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

[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.