Вот, специально для Александра, уоторый считает, что РОТО устарел и уже так не привлекает публику, откопала в Нью-Йорк Пост рецензию 2004 года на спектакль с Хью Панаро. Что бы не было офф-топа, замечу, что его Призрак сравнивается с майкловским и по всему видно, что Original cast по прежнему - эталон.
FOR a show that turned 16 last week, "The Phantom of the Opera" seems band- box fresh.
Harold Prince's powerful operatic-style staging is terrific, remaining taut and shipshape, while the show still acquires just the right style, ornate but quaint, from the late Maria Bjornson's wonderful production design.
Add to this Andrew Lloyd Webber's sweeping and lush pastiche of a score - covering all appropriate bases from Meyerbeer to Gilbert & Sullivan - and the story (adroitly taken by Charles Hart from Gaston Leroux's classic Edwardian novel) and you've got a blockbuster.
So it's hardly any wonder the show has so far grossed more than $3.2 billion worldwide. And they haven't even made the film yet!
I hadn't seen "Phantom" for a couple of years or so, and had almost forgotten how marvelously effective it is.
This is not simply one of the longest-running Broadway musicals - it is, more important, one of the all-time best Broadway musicals. It delivers.
Since Michael Crawford first sang "The Music of the Night," there have been, not counting understudies, 10 other Phantoms - the presently ghostly occupant of the role, Hugh Panaro, is the first to make a return visitation.
He was the 10th Phantom and now, after a gap of nearly four years, has become the 12th.
He gives a fine performance, lacking perhaps the unearthly yet sexual seductiveness of the role's originator, Michael Crawford, and stressing more the pathos of the ugly and unloved.
Christine - the part that made Sarah Brightman, Lloyd Webber's then-wife, famous - is now played by Sandra Joseph (the alternate on Monday nights and Wednesday afternoons is Julie Hanson), who has a fine voice and much the same wide-eyed innocence that Brightman herself once offered.
Adding its own luster is the rest of the cast - including John Cudia as the solid, even stolid hero, Raoul; Patricia Phillips as that gushing diva, Carlotta; and Jeff Keller and George Lee Andrews as the long-running managers, the first having been in the show since its opening.
And, naturally, don't forget the chandelier. As if you would.
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
Majestic Theater. 247 W. 44th St., (212) 239-6200.