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";s:4:"text";s:8851:"What one finds instead is a characteristic Lloyd Webber project - long on pop professionalism and melody, impoverished of artistic personality and passion - that the director Harold Prince, the designer Maria Bjornson and the mesmerizing actor Michael Crawford have elevated quite literally to the roof. The character of Raoul, Christine's nominal lover, has always been a fatuous twerp, but at least in the 1925 version, Christine is attracted to the Phantom only until she removes his mask. To look on the bright side first, The Phantom of the Opera is a terrific technical achievement. As you listen you find yourself wondering where you've heard it before. It is unlikely that Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera would be read today if it were not for the ways that other artists have adapted it to visual media. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. The best study guide to The Phantom of the Opera on the planet, from the creators of SparkNotes. Nevertheless he seems to be borrowing from better sources, and he has much greater sophistication about putting it all together. A critical overview of The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, including historical reactions to the work and the author. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Reviews of The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. "The Phantom Of The Opera" is romantic musical theater hokum in the grand manner - hokum cordon blue - and it justifies the feverish buildup that has given it a $16,500,000 advance. Wouldn't get past Simon Cowell, let alone Rodgers & Hammerstein. Leroux uses the operatic setting in The Phantom of the Opera to use music as a device for foreshadowing. Ebert's Great Movie review of "The Phantom of the Opera" (1925) is online at rogerebert.com. If you want scenery and costumes, sight gags and sight thrills, they're all there—$8.5 million worth of them—on the aptly named Majestic stage. But part of the pleasure of moviegoing is pure spectacle -- of just sitting there and looking at great stuff and knowing it looks terrific. (I have the same difficulty with "Waltzing Matilda.") He has a sure sense for the macabre, going back to his 1987 teenage vampire movie "The Lost Boys" and certainly including his "Flatliners" (1990), about the medical students who induce technical death. This has been, I realize, a nutty review. The scarlet of the Phantom's cape acts like a bloodstain against the monochrome cityscape and Christine's pale skin, and she rises to an occasion her rival lovers have not earned. I concede that Emmy Rossum, who is only 18 and sings her own songs and carries the show, is a phenomenal talent, and I wish her all the best -- starting with better material. When Leroux's story first appeared as a newspaper serial in 1909, it was popular enough to be carried in papers in France, Great Britain, and the United States, but the subsequent release as a novel was only modestly successful. It was considered just another thrill story by a competent writer who churned out entertainment stories for a living. It has become such a product of modern popular art that its original inspiration, "the loathsome gargoyle who lives in hell but dreams of heaven," has come dangerously close to becoming an institution, like Dracula, who was also scary a long, long time ago. There wasn't much Schumacher could have done with the story or the music he was handed, but in the areas over which he held sway, he has triumphed. This Study Guide consists of approximately 28 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - The question at this point is whether "The Phantom of the Opera" is even intended to be frightening. Will three chills, plus candles that swarm like fireflies, do you? It's no opera (not with those bland melodies, not with lyric phrases like "Be My Guest" and "Make My Night"), it's not a display case of serious acting, it's not humor (not even self-mockery). Technically it is a piece of impeccably crafted musical theater, with theme, music and staging in perfect accord. Chris Colfer Talks About His Book 'A Tale of Witchcraft', VIRTUE Starring Joshua Henry and Margaret Colin to Stream on BOD, Kristin Chenoweth Performs at Rebel Girls United Rally, Best Moves for Strength and Fitness from MFF's Harold Gibbons, Marie's Crisis Pianists Will Resume Daily Sets on Facebook. That's not my job. "I don't know $#!+ about the music," he told me. It has become such a product of modern popular art that its original inspiration, "the loathsome gargoyle who lives in hell but dreams of heaven," has come dangerously close to becoming an institution, like Dracula, who was also scary a long, long time ago. The 19th century period spectacle, scenic legerdemain, soaring melodies and exceptional singing are at the service of an involving and piquantly offbeat love story, all of it staged with brilliantly organized flair by Harold Prince, back in top form. Why do so many love this musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, which is the longest-running show on Broadway? She uses the example of how Leroux introduces Danse Macabre which means "dance of death" in the gala scene which foreshadows the graveyard scene that comes later where the Phantom plays the fi… But the songs are dirges or show-lounge retreads; the dialogue laboriously makes its archaic points, and meanwhile, the movie looks simply sensational. 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