But it is also a show preceded by hype of such titanic proportions (not to mention a record-shattering advance sale of $17 million) that a theatergoer can find himself burdened with false expectations. And it touches the heart in odd and unexpected ways. It is a thrilling show - as sumptuous as any on Broadway.
That, in a rhyme, is my reaction to the musical itself. "The Music of the Night" is his seduction song, and it contains the telling refrain: "Silently the senses/abandon their defenses." Here in the golden darkness, where the subconscious indulges its deepest fantasies, the phantom hopes to make Christine his bride. It is a frightening landscape, but it is also eerily beautiful - Venice, as it might appear to a late-night wanderer on hallucinogens. Hundreds of candles rise up through the watery mists. The way wends through rat-infested corridors, over fog-enshrouded catwalks and, ultimately, across a vast underground lake. The mirror in her dressing room has opened magically and he is leading her into the bowels of the Paris Opera. That human gargoyle has just cast a thrall over Christine Daae', the Swedish inge'nue upon whom he intends to lavish both his love and his musical inspiration. NEW YORK - For a judgment on "The Phantom of the Opera," Andrew Lloyd Webber's latest musical, which opened last night at the Majestic Theatre, I defer to the phantom himself.
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