100 Years Of Phascination

Too often our beloved stories become so wrung with new concepts, remakes, and additions to suit the tastes of each generation, that any semblance of their original splendor becomes nothing more than a historical reminiscence. Such is not the case with “The Phantom of the Opera,” a story much bigger than its humble origins within the pages of a cheap, 1910 Gothic thriller.

It is a tale of romantic tragedy at its finest. A grotesquely disfigured musical genius is madly in love with Christine, an aspiring opera starlet. The young singer is in love with her charming beaux, Raoul, but finds herself at once enthralled and horrified by the man who gave her a first taste of sensuality. And a man with the face of a monster, who is so close to a long denied love and yet, is rejected and tormented because of his ugliness. Taking place in the Paris Opera House only heightens the melodrama.

The Phantom first appeared on the screen in 1925. Played by Lon Chaney, he was the embodiment of repulsion, his face little more than a warped scull, embedded with really nasty teeth. The film was intended to thrill, the Phantom portrayed as a predatory figure of horror. But in moments of almost pathetic, almost feline virility, Chaney manages to arouse in us a feeling of pity. However, in attempting to disturb, the film skims over the enthralling qualities that drew Christine and Leroux’s readers to the Phantom in the first place. It is undoubtedly melodramatic, but lacks passion.

In 1988, after several uneventful remakes of the film, “The Phantom of the Opera” opened on Broadway as a musical adapted by Andrew Lloyd Webber, starring Michael Crawford as the Phantom and Webber’s then wife, Sarah Brightman, as Christine. The story leapt to life as if it had been waiting for a commanding soundtrack and multi-million dollar production fee to put the wind in its sails. Crawford was mesmerizing, alluring, tender, and frightening. He requested that the costume designer make his sleeves shorter to create the illusion of elongated hands, which he moved with a haunting grace, sweeping with music, twirling a cloak, caressing Christine’s gentle body.

The show rapidly and rightfully became a cultural phenomenon. As the chandelier made it’s infamous, electrifying sweep from ceiling to stage at the end of act one, audiences literally clung onto their seats in a moment of breathless, thrilling terror. The theater was where the Phantom was born, and where he belonged.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before stage became screen once more. In 2004 Joel Schumacher’s rendition of the musical hit the cinemas. Emmy Rossum, a young ingénue not unlike Christine, played the Phantom’s love interest. Gerard Butler was cast as the Phantom of the new era: rock-star voice, Gothic Belle Époque underground bachelor pad, swarthy wardrobe, and devastatingly sexy in every way. With the advent of the stage production, every conscious woman in America was already dead gone on the dark appeal of the Phantom. Making the face beneath the mask ugly may as well have been a matter of formality.

Not bad for someone hiding from a world that hated him.