The Phantom of the Opera Musical

I was curious in December, 2004 when I heard that they were going to make The Phantom of the Opera movie.  I knew I wanted to see it, espcially since I like some of the music.  Knowing that many modern movies are often unclear in plot, I decided to read the book by Gaston LeRoux first.

The story was sad, but I ended up seeing the movie three times despite complaints about the acting and singing.  Though I enjoyed the movie, the book was still better.  When I learned that the movie was based on the Broadway musical version, which had better performance, I began hoping to see the musical one day.

I finally saw The Phantom of the Opera musical on Thursday, April 17, 2008, and I realized what people were complaining about.  Most of the people who complained about the movie had seen the musical before.  I then agreed that if people wanted to see the movie, they should do so before the musical, or they would be disappointed.

The movie had shortened most of the songs and converted many of the singing parts into speaking.  Then again, maybe that’s better since when people sing, it’s hard to make out the words, and that would result in missing out parts of the story.  The musical performers also sang better than the movie ones.  At least they expressed the characters’ emotions better, with more proper mood and tone.  In the movie, some of the singing wasn’t smooth, with the actors somewhat shouting.

Book, movie, or musical, The Phantom of the Opera is a tearjerker.  It also reminds audiences how unfair life is, and that people only know how to look at the surface.  My favorite version is still the book, which contains the original and complete story.  That’s usually the case for me: I tend to like books better than movies.