From Screen to Stage: Thoughts on Seeing The Phantom of the Opera Live at the West End (Act 2)

Before we begin…

This is a follow-up to a previous post! Last time I reviewed Act 1 of The Phantom of the Opera, where I shared my thoughts on seeing a live performance of the musical. This post is a continuation of that, with the focus being shifted to the second act instead.

Like the last post, this one comes with a…

SPOILER ALERT!
In this article, I'll be going through pretty much every scene in Act 2 of The Phantom of the Opera from start to finish, often including excerpts from the show.

With that said, let Act Two begin!

Entr’acte / Masquerade / Why So Silent?

The orchestra plays an invigorating medley as an entr’acte piece, and the curtain rises to commence the second act of the show. We open on New Year’s Eve, in a masquerade ball organised by the Paris Opera House.

Act 2 begins with a group number — Masquerade, where the Opera Populaire’s cast and crew are shown dancing and prancing all over the place. Christine and Raoul reveal that they’ve been engaged, and the rest of the crowd delightfully welcomes a fresh new year as the Phantom has appeared to go on a hiatus for the past few months.

The same number is featured in the 2011 proshot, although truthfully speaking I’m not particularly impressed with how this number is performed there. Don’t get me wrong: The music is stirring, and the lyrics are filled to the brim with carefully constructed parallelism and thought-provoking double meanings. In spite of this, the costumes and the lighting both had a predominantly lilac hue, and the scene ended up looking like an overwhelming, dynamic yet heliotrope-tinted sea of indiscernible monotony. Fortunately, the live production solved the monochromatic issue by switching to a more desaturated lighting which accentuates the vividly coloured and almost kaleidoscopic costumes. The choreography is also a lot neater and more cohesive.

As for the music, you would think that the score and the instrumental would be consistent in both performances, and yet the live production still manages to surprise me. Both performances feature the cast holding cymbals, triangles and other purcussive instruments, but they are mostly inaudible in the film. I thought this was due to the use of silent props, which are often utilised in movies and television to prevent sensitive microphones from picking up any unwanted noise. However, in the live performance, you can actually hear those instruments being played, proving that they aren’t just for show. In hindsight though, it wouldn’t be sensible for a sound crew to mike up an ensemble member just to capture audio from a tiny handheld instrument.

The joyful promenade ends abruptly as the Phantom emerges out of apparently nowhere, masqueraded as the Red Death, an ominous title character from an Edgar Allan Poe story. He solemnly descends the staircase, establishing dominion over the crowd scared stiff. He declares he has written an original opera, “Don Juan Triumphant”, and threatens the Opera House to produce it with Christine as the lead.

The Phantom’s stage presence in this scene is unbelievable. The Red Death costume is extremely elaborate and detailed, and I really appreciate how each step he takes on the staircase perfectly aligns with the deep strikes of the orchestra’s bass drum.

The Phantom vanishes, and the petrified crowd quickly turns into a riot. Galvanised, Raoul pressures Madame Giry into disclosing her knowledge of the Opera Ghost. While hesitant at first, she promptly gives in and uncovers his backstory.

MADAME GIRY: It was years ago. There was a travelling fair in the city. Tumblers, conjurors, human oddities. And there was — I shall never forget him — a man locked in a cage. (…) A prodigy, monsieur. Scholar, architect, musician…

RAOUL: A composer…

MADAME GIRY: And an inventor too, monsieur. (…)

RAOUL: Who was this man?

MADAME GIRY: A freak of nature more monster than man…

RAOUL: Deformed?

MADAME GIRY: From birth, it seemed. (…) And then, he went missing. He escaped. They never found him; it was said he had died.

RAOUL: But he didn’t die, did he?

Notes / Twisted Every Way

In the office, the managers complain about the ostensibly nonsensical opera score and become even more enraged as they read a couple of letters of advice sent in by the Phantom.

ANDRÉ: (reading the Phantom’s letter)
Dear André, re my orchestrations
We need another first bassoon
Every note’s overblown
And that third trombone
Has to go
The man could not be deafer, so please preferably one who plays in tune!

FIRMIN: (reading the Phantom’s letter)
Dear Firmin, vis-à-vis my opera
Some chorus members must be sacked
If you could find out which
Has a sense of pitch
Wisely though
I’ve managed to assign a rather minor role to those who cannot act!

I believe during the second line here, a bassoon from the orchestra can be heard as is a lovely demonstration of word painting.

Later, Carlotta and Piangi burst into the room, protesting against the unfair casting decisions and suggesting that this was all a ruse to help Christine. Christine denies this and states that she too refuses to take part in this production. The discourse becomes increasingly rapid and chaotic, but soon grinds to a halt as Madame Giry presents another note from the Opera Ghost.

MADAME GIRY: (reading the Phantom’s letter) Fondest greetings to you all. A few instructions just before rehearsal starts: Carlotta must be taught to act…

PHANTOM’S VOICE: (taking over)
…not her normal trick of strutting round the stage!
Our Don Juan must lose some weight
It’s not healthy in a man of Piangi’s age
And my managers must learn that their place is in an office, not the arts!

As for Miss Christine Daaé, no doubt she’ll do her best — it’s true her voice is good. She knows though should she wish to excel she has much still to learn, if pride will let her return to me, her teacher.

In what is essentially a classily and sassily written roast session, the Phantom’s pre-recorded voice can be heard floating and swirling around in three-dimensional space, almost as if the character is teleporting betwen different parts of the auditorium as he sings. This is somewhat reminiscent of those 3D stereo binaural recordings, which I think is a brilliant touch that adds to the character’s mystique.

A lightbulb goes off in Raoul’s head, and he proposes to the managers a plan for ousting and, in a sense, exorcising the Opera Ghost.

RAOUL: We shall play his game: Perform his work but remember we hold the ace! For, if Miss Daae sings, he is certain to attend.

ANDRÉ: We make certain the doors are barred!

FIRMIN: We make certain our men are there!

RAOUL: We make certain they’re armed!

TOGETHER: The curtain falls! His reign will end!

Tensions rise as both Christine and Madame Giry oppose to the plan, with the former especially torn between ridding the spirit and protecting her mentor. Christine leaves the office anxiously, leaving Raoul to furiously declare:

RAOUL: So — it is to be war between us! But this time my clever friend, the disaster will be yours!

We are then transported to the rehearsal room, where the cast, albeit somewhat reluctantly, practises some of the tunes from Don Juan Triumphant. As usual, Piangi consistently butchers one of his notes, triggering at one point the rest of the crowd to jointly and sassily correct him by singing the right note simultaneously — a gag that was unfortunately missed in the 25th anniversary performance.

Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again / Wandering Child

In the next scene, we see Christine trudge along the stage, singing a callback to the title song and Little Lotte from Act 1. She enters and wanders around a graveyard and finally stops in front of a gravestone with four letters clearly engraved: Daaé.

Grieving over her late father, Christine laments how “passing bells and sculpted angels” make for ill-fitting resting place for someone who is warm, gentle and friendly. She poignantly expresses her desire for a reunion, even though she knows that this is impossible. Suddenly, the Phantom appears and attempts to once again hypnotise Christine into thinking he is her Angel of Music.

PHANTOM: Wandering child, so lost, so helpless, yearning for my guidance!

CHRISTINE: Angel or father, friend or phantom — who is it there staring?

PHANTOM: Have you forgotten your Angel?

CHRISTINE: Angel, oh speak: What endless longings echo in this whisper?

I like how in this scene the Phantom straight up stands on Christine’s father’s gravestone, thereby symbolically establishing himself as an authoritative father figure — one that’s simultaneously commanding and amiable; deeply comforting yet infinitely possessive.

The next part is perhaps one of the most beautiful moments of the show: Raoul emerges from the shadows, spots the Phantom hypnotising Christine and tries to put an end to this unceasing misery.

PHANTOM: Too long you’ve wandered in winter…

RAOUL: Once again she is his…

PHANTOM: Far from my fathering gaze…

RAOUL: Once again she returns!

CHRISTINE: Wildly my mind beats against you…

PHANTOM: You resist…

PHANTOM/CHRISTINE: …yet your/my soul obeys!

What follows is a beautiful polyphony with three streams of melody fluctuating between attraction and repulsion, as if they’re making every effort to resist intertwining but are ultimately interwoven regardless.

The Phantom continues his hypnosis as the gates guarding the grave magically open. Raoul repeatedly interrupts him, pulling Christine out of her trance. Wrathful and perhaps covetous, the Phantom hurls streaks of fire at the couple, who dodges them and narrowly escapes, leaving the Phantom to exclaim in rage:

PHANTOM: So be it — now let it be war upon you both! (The stage erupts into flame.)

I cannot overstate how staggeringly powerful this scene is to see in person. The opening of the gates, which wasn’t in the proshot, was a clever design decision; but that was immediately overshadowed by the insane pyrotechnics that followed. I don’t use the word “insane” a lot, but when dozens of flame projectors are all triggered at the same time to produce extraordinarily intense pillars of fire in a way that you can actually sense the overwhelming heat on your face (and have to make conscious effort to try not to blink), I think “insane” is certainly an apt description.

Don Juan Triumphant

We are then shown the night of Don Juan Triumphant’s premiere, where Raoul tells a marksman to wait in the orchestral pit and shoot only “when the time comes”.

PHANTOM’S VOICE: I’m here, the Phantom of the Opera.

(This line is repeated several times, with the voice seeming to mysteriously dart form place to place.)

RAOUL: (to the marksman) Hold the fire.

(The Phantom continues to shout “I’m here” from different parts of the theatre, before finally appearing briefly in Box Five. The marksman fires a shot towards the box.)

RAOUL: Idiot! I said only when the time comes!

Differences	On screen	On stage
The marksman	The marksman is supposedly “in the pit”, even though the orchestra is really positioned above the stage in the Royal Albert Hall.	The marksman actually stands in the proper orchestral pit.
The misfire	As the Phantom shouts “I’m here”, Raoul gestures to the marksman not to fire just yet.	Raoul says the words “hold the fire” out loud. Also, the Phantom can be seen (not just heard) entering and then quickly leaving Box 5, which explains why the marksman is inclined to shoot specifically at this specific instant.

Anyways, the cast soon begins their performance of Don Juan Triumphant. But first…

Now back to our scheduled programming. Like in Mozart’s opera, the Phantom’s Don Juan Triumphant sees the protagonist disguise as his servant Passarino in an attempt to seduce a maid he invited for dinner. Here, Don Juan is played by Piangi and the maid is played by Christine.

Sure enough, Don Juan goes offstage to swap clothes with Passarino. By the time he returns to the stage, he’s already wearing Passarino’s cloak, which covers his entire body from head to toe. However, it’s not just his appearance that’s changed — listen closely and you will find that Don Juan is somehow no longer played by Piangi, but by the Phantom instead.

The Point of No Return

Playing Don Juan, the Phantom sings with Christine a duet that he wrote himself: The Point of No Return. This might be my favourite number from the entire musical because the music and lyrics are just… perfection.

PHANTOM (as Don Juan):
Past the point of no return
No backward glances — our games of make-believe are at an end!
Past all thought of “if” or “when”
No use resisting — abandon thought and let the dream descend!
What raging fire shall flood the soul; what rich desire unlocks its door?
What sweet seduction lies before us? (…)

CHRISTINE (as unnamed lady):
Past the point of no return
No going back now — our passion play has now at last begun!
Past all thought of right or wrong
One final question — how long should we two wait before we’re one?
When will the blood begin to race; the sleeping bud burst into bloom?
When will the flames at last consume us?

BOTH:
Past the point of no return
The final threshold — the bridge is crossed, so stand and watch it burn!

It’s perfect in so many ways and on so many levels:

1. The style of the music is noticeably distinctive. This is the only part of the musical where we get to experience the Phantom’s musical talent firsthand. Compared to the other numbers in the show, The Point of No Return is noticeably less cheery. The productions put up by the Opera Populaire typically create a joyous or at least light-hearted atmosphere (see Hannibal and Il Muto from Act 1), but Don Juan Triumphant stands out by having a more melancholic tone. The music makes repeated use of the whole tone scale and non-diatonic notes, with a lot of chromaticism and dissonance. The majority of Act 1’s operatic tunes are unnuanced, one-dimensional and almost always optimistic, but this is different. This is a song that symbolises the incessant swinging between fear and fearlessness and hope and hopelessness — four qualities that appear to oppose one another but nonetheless all seem to meet at one, single devastating point of intersection.

2. The lyrics fit the story of Don Juan. This can be easily inferred from the lyrics. Here, Don Juan attempts to seduce a woman he had just met moments ago, so he tries to convince her to “abondon thought and let the dream descend” in what can only be described as a battle between sense and senselessness.

3. The lyrics embed the Phantom’s message to Christine. Remember that The Point of No Return is entirely written by the Phantom. Though Christine may be simply sticking to the script, the Phantom is using this opportunity to present himself as he truly is, using literally his own words. The Phantom knows his guise as the “Opera Ghost” or as Christine’s “Angel of Music” has long been worn off, so their “games of make-believe are at an end”. The only remaining means for him to declare his love to Christine is to do so authentically, as the one true human behind the illusionary mask. This, inevitably, requires a determined and passionate leap of faith — one that forbids any “backward glances” and is inherently a “point of no return”. Whether to take this leap is once again a quandary between sense and senselessness, in which the Phantom opts for the latter. Of course, he isn’t just convincing himself to transcend beyond sensibility, he’s convincing Christine to do so as well. This is a desperate but ambitious leap, after which the bridge will be crossed and all they can do is to watch as it burns and fades into irreversible nothingness.

The line

BOTH: The bridge is crossed, so stand and watch it burn!

might be my favorite throughout the entire musical. The sentence itself is such a visually vivid metaphor for the status quo, and the delivery of this line has so much desparation and devastation packed into it.

At the end of The Point of No Return, to everyone’s shock, Christine goes off script and uncloaks the Phantom. Surrounded immediately by a couple of shooters, He tries to leave the stage, but is further confronted by Raoul and the managers. However, Christine instinctively motions with her hand to stop them from shooting him. Despite being just a few seconds long, this sequence (which was absent in the proshot) is incredibly phenomenal to watch as it offers a glimpse into what everyone on stage is thinking at this present moment.

The Phantom then sings to Christine a heartbreaking reprise of All I Ask of You. He gives her a ring which — at least from my viewing angle — shines shimmeringly in the spotlight. Nevertheless, Christine decides to remove his mask, exposing his deformed face to everyone in the theatre. The Phantom flees rapidly, Piangi’s garotted corpse is shown backstage, and the Opera Populaire descends into chaos, with some determined to hunt down this wicked murderer.

Down Once More

Admist the mayhem, Madame Giry offers to give Raoul a helping hand.

MADAME GIRY: Monsieur le Vicomte, come with me! I know where they are!

RAOUL: But can I trust you?

MADAME GIRY: You must. But remember: your hand at the level of your eyes!

RAOUL: But why?

MADAME GIRY: The Punjab lasso, monsieur: First Buquet, now Piangi. (…) Come with me, monsieur — hurry, or we shall be too late!

Underground, the Phantom leads Christine to his lair, during which his laments his past experience of being outcast and shamed into solitude. The pair is followed by an enraged mob led by Raoul, which cries:

MOB:
Track down this murderer — he must be found!
Hunt out this animal who runs to ground!
Too long he’s preyed on us, but now we know
The Phantom of the Opera is here deep down below…
…he’s here: the Phantom of the Opera!

Here, the mob is seen on a raised platform, directly below which we can see Christine and the Phantom crossing the subterranean lake by boat. This is a juxtaposition that I did not see coming: it’s depressing in terms of the plot, beautiful from a poetic point of view, and awesome from the perspective of staging.

Final Lair

Before I dive into this final scene of the musical, I just want to add that if there is one bit of the live performance that I actively disliked, it’s this one. This is obviously just my personal subjective opinion, and I still want to end this review on a high note. So, what follows will be a compliment sandwich of sorts: I’ll summarise the ultimate part of the plot, highlight the details that I didn’t enjoy, and finish by pointing out the ones I did appreciate.

(The pair reaches the lair, and the Phantom forces Christine to put on a wedding dress.)

PHANTOM:
This face, which earned a mother’s fear and loathing
A mask, my first unfeeling scrap of clothing
Pity comes too late, turn around and face your fate:
An eternity of this before your eyes!

CHRISTINE: This haunted face holds no horror for me now; it’s in your soul that the true distortion lies!

PHANTOM: Wait! I think, my dear, we have a guest!

Raoul enters the lair, but forgets to hold his hand at the level of his eyes. Consequently, he falls victim to the Phantom’s lasso. The Phantom poses to Christine a dilemma: if she chooses to keep company with the Phantom, Raoul will be freed; if not, Raoul will be killed.

CHRISTINE: The tears I might have shed for your dark fate grow cold, and turn to tears of hate! (…) Farewell my fallen idol and false friend… We had such hopes and now such hopes are shattered!

PHANTOM: (…)
Past all hope of cries for help
No point in fighting, for either way you choose you cannot win!
So do you end your days with me, or do you send him to his grave?

RAOUL: (to the Phantom) Why make her lie to you to save me?

PHANTOM/CHRISTINE:
Past the point of no return / Angel of Music
The final threshold / Who deserves this?
His life is now the prize which you must earn! / Why do you curse mercy?
You’ve passed the point of no return / Angel of Music, you’ve deceived me; I gave my mind blindly!

PHANTOM: You try my patience — make your choice.

CHRISTINE: Pitiful creature of darkness, what kind of life have you known? God give me courage to show you you are not alone! (She kisses and embraces the Phantom fully and extensively.)

This is the first time the Phantom is on the receiving end of any form of affection and sympathy. Broken, he frees Raoul, vehemently tells him to leave with Christine, and ends up sobbing on the floor as the mob gradually nears. The papier-mâché musical box in his lair begins playing the melody of Masquerade, to which he sorrows over spending his entire life hiding his face from the world. He looks back and is relieved to see Christine reentering his lair, but is defeated as he learns that Christine is back only to return his ring to him. As Christine leaves the lair with Raoul, Phantom utters that he loves her and declares that “it’s over now — the music of the night”.

The Phantom perches on his throne, tucking his legs beneath him and covering himself with his cloak moments before the mob enters. The first to make her way into the Phantom’s lair is Meg, who walks towards the throne and pulls away the cloak, only to find a single, white, porcelain half-mask.

So, what didn’t I like about this scene? To keep it brief, the Phantom’s performance comes across as quite forced and unnatural in this scene, with an apparent lack of chemistry with Christine that wasn’t seen in other scenes. And when he delivers the line:

PHANTOM: (He screams to Christine and Raoul) Go now, don’t let them find you! Take the boat — swear to me never to tell of the secret you know… of this Angel of Hell! Go! Go now and leave me!

he is simply sitting on his throne facing the audience, with no eye contact to either Christine or Raoul, which renders the whole interaction rather awkward and weird. Moreover, the deformed right half of the Phantom’s face was so unbelievably (and unnecessarily) brightly coloured, and the overhead spotlight certainly didn’t help. That half is literally several times paler than any other part of his face, he might as well have kept his white mask on. Of course, one could argue that the non-skinlike appearance was completely intentional, that the abnormal pallor was exactly what was intended, and that the unrealistic and unhuman-looking disfigurement is precisely what made the Phantom so hated and rejected by society. But… I’m not convinced. To me, it was just an annoying distraction from the rest of the scene’s action.

With all that said, there are still a lot of details that I like about this scene:

• Raoul’s arrival prompts both the Phantom and Christine to simultaneously drop what they’re doing: the former lets go of his life-sized mannequin while the latter discards the bouquet the Phantom gave her.
• We can see Raoul and Christine leave the lair by boat as the Phantom, alone, utters his declaration of love.
• Meg was the only one small enough to crawl under the portcullis and enter the lair, and the stage is lit in such a way that the Phantom’s mask is the last thing we see in the entire musical.

Overall, my feelings about this scene are somewhat mixed, but plot-wise it remains a tearjerker, arousing deep empathy for a tragic creature that will forever be remembered not as a human being, but as a mere ghost.

Curtain call

And this brings us to the end of the show! The performers take their bows, the orchestra plays one final medley from the pit, and the audience erupts into thunderous applause. I would have included a brief summary here to encapsulate the multitude of reasons why I love this emotional rollercoaster of a show, but frankly I feel like I’ve already said everything there is to say about this musical masterpiece! I won’t bother repeating points, but it’s an absolute tour de force, and there is no other way to describe it.

The end.
Oh, and I should really think twice next time before spending over half a year writing a review for a show. This one's worth it though.