The Andrew Lloyd Webber version of the Phantom is both simpler and less grotesque than that of Gaston Leroux's 1911 novel,
which seems uncertain whether it is a thriller, mystery, horror, or a romance. It does none of these well, and the basic story has been stripped and pruned into almost every possible category: There are numerous versions of the story. Webber's Phantom is a gothic romance, with the evil figure of the book transformed into a genius unable to appear in society because he is so ugly that no one will look beyond his face.
He is also a killer, freeing himself from explotation as a freak as a child by strangling his keeper, and then hidden in the vast maze of the opera house by the young ballet student who becomes Madame Giry, the one person who knows who he is and where he came from. The boy who will become the Phantom learns about life from what he sees on and off stage as he hides in the shadows, but he also learns about all the aspects of opera: singing, dancing, script, composing, and set design.
As the story opens he must be a man in his late thirties or early forties—Madame Giry, of similar age, has a grown daughter—and he has has terrorized the management into giving him a salary and a permanently reserved box. When the opera is sold to a pair of nouveau riche dealers in junk/scrap metal, he has no intention of losing what he has won.
At night and in the opera chapel, he has been the hidden tutor of Christine, the orphan daughter of a famous violin player, in the guise of the Angel of Music her father told her he would send to her when he died. She has become a pure, high soprano, yet remained, for all the vivid, sensual life around her, incredibly naive and innnocent.
The Phantom arranges an"accident" that drives away the peevish, past her prime diva, and Christine debuts in the role. She is recognized by her childhood sweetheart, Vicompt Raoul, who is eager to court her for real this time. But he is locked out, and Christine makes the journey to the caverns and underground lake beneath the Opera Populaire. There she removes the Phantom's mask and realizes he is no angel.
Her reaction seems to be more of shock and pity—hidden by the carefully-designed mask he appears handsome and she knows better than anyone his skill in training her to sing—but she is soon to learn the Phantom is not just an angry man but a dangerous one, full of all the super-sized passions of opera.
Annoyed by being dictated to be an unseen presence, the managers see to it that the angry diva is coaxed into returning, and Christian is given the silent role in Il Muto, a broad farce. The Phantom had said that the diva should play the silent role and Christian the lead. As the opera progresses without the cast he wished, and with his box sold to someone else, the masked and cloaked Phantom appears in the gallery at the very top of the theater to announce his displeasure.
His fury is given more bite when the diva is reduced to croaking like a frog by a simple substitution of an adulterated version of the spray that she uses to aid her failing voice. The abashed mangers bow to the Phantom's demands and appear before the curtain to announce Christian will sing the lead for the rest of the performance.
An unfortunate stage hand, who who has made the mistake of telling horror stories about the Phantom, chases the dark figure through the rigging above the stage as a pastoral ballet is in progress. Too clever for his own good, he turns from hunter to prey and is dropped, hanged, into the middle of the bucolic scene. Amid the ensuring tumult, Christian takes Raoul to the roof of the building, as the only place safe from the Phantom and his "magical lasso," which is actually a stout piece of rigging rope in a hangman's knot.
As the two proclaim their love in song the Phantom lurks and mourns, that "He was bound to love you, once he heard you sing." After they have left, the Phantom leaps onto a winged figure at the edge of the roof, and proclaims they will rue they the day they did not give him all he asked: The Phantom has no tolerance for being thwarted. He intends to win Christine for his bride, whatever it takes.
(to be continued)