Former BalletMet performer finds home with stage musical
Led by a new man behind the mask and a former BalletMet Columbus dancer in a principal role, “The Phantom of the Opera” has returned to town for an encore.
Broadway in Columbus and the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts are presenting the national tour, which will open on Friday in the Ohio Theatre.
“It’s a beautiful story about love, misunderstanding, what happens when there is compassion and when there’s not,” said Quentin Oliver Lee, who began playing the Phantom on Dec. 19 in Minneapolis.
Millions have been enthralled by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical about a mysterious figure who in 1881 haunts the Paris Opera House and mentors young singer Christine Daae.
“‘Phantom’ is very wellcrafted ... (like) many story ballets based on older novels,” said Emily Ramirez, who played Odile in “Swan Lake” and other leading roles from 2003 to 2012 at BalletMet.
A native of Katy, Texas, Ramirez plays ballet dancer Meg Giry, Christine’s best friend.
“Mischievous, bold and very nosy, Meg puts the pieces together and begins to wonder if perhaps the mythical Phantom character is the one that Christine has been visited by,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez dances or sings in several scenes, most notably sharing a vocal duet in “Angel of Music.”
“It’s an amazing show. ... How much fun to be a part of it,” she said.
Her career change was accidental. After leaving Columbus and joining the Charlotte Ballet, in 2013 Ramirez had a knee injury that required two surgeries.
“While rehabilitating, I felt so creatively starved. ... I felt like I was tempting fate already with the dream of
“The physical design is constantly unfolding and bringing more dimensions to many more areas, levels, nooks and crannies of the Paris Opera House,” SklarHeyn said.
The re-conception also reshapes the title role.
“The highs are higher ... because the Phantom is not some specter. He’s a real man, born with a deformity, who has to learn to cope with that,” Sklar-Heyn said.
An African-American actor, Lee follows in the footsteps of other black performers (including Robert Guillaume and Norm Lewis) who have tackled the title role.
“Race is part of the story, but audiences project many different ideas onto the character,” Sklar-Heyn said.
Lee, who made his Broadway debut last fall in the musical “Prince of Broadway,” strives to embody the Phantom’s complexities.
“He’s very talented and a genius, almost a savant, but he has trouble communicating with people.”
Eva Tavares plays Christine. (Upper Arlington native Jordan Ensign understudies the role and will play it Tuesday through Jan. 12; Bexley-based Herb Porter is the understudy for another major role, although he won’t play it in Columbus. The two also have smaller roles in the production.)
“Christine is generous, empathetic and the epitome of kindness, but she hasn’t had the easiest life,” said Taveres, who has yearned to play Christine since first seeing the musical when she was 10 years old.
“The music and orchestrations are stunning,” she said.
“So many people say this is the show that got them into musical theater.”