Lloyd Webber’s kitsch classic is back and it still tugs at our heartstrings
The Phantom of the Opera Her Majesty’s Theatre, London SW1
The opera ghost is back! After a Covid-enforced hiatus, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s most successful musical has returned to the theatre of its birth, Her Majesty’s in the West End, in all its kitsch, gothic glory.
Well, strictly speaking, this is a tweaked version of director Hal Prince’s original 1986 production, although the only change most would notice is that the Phantom appears from behind a different bit of statuary, and not high up in the proscenium, at the end of the first half to lament his betrayal – generating a slight loss of wow factor. Oh and there’s that controversial reduction of the orchestra from 27 to 14 players (shame on you co-producer Cameron Mackintosh for saving money after 18 months of no income, cried some), which maybe made the strings surge a little less. But in a show with this level of bombast and amplification, you couldn’t really tell the difference.
Present and correct were the slew of coups de théâtre, no-nonsense pacing and gorgeous spectacles that make this retelling (words by Richard Stilgoe and Charles Hart) of Gaston Leroux’s tale of a disfigured man of musical genius lurking beneath the Paris Opera House and lusting after a chorus girl so effective. The unveiling of the cast arrayed across a grand staircase – dressed in the multicolours of the most resplendent commedia dell’arte troupe and moving in the eerie way of puppets – for the second-act “Masquerade” drew gasps (choreography by the late, great Gillian Lynne). I loved the candelabra twiddling up out of the underground lake where the Phantom hides out, even as they made me laugh in their absurdity.
The musical’s return boasts the London production’s first woman of colour, Lucy St Louis, to play the object of the Phantom’s adoration, Christine Daaé. In a story where the men take the initiative, Christine’s main job is to stand around looking surprised – St Louis did her best with that, and grabbed her big solo, Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again, with both hands.
Her voice doesn’t stretch well though, and sadly conductor Simon Lee sped through All I Ask of You, her duet with lover Raoul (a fairly onedimensional Rhys Whitfield), too fast for this pretty tune.
Still, apart from Prince’s inspired staging and solid ensemble support (strong here), all you need for a good Phantom is a good Phantom, and Killian Donnelly delivers. His voice is big, particularly lower down, and he has a dollop more menace than most. We didn’t get the sweet falsetto that its first incumbent, Michael Crawford, made forever associated with this role, but this gruffer, nastier interpretation made the Phantom’s sudden reduction to maimed outcast, sobbing his love for Christine in the final moments, all the more piercing.
Like any indestructible artwork, The Phantom of the Opera plugs into myth. From Caliban to Quasimodo to Frankenstein’s monster, the shunned repulsive figure with beauty on the inside has always been able to reach out and yank at our heartstrings. Aided by Lloyd Webber’s sumptuous tunes, so too does this Phantom.