The Tulsa World's review of "Phantom of the Opera" won't appear in the paper until Monday -- or maybe Tuesday, depending on matters of available space and whether David Cook of "American Idol" did anything of note over the weekend.
But, for those of you who regularly peruse this blog -- Hello, darling wife! Hello, dear Mother! -- here's the upshot of what will appear...whenever it appears.
This is the "Phantom" to see.
We attended Friday night's performance, which was the official "media" night. We were encompassed by so many members of various broadcast organizations that I wondered if there was anyone left at some TV stations to present the 10 p.m. newscast.
But I digress.
This was the fifth "Phantom of the Opera" we've seen over the last dozen years, and it has without a doubt the best cast we've seen in this show.
Usually, the productions we've attended have had a weak Christine, a wooden Raoul, or a Phantom who made every line a sneer, and probably would have twirled the ends of his moustache in dastardly glee -- if the Phantom, you know, HAD a moustache.
That's not the case here. The trio of Richard Todd Adams as the Phantom, Marni Raab as Christine and Greg Mills as Raoul give these very familiar, very narrowly defined characters some surprising and pleasing depth and complexity.
It might be that, as Raab and Adams are recent additions to the cast, that the newness of being in these roles hasn't worn off, and their energy and enthusiasm has inspired those around them.
Or it might be that they're just very, very good at what they do, and are determined to give their best to whoever might be out there in the audience.
The physical production is still a spectacle in the best sense of the word. For a show that has been touring non-stop for more than 15 years, "The Phantom of the Opera" stills dazzles the senses.
And while many people take great delight in lambasting Andrew Lloyd Webber and his music, there is no way to deny that his score for "Phantom" is perfectly suited to the task at hand. My wife, who is more than familiar with "Phantom" and a former orchestral musician equally familiar with great music and what it can do to the emotions, at one point during the overture leaned over and said, "It still gives me goosebumps."
And it does -- that five-steps-down, five-steps-up figure works even when (as it was Friday night) it was muddied and weakened by the sound system (the rest of the evening, the sound was much better).
Tickets, by Tulsa standards, aren't cheap -- $25 to $75, depending on what night you attend and what section of the Chapman Music Hall you select -- but "The Phantom of the Opera" is something to be experienced, at least once. And this production is the one to see, because better than any other I've seen, it is the production that reveals the human heart beating beneath the layers of melodrama and theatricality that envelope "The Phantom of the Opera."
