Saturday, January 31, 2026
A Night at the Opera
This week I fulfilled my dreams as an eight year old by attending a performance of Phantom of the Opera. The new national tour of the Andrew Lloyd Webber classic based on the original production design, direction, and staging, thank you very much. (There was a Maury Yeston's Phantom incident when I was a pre-teen, I fear.) Now, you may be shocked that I somehow have not seen this already in the now forty years it has been in existence, but I was essentially raised as a Depression baby who would not waste money on frivolities like professional haircuts, much less New York theater. And then by the time I had my own disposable income I had to pretend I was sophisticated and spent my entertainment budget on four-and-a-half-hour Handel operas and such. Also I saw the movie version with Gerard Butler, which I feel certain took years off my life.
Anyway, with apologies to Langston Hughes, this particular dream deferred did not explode. Unless you count the actual explosions that occur throughout the show. (The Phantom is a bit of a close hand magic aficionado, it seems.) Even at two hours and thirty-five minutes of song and dance and largely inaudible dialogue, I was not bored. There was always something to look at, whether it was a giant prop elephant or an endlessly descending staircase or a gondola apparently furnished by Pier One or Christine's father's grave that the Phantom pops out of for some reason. And that chandelier! It is truly a shame they do not give out Tonys for fixtures. It rose, it fell, it shook violently in place, it flickered its lights on and off in sequence. The human performers were less animated by contrast. (Though they were in fact very good.)
At this point, it seems ungenerous and unnecessary to say that much of the show, if scrutinized, actually does not make sense. Or that the score is a bit florid and lands at only number four on my ranking of ALW shows, and likely does not make my top 25 overall. The point is that it has entertainment value, which I would even put in all caps if it did not seem shouty. The crowd went absolutely wild, even the elderly couple down the row that had brought binoculars (not opera glasses, like what appeared to be hunting binoculars, and not one pair, but two), and I was right there with them. I would see it again. Although i would probably pee during "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again," as that intermission bathroom line was truly killer.
