I feel there's a big 'show'/'tell' divide; LND keeps telling us that the Phantom is a tragic romantic figure, but from what it shows us of him we see mainly an unlikeable selfish character, who expresses contempt for his own shows (none of the 'cheap vaudeville trash' he has been writing can possibly equal the music he would create if Christine were in his possession) and performers, threatens Christine's child in order to blackmail her (Christine's child, who carries the blood of the woman he claims to adore -- but apparently that's irrelevant until he magically discovers that the boy might have his own unspeakably potent genes as well), betrays his one unselfish impulse within hours of making it (he consents to let Christine go free with the boy on condition that Gustave never finds out his secret, then almost immediately makes use of her promise to sing for him in order to trick Raoul into a bet with a foregone conclusion), and spends most of his time feeling sorry for himself despite the fact that he is now rich, famous, popular (by the end he even gets two women fighting over his favours!) and in total artistic control of his own performance space -- in other words he has succeeeded in getting practically everything he wanted in the previous musical.
But according to the way the musical presents it, the Phantom is always automatically in the right and anyone who opposes him -- Madame Giry complaining about their labours going unrewarded, Meg seeing her headline spot taken away from her unannounced, Christine telling him he lost all rights to any claim on her affections ten years ago, Raoul learning that Christine has lied to him about the Phantom's identity -- is automatically presented as being quite unreasonable.
The plot is not unworkable -- when considered as a tragedy. It's the moral it's attempting to draw that just doesn't convince.
And as I've remarked before, if you play the plot out from the point of view of Raoul's tragedy -- the miserable consciousness of having failed himself and her, the stimulus of the old enemy finally giving him the strength to confront his own demons and make the effort to bridge the gap, the vow of renewed love returned and the promise of a shared future, followed by Christine's response ("Hearts may get broken, love endures") condemning him in all innocence to a choice between heartbreak and dishonour, only for his attempt at renunciation to leave her unprotected when the Phantom's own faults come home to roost at the cost of her life... leaving him at the end of the play with no wife, no son, no patrimony, no honour, no hope, no future, and not even the past in which he had always believed -- it's an infinitely more interesting arc with a character who is presented as flawed but trying to struggle against those flaws, and who is doomed in the end (in a classic trope) by the tragic ignorance of his wife's actions: Christine has no idea that she is being asked to choose between leaving her marriage and breaking her word.
Meanwhile the Phantom's one big idea is that his music has some kind of hypnotic effect on Christine and that if he can get her to perform it then he will be able to reconquer her (despite everything she has undergone at his hands). Given her behaviour in "Phantom of the Opera" this belief may well be justified ;-) However, it's not a terribly admirable character trait...
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branchandroot
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Date: 2019-02-08 01:48 am (UTC)But according to the way the musical presents it, the Phantom is always automatically in the right and anyone who opposes him -- Madame Giry complaining about their labours going unrewarded, Meg seeing her headline spot taken away from her unannounced, Christine telling him he lost all rights to any claim on her affections ten years ago, Raoul learning that Christine has lied to him about the Phantom's identity -- is automatically presented as being quite unreasonable.
The plot is not unworkable -- when considered as a tragedy. It's the moral it's attempting to draw that just doesn't convince.
And as I've remarked before, if you play the plot out from the point of view of Raoul's tragedy -- the miserable consciousness of having failed himself and her, the stimulus of the old enemy finally giving him the strength to confront his own demons and make the effort to bridge the gap, the vow of renewed love returned and the promise of a shared future, followed by Christine's response ("Hearts may get broken, love endures") condemning him in all innocence to a choice between heartbreak and dishonour, only for his attempt at renunciation to leave her unprotected when the Phantom's own faults come home to roost at the cost of her life... leaving him at the end of the play with no wife, no son, no patrimony, no honour, no hope, no future, and not even the past in which he had always believed -- it's an infinitely more interesting arc with a character who is presented as flawed but trying to struggle against those flaws, and who is doomed in the end (in a classic trope) by the tragic ignorance of his wife's actions: Christine has no idea that she is being asked to choose between leaving her marriage and breaking her word.
Meanwhile the Phantom's one big idea is that his music has some kind of hypnotic effect on Christine and that if he can get her to perform it then he will be able to reconquer her (despite everything she has undergone at his hands). Given her behaviour in "Phantom of the Opera" this belief may well be justified ;-) However, it's not a terribly admirable character trait...