Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber Block, Geoffrey (large ebook reader .txt) 📖

break at the end of what was act I of Phantom on the stage. Forty years later, however, when single features had long been the rule, it was no longer necessary, or even a realistic option, to make a film with an intermission. This posed a problem for Phantom (only ten minutes shorter than the West Side Story film), since the first act contained such a dramatic and scenically dazzling climax: the freefall of the chandelier. Instead of the falling chandelier, the musical film thus fades forward to 1919 to reveal a shot of Raoul observing a young couple admiring the sumptuous jewels in the windows of a jewelry store. Finally, much closer to the end of the film, the Phantom launches the chandelier at the climax of his opera. Its fall creates a fire and in the chaos the Phantom is able to move Christine to the opera underground as the film moves to its dramatic conclusion.

The film, which cost somewhere between $60 and $70 million to produce, did well during its first month, but less well financially in the United States than either The Incredibles or The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. It also failed to garner the critical acclaim lavished on the film versions of Chicago (2002) or later, Sweeney Todd (2007). Nevertheless, the $100 million it earned in world markets provided its makers with popular and financial vindication. Although lacking the transformative qualities of the Chicago and Sweeney Todd films, Schumacher’s Phantom offers a scenically beautiful and admirably sung souvenir of Broadway’s great stage hit.

Music and Meaning in The Phantom of the Opera

In earlier chapters, when comparing the relative dramatic meanings between the second act reprises of “If I Loved You” from Carousel and “So in Love” from Kiss Me, Kate, I suggested that the former was based on something Billy and Julie Jordan shared while the latter seemed more for the purpose of bringing back a great song.42 While one might argue whether Fred’s reprise of Lilli’s song demonstrates a bond that transcends what audiences have experienced in the play, and it is certainly a priceless romantic song that audiences enjoy rehearing for its own sake, I concluded that an opportunity for dramatic meaning was lost. I also noted that even Puccini advocate Roger Parker acknowledged the lack of dramatic meaning when “E lucevan le stelle” returns in act III of Tosca, the opera that prompted Joseph Kerman’s famously derogatory description of the popular work as a “shabby little shocker.”43

Several scholars offer dramatic explanations for the reuse of Lloyd Webber’s recurring themes in Phantom, and in some cases the explanations are plausible. As with Puccini’s Tosca, however, other explanations are less persuasive. The problem lies not with the dramatic uses served by the seven big tunes in the show (“Think of Me,” “Angel of Music,” “The Phantom of the Opera,” “The Music of the Night,” “All I Ask of You,” “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again,” and “The Point of No Return”), but with the dozen or more motives, many of which I argue are used indiscriminately. Ironically, the problem is too much integration.

A comparison between two complementary sections from The Phantom of the Opera reveals the extent to which Lloyd Webber has taken advantage of or thwarted the opportunities for musical meaning and dramatic effectiveness. The sections in question are the first scenes between the Phantom and Christine in his lair in act I, scenes 5 and 6, and the performance of the Phantom’s opera in act II, scene 7 (the online website offers a detailed thematic outline of these scenes). The scenes share a considerable amount of musical material, and it is this sharing that can potentially lead either to increased or decreased meaning.

Some themes are used with consistency and effectiveness. The descending chromatic scale that figures so prominently in the title song, for example, first heard throughout the overture, firmly establishes a connection between the musical figure and the Phantom that will follow him wherever he goes. The fact that it may be derived from Vaughan Williams (Example 16.1) does not diminish its dramatic effectiveness in Phantom. The orchestra announces the Phantom’s chromatic presence at the conclusion of “Prima Donna”; they play it when audiences see Buquet’s dead body hanging from the stage, when the Phantom makes the chandelier fall at the end of act I, and finally when Christine publicly removes the Phantom’s mask during the performance of Don Juan Triumphant. Another important motive that is effectively associated with the Phantom is first heard fittingly on the words “He’s here, the Phantom of the opera.” This occurs early in the work where it interrupts Carlotta’s rendition of “Think of Me.” Like the chromatic figure, the motive first associated with “He’s here, the Phantom of the opera,” will appear numerous times (at least eight), always in proximity with the Phantom—or the idea of the Phantom—and always serving a persuasive dramatic effect.

On several occasions Lloyd Webber also goes beyond thematic recurrence and creatively transforms his musical material. For example, the phrase often repeated by the lead tenor Piangi—who futilely attempts to sing the ascending whole-tone scale on the words, “Those who tang-”[without the “le”], in the rehearsal of Don Juan Triumphant in act II, scene 4— was foreshadowed as violent orchestral underscoring when the Phantom curses Christine in act I, scene 6, for removing his mask. The “I remember” phrase that Christine sings at the beginning of this scene also returns in a loud and dissonant version in the orchestral introduction of Don Juan Triumphant and in a comparably dissonant choral version when the chorus begins the sung portion of the work on the words “Here the sire may serve the dam” (shown in the outlines of the online website).

All together, the first part of the “I remember” phrase appears no less than fourteen times in the opera, more than any other motive; the second part by itself appears on two other occasions.44 It is the first music sung in the Prologue, the auction