Softly, Deftly, You-Know-Who Is Back Again
By Peter Marks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 25, 2007
Legend has it that there is a tiny village tucked away somewhere high in the Andes, where neither word nor strains of "The Phantom of the Opera" have ever reached.
That's right. A people who have no knowledge of the man with the large voice and the half mask. No experience of the falling chandelier. No understanding, even, of what is meant by the phrase "the music of the night."
Oh, the deprivation. Doubtless, an elite theatrical tactical team is at this very moment flying helicopters at altitude, searching, searching for this elusive enclave of potential seat-fillers. For it appears to be the sacred mission of "Phantom" -- a musical with 8,000 Broadway performances under its cape, and counting -- to perform this suite of lush Andrew Lloyd Webber songs for every man, woman and child on the planet.
In the meantime, "Phantom" is back in Washington for something like its 342nd visit, settling in for the next seven weeks at the Kennedy Center Opera House. Seven of the remaining 56 performances are already sold out, which not only indicates the show's marketing genius, but probably also ensures that if you don't catch it on this go-round, you'll get yet another chance. (And maybe before the Phantom scales the Andes.)
The road-show version that's taken over the Opera House is a standard-issue facsimile of the London and Broadway originals. Which is to say that longtime fans are likely to get their minimum annual requirement of this gooey romantic tale of a demon who turns a Parisian opera palace upside down for the sake of a pretty young chorus girl.
Neophytes, though, will be forgiven for being more than a little mystified by the show's extraordinary longevity. (The Broadway incarnation soon celebrates its 20th birthday.) What once was darkly melodic and kind of sexy now feels more like kitsch. Aside from a few moments of pulse-raising epiphany -- created largely by the Phantom of vocally powerful John Cudia -- the musical now seems to bide its time in an air of lugubriousness.
The show is burdened with a stately, lumbering pace and some stage effects that now look 20 years old. (Clunky case in point: The giant, lurching chandelier that is supposed to make such a stunning impact is guided anticlimactically into the arms of a pair of stagehands who are clearly visible to a Kennedy Center audience.) And the show's predilection for quoting and requoting its signature melodies -- from songs such as "Angel of Music" and "All I Ask of You" -- creates the sensory impression of standing in an elevator.
The actors are all more than competent, even if a few performances are swallowed up in the Opera House. In particular, the scenes in which the opera company officials and various others must sing over each other about the ominous notes they receive from the Phantom are all but unintelligible. On the other hand, Rebecca Judd's Madame Giry, the ballet mistress, and Kim Stengel's Carlotta, the opera diva, deliver robustly. Stengel, it must be noted, has had ample time to prepare: According to the program, she's played the role more than 4,000 times.
Marni Raab and Greg Mills make a serviceable pair as Christine Daae and her white knight, Raoul. The proceedings appreciably quicken whenever Cudia is on duty. Still, someone might want to tell the well-traveled Phantom that it's time to take a little more seriously all those brochures about assisted living that he's been tossing out.
