that identifying with Erik is any healthier for a young woman, mind you. ;-)

There is an ambiguity to the musical that's quite compelling. You can read its text several ways, and while rape/noncon is certainly a prominent interpretation, there is also the idea of the outcast/other/misunderstood genius in the face of prejudice which I found particularly compelling. And the potential of Christine's ambiguous desire is also intriguing, and I worried at that angle a number of times in phanfiction, trying to resolve it without having named it to myself, as you named it here.

I confess I was disappointed when I saw the actual musical; it paled beside the world I'd built in my head. But Erik has never left me; to this day I sympathize with his rejection, need, and bafflement, if I don't enact his violent responses to it.

Maybe this was my adolescent version of Twilight, doing many of the same things to me that I fear Twilight is doing to young women today?

[misch.livejournal.com]

In the "extra features" section of the DVD of the movie version there is commentary on the appearance of Christine and how in some ways it is about a sexual awakening.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

Ha! I was utterly obsessed with the show at the 13, dog-earing the companion book, singing back and forth with my then-best-friend on the phone every afternoon on the school. Wearing out the cassette and studying the color photos and getting my own half-mask at the costume shop. I dunno though -- we decided Raoul was a wuss and wore a tutu and deely boppers, and that he was mystified as to why Christine was running from him; and meanwhile I was obsessed with the Phantom. Both being him and mastering the completely messed-up makeup to make myself ugly. See, he gets the girl, or something?

Wait, I smell an essay. Especially reading the comments here.

I can't believe you'd never seen it!

[marieoroumania.livejournal.com]

I always thought it was a story about Stockholm Syndrome, and the only character I ever really liked was - what's her name? - Carlotta.

[offbalance.livejournal.com]

AH, thank you. For years I've been trying to defend my enjoyment of this musical for all of these reasons - the amazing visuals, the music (which is sadly overplayed but still enjoyable), and the unbelievable WTF of the bizarro world it pulls you into.

I saw the show at 17 and again in my 20s, and it's a very different show from those different viewpoints, as you detail above.

[onemildrat.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough I'm flashing back to The Education of Shelby Knox. In that documentary Knox has to navigate between what her town's spiritual elders are telling her about sexuality and what she's seeing with her own eyes. And she's also a big theater kid who dreams about playing Christine and marrying the actor playing Phantom.

Gender analysis aside, I would break down Phantom to this -- the characters don't make sense. What they do from one scene to the next doesn't make sense. One moment the Phantom is declaring war on Christine. The next he's proposing to her in front of everybody. Yes, he's supposed to be a sensitive, passionate artist in conflict with his monstrous side, but he basically swings between one mood to the next whenever the producers need something dramatic. And then there's Christine who has extreme changes of heart literally within the same song.

But, yes, Andrew Lloyd-Webber. I scratch my head when I consider my youthful enthusiasm for him.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

I don't know. i still have a thing for Evita.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. How much do I love that musical! When I was 12-18 I saw it like a MILLION times. I have the book (by Gaston Leroux, also pretty awesome), the score, the soundtrack, and I know ALL the songs.

But you could've figured that out, no? *g*

[threewalls]

I'd heard that Webber wrote Phantom as a vehicle for Sara Brightman, who was his then muse/mistress/protegee. Brightman was definitely Christine in the opening/original cast.

[misch.livejournal.com]

They were married from 1984-1990. And yes, the role of Christine was written specifically for her.

What the hell is that about?).

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's right, you didn't experience the Thatcher-Reagan Era as an adult. Good times!
Not!

[trifles.livejournal.com]

Trufact: There's a Snape/Hermione fic wherein Hogwarts is part of a Tri-Wizard Musical Theatre competition (I AM NOT EVEN JOKING), and Hogwarts gets assigned Phantom. Who ends up being the Phantom and Christine? Guess. And my god, are there daddy issues. It's unbelievable. I made it to chapter 39 or so before my brain started getting too slimy.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

I have bookmarked this, and will have to read it in a while. But I am getting the brain bleach out, just in case.

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I started getting into Phantom when I was about thirteen. And believe you me, I was ENTRANCED by all the ridiculous sweeping "romance" of it. It was only later that I realized that what really attracted me was the utter twistedness of it. How a crush can turn into obsessive, violent love -- how daddy-issues influence Christine's perceptions of this weird older man -- and of course, the Phantom's threat to kill Raoul in order to get Christine to marry him. That, in particular, is such a weird moment in the show, because even though she's supposedly being forced to agree to marry him, that's usually a pretty fucking passionate kiss. In the book, I think she just kissed his forehead, and that was enough for him to set her free.

I was also always far more intrigued by the Erik/Phantom character than by Christine, who (in most versions) is a big old wet blanket. In the original book, and in the musical, he's a violent murderer who has no idea how to deal with his crush on this young singer. There is another musical version in which they strip away all his violent tendencies; he lives under the opera and actually seduces Christine by taking her on DATES and having CONVERSATIONS with her. Just as interesting? Not by a long shot.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet, but if you want a really interesting interpretation of the story, check out Phantom by Susan Kay, a retelling that was published a few years after the musical first came out. It follows Erik's life through the POVs of the seminal people he knew -- in France, Italy, and my favorite, Persia. (Persia! Women versus power. AMAZING and angry-making and powerful section.) When Erik meets Christine, their respective narrative voices counterpoint each other, so you get to see both points of view. Christine's daddy-issues go head to head with Erik's mommy-issues. It's pretty awesome. Terribly dramatic, but it remains one of my favorite books to this day.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

I think maybe I saw it as creepy right off as by the time I saw it at nineteen or twenty, I'd already had a couple stalkers and had that worshiped as a sixteen year old by much old man thing, none of which I found romantic in the least. There's nothing like having a guy hide in the work restroom to take pictures of your teenaged body while changing to take the shine off a guy spying on you.

[gaaneden.livejournal.com]

If you liked that version, you will be... ahem... stunned? by this version by Dario Argento: http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Phantom_of_the_Opera/22232389?lnkce=seBsLn&trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=1575837165_0_0

The Phantom is raised by telepathic rats.

Christine and the Phantom get it on - twice (once willingly, once not).

The big bad is a rat catcher.

The Phantom is played by Julian Sands.

It is all very twisted.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

The big bad is a rat catcher.

Is he a floating flaming head? Because that would be consistent with book canon, and awesome. Oh, Gaston Leroux...

[euph0ra.livejournal.com]

Hi! *waves* I followed this over from Thunderemerald's LJ.

Did you notice the set dressing around and over the stage? What the carved and gilded statues were doing? It was a little thrill for me to notice them and wonder just how many of the audience members knew that there were horrible demon like figures raping women all around them.

Tourist #1 "Oh let's go see Phantom"

Tourist #2 "Oh yes, let's! It's a good family vacation thing to do"

*giggles*

[(Anonymous)]

I followed Phantom (literally: England->NY->LA; I saw Brightman sing Christine live twice) when it first arrived in 1987, when I was nineteen, and it didn't take me long to clue in to the underlying d/s elements. I always found Raoul a rather problematic love interest. Stay in a d/s relationship with the Phantom and be a transcendent artist and star....or marry Raoul and be a rich housewife? The virtues of the vanilla were unconvincing to me even then. And I thought Christine was a drip. The Phantom kidnaps her, threatens her boy-toy, and what does she threaten to do? CRY! ("The tears I might have shed for your dark fate/grow cold and turn to tears of....HATE!" Oh noes, not the TEARS OF HATE!) (How scary is it that I remember that line?)

Compare and contrast Phantom/Christine with Brightman's Blind Mag role in Repo and her relationship with the Rotti Largo character. They really didn't need the chandelier as a clue. (And, for that matter, compare with her real-life relationship with Andrew Lloyd Webber...)

I haven't seen Phantom in any form since those long-ago days. I'm not sure I want to.

Susan de Guardiola
http://www.rixosous.com

[ktnb]

You know, I never thought about it like that - I haven't seen the musical since I was 16 - but boy does that explain my obsession with it. My music teacher played the whole thing for us in the sixth grade, and I can't help but wonder now if maybe that was too young.

[therealycats.livejournal.com]

I'm trying not to snort ice cream out onto my work computer, thanks :p

I've never really liked Raoul (Patrick Wilson is the exception, and that's probably more to do with Angels in America than anything), because he does seem to lay claim to Christine (with whom I've got plenty of problems) based on their childhood, and he also just seems like such a wimp to me. The whole "engagement" plot point doesn't help him, since he consistently does not listen to Christine about the pretense part of it.

I'm predisposed to go for Erik, just as I am to go for Heathcliff, recognizing how unhealthy and violent and dangerously possessive relationships with those two would be, and why? Because of Beauty and the Beast and pure animal sexuality.

[argentla.livejournal.com]

I mean, it's just utterly designed to be seductive to anyone who doesn't want to own their sexuality and is drawn to any sort of narrative of submission, ordeal or apprenticeship.

Wow, this rung a particular bell...

[argentla.livejournal.com]

Related to this (http://argentla.livejournal.com/503169.html), specifically (which I edited permissions to allow you to read, although recognizing that you may find it troubling).

[frodo-esque.livejournal.com]

I usually disregard Christine and boyfriend when I've seen the show on stage, and focus exclusively on The Phantom, who to me is one of the most tormented, and mentally tortured characters I've seen.

The way I see it-- his up and down moods come from his fear of abandonment formed from his awful childhood and sad living conditions. Keep in mind that this man has lived in isolation his entire life, emotions are going to be off the rocker when he first experiences love-- it's no wonder it goes from hate to intense obsession, it comes from fear.

That's why I loved it, a part of me related a bit to him-- not at that extreme of course, but I could understand how it might feel to fall in "love" with someone and do so passionately only because you've never had it before, and fear you'll never have it again.

[coriander.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was totally one of those 13 year old girls way back when!

Since then, I hadn't really considered the plot much, and I have to say... Yowza! You're right on the money. Definitely creepy!

I never really understand Christine and the boyfriend either. She's more like... someone really obsessed with singing and being enthralled with the stage, who moves about as if in a dream, until this new reality wakes her up. I can't really understand how she snagged this boyfriend in the first place, except perhaps he was totally struck down by her beauty and "had to have her" - and who was she to say no? She just goes from bf to Phantom to bf.

I think I always fashioned myself a Phantom though, wanting an ingenue of my own. Heh.

[christinenorris.livejournal.com]

The story is that the Count and Christine knew each other as children, and were good friends, so when the show/book/movie picks up is when they reunite after years apart.