So, after the many success of Andrew Lloyd Webber...Cats, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar and The Phantom of the Opera, he thought to himself, let me try for lightning one more time and decided that the only way to do that would be to take the monumental success of Phantom and milk it for all it's worth. Thus the monstrous creation of Love Never Dies was born.
It might be ironic that I'm using "monstrous creation" to describe a show in which the main character could also be described as a "monstrous creation" but I don't know how else to put it. There are just so many things wrong with this show that I don't even know if I can put it all into coherent sentences. But I can try.
Where do I begin...? (SPOILERS)
+The original musical was set in 1881. Andrew Lloyd Webber (who I will be referring to as "ALW" from now on) decided that the new musical would be set "ten years after the original story" in 1907...now I don't know who decided to do the math on this one but they should fire that guy. Ten years in the future would be 1891. 1907 is 26 years in the future. By that time, Christine would be a matron of 40-something years of age and the Phantom would either be really old or a corpse already. Oooh, romantic. I think the only reason they decided to place it further in time was so that the costume and hair people could make Christine into a Gibson girl. Why else would they put it so far ahead?
+They changed the Phantom's age AGAIN. They wanted to make the Phantom closer in age to Christine so it wouldn't be creepy when he was all seducing her. They seem to forget...the Phantom is a creepy old man. He may be misguided and tragic and a musical genius but he is also creepy. It's part of his charm I suppose. Which actually makes sense, I mean considering he's so old and yet has never loved or felt loved, it makes it even more pity-inducing. He is the original 40-year old virgin.
But okay, obviously ALW changed the age from Leroux's original story. There the Phantom was closer to 60...so he's shaved off 20 years off his age. Why, Phantom, you are looking mighty good for a supposedly 60 year old. I get it, it makes it more of a love triangle if the Phantom is younger. But if you're gonna change something keep it consistent! Don't say all of a sudden, now the Phantom is only 10 years older than Christine because then it's like spitting in the wind. It's like everything I changed before is of no matter, what I do now matters. And changing his age alters who the Phantom is, it changes the amount of pity you have for him. It almost changes the most base thing about his character. It takes away some of the experiences he's had, some of his life which makes up who he is. How would he have made it to Persia and back in his short 30 year life span? I mean it's not like he could fly there.
+The fact that it takes place in Coney Island. Really? Coney Island? That's what you're gonna go with. He's gonna go from Paris, which has some of the most beautiful architecture, some of the best views, a beautiful city, to CONEY ISLAND? First of all, why would he go to America? It's not like he has friends there. Or anywhere. But out of all the places he could pick, why America? We know he's probably been to Persia. But why not England? Or Switzerland? Or Belgium? No one would look for him in Belgium...(Why do I pick on Belgium? Because as Hugh Laurie says, they're small.) It would be easier for him to disappear on a continent which house people that speak more the 2 languages rather than in a country where the citizens have problem speaking one. Or disappear to Asia, he could probably roam around and never be found out again. But if America is where he wants, then out of all the places he could go, why CONEY ISLAND? It says that he owns his own carnival called "Phantasma"...really? A carnival? It is said that he was in a cage at a traveling show before he escaped if we're taking the musical to be canon. If that's the case, then why in all things holy would he want to own a show of his own? Does it seem like he would be a good business man? That this business would be something he would be interested in at all? The way he's portrayed in the musical seems like all he cares about is music and Christine, there are no little boy aspirations to own a carnival of his own. He probably had horrible experiences at that show, I mean he escaped from it, didn't he? He didn't stay and have a grand ol' time being locked in a cage.
+The fact that Madame Giry and Meg helped him escape. I know it's convenient to have characters already know about him from the first musical but they never struck me as the type to actually want to get involved with the Phantom at all. Madame Giry helped Raoul get to a certain point underground but then said, "This is as far as I dare go..." and left him right quick. Meg made it all the way down there but she was just curious. And Meg and Madame Giry seem to have a pretty close and caring relationship. Why then would Madame Giry ever sell Meg off as a prostitute to make money for a guy she doesn't have any connection to? Doesn't she care about her daughter? And then Meg being jealous of Christine, she doesn't have ANY connection to the Phantom. It doesn't make sense. It wasn't like he was speaking to her in her dreams or tried seducing her and found out she had like a horrible voice or something and then decided "F*** that" and moved on. I doubt he even knew who she was.
+Raoul being a drunk and a gambler with no love for Christine. Okay, just to get this straight, I'm not a Christine/Raoul shipper or a Christine/Erik shipper. I just go with whatever the actual story says. He may be a fop, pompous and not as passionate but give the guy some slack. If there was one thing that was undeniable, it's that he loved Christine. He had to, to compete at all with the Phantom. He had to be sweet, endearing, stable, the light side of love, everything the Phantom seemed to lack. So for him to be angry all the time, a drunk and a gambler, goes against his character and sells him short. The audience has to believe that they are in love. While we're obviously siding with the Phantom, we have to understand why she leaves him. Only someone worthy can be the "other man" or else we wouldn't even consider him as the other side of this triangle and then the whole story would sort of implode on itself. Every time he would say "I love you" or "Don't throw your life away for my sake," the audience would just laugh.
+Christine loving the Phantom and having a child with him. The only way this story works is if Phantom's love for Christine is unrequited. You have to pity the man and understand why she can't be with him. There are many different kinds of love and I think the kind of love she had for the Phantom was not a romantic one. Actually I don't think she loved him at all. I think she pitied him in the end but pity isn't love. She made her choice, and it was with Raoul. I don't like how they changed that part of the musical to make a smoother transition between it and the sequel. Really, it's contrary to the words they are singing. Christine is angry at that part. She doesn't understand why the Phantom has such an infatuation with her or why he's doing all these things to hurt her now. She had never given him any such reason for this abuse or a sign that she loved him back. Those hypnotized scenes during "Music of the Night" don't count. Every time afterward she is scared of him or in awe of him. She knows she could never return the amount of intensity he has when it comes to her. And she and Raoul have a past together. So when she leaves the Phantom in the Final Lair scene it's feeling of relief that she can just leave all this behind. When she comes to return the ring she is not crying her eyes out and needing Raoul to physically take her away, it's more of a look of pity, of a returning of something she cannot possibly receive. And then she hurries away and lives her life! She doesn't have a son with the Phantom...how was that even...when did that even occur? If she can't look at the man without his mask on, how did she do something that requires physical intimacy? That is one thing that annoyed me about Kay's book. Christine goes back to visit the Phantom who is on his deathbed, the result of years of drug addiction and she somehow conceives a child with him. On his deathbed. How did they possibly get it on? He's supposed to be dying, and I don't know about you but I thought sex took energy. Energy he doesn't have...while he's DYING. Anyway, even in Leroux's original novel Erik tells her that he knows she loves Raoul. So even the Phantom in his rage induced delusions could see it. ...argh.
+The music was...not ALW's best work. There isn't anything exciting about the music. It's actually very boring stuff and very repetitive. It's been done before, it doesn't need to be done again, to such a horrible plot too. The Coney Island Waltz was one phrase over and over again and I don't need to hear it over and over again. I just wanted it to be over and then the title song "Love Never Dies"...dear Lord in heaven...Even if you have training it's difficult to sing. After a while it just sound like screeching. I don't know what ALW was thinking when he started composing these melodies but sometimes the human ear needs to rest from the highnotes or else you feel like your nose is going to start bleeding or your eyeballs will burst or something from the pressure. And for every song that "Christine" sings, she always has the most ear splitting high notes. In Phantom of the Opera, he knew how to utilize those highnotes as triumphant moments like at the end of "Think of Me," to show that Christine is actually an amazing singer like at the end of "Phantom of the Opera" or moments where there needs to be clarity like "Yet in his eyes..." or emotional moments like at the end of "Wishing you were somehow here again" not for the whole damn song. Which is how it is for "Love Never Dies" at least during the extensive and very long chorus section. In other songs too like "Once Upon Another Time" her whole part is extremely high as well as in "Beneath a Moonless Sky". The songs are TOO operatic in my opinion and I'm not one to say that since I love love love classical music but it just doesn't fit with the setting and how can half the songs be operatic and yet the other half be carnival music? At least with "Phantom" they were all in an opera house so it makes more sense and the songs balanced on a fine line between too opera and too musical theater. I would even argue that the original musical had actual songs that were all musical theater and less opera with just hints of opera to set the tone like with the addition of the made up Operas "Hannibal" and "Il Muto".
This is going to get sort of technical--I've noticed that ALW likes to reuse musical phrases. Much of his music is a repetition of specific phrases. (This means I've listened to this musical a LOT to notice). For example, "Music of the Night" if you actually sing it, it's a very repetitive song. There are about five verses, three times to sing something like a chorus and two bridges or in letter terms it would look something like this: AABCABCABB1. It's long and if you're actually singing it, it can get kind of boring without any acting behind it. But when you watch a good actor take the song and put everything behind it, you forget about the repetitive nature of the song and just go with it. Which is how it is in the original musical. Take a similar type of song like "Til I Hear You Sing" from Love Never Dies and it's extremely boring. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty good song, but it takes way too long to build to any sort of climax, especially at the snail's pace everyone seems to sing it. "Music of the Night" there's a peak in the song by the first "C"and then a second one by the second "C" which takes you on a roller coaster of emotion. "Til I Hear You Sing" starts off really slowly to save all the emotion for the end but by that time I'm already sleeping. Three verses and a chorus goes by before any sort of emotional stirring goes on. But in the original musical ALW puts in all of these hints of beautiful melodies on top of the songs. In opera terms you would call them Recitativos, the sections before the Arias start that are just sung dialogue. A lot of times they are really beautiful melody snippets and ALW puts those in too which shake up a score that could be, if not careful, extremely repetitive. Parts like "Yet in his eyes..." or "Twisted every way" or "I have brought you...", the very beginning of "Point of No Return", "Little Lotte" etc. Even his overture, when I had listened to it again more closely, had added flourishes that I hadn't even heard before. A far more complex and intricate musical score than Love Never Dies. "Prima Donna" alone had seven different parts with people singing over each other and the melodies cascading in and out to give the listener a different type of musical experience. And it pains me to say these things because ALW is such a great composer who can write all kinds of music. It's amazing that he can go from Starlight Express and Jesus Christ Superstar which are more rock based music to Evita and Cats which are more traditional musical theater to freaking writing his own OPERA even if it was only a few snippets of it (Il Muto and Hannibal). To go from electric guitars to writing for a pipe organ! I mean only this man could do it. The amount of talent he has always astonishes me. So to go from that to writing "Bathing Beauty"...is extremely sad. (And supposedly the Phantom composed the little gem that is "Bathing Beauty"...he would have rathered skewer his ear drums than compose that sort of musical drivel.)
+The casting--well people know how I feel about Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess. I must say that Ramin has an amazing range though. He truly can go all over the place on the scale but how many times do I have to say it? The Phantom is a TENOR. He has a beautiful voice and has a great range but I still think that his voice should be a tenor voice. So to write a song for the Phantom where most of the notes are low...I don't know. It's just wrong to me. I know a lot of people say that Ramin is a baritenor but I think he sounds best at the lower notes that have some power behind them rather than higher notes. He's always a bit thin at the higher notes or he blasts them out and gets off-key which I don't like. And he's not a classically trained singer which I also don't like. I can hear it in his voice how he uses his throat more than his diaphragm. He's better than Gerard Butler (of course a lot of people are better than Butler...but I digress) but he isn't as polished as the Phantom's voice should be. He's supposed to be pitch-perfect and have a bell-like clarity which Karimloo does not have.
And Sierra Boggess's voice is just too screechy for me. Of course, with those songs it's easier to be. She did redeem herself with the acting though so that's good. Just not a fan of her singing.
Ugh. This musical just makes me so annoyed. It's like he just threw out his original one and I hate it when people try to change something that is so great already. It gives me all sorts of evil glee to know that it will never come to Broadway. Good for you Broadway, give that theater space to a musical that is actually good and leave this show to die.
