lazmushsyn

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I am soooo blind.

Top 5 mislabeled photos

There’s some Phantom photos that shows up mislabeled time and time again. These are probably the ones I see the most:

“Ramin Karimloo as Raoul”: Given that the Christine is Rachel Barrell, she never played opposite Ramin Karimloo as Raoul. This is instead Ramin’s successor Oliver Thornton, confirmed by the souvenir brochure.

“Hugh Panaro as Raoul”: An old mislabeling on the internet has lead this to appear time and time again as Hugh Panaro. But it is Björn Olsson from when he played the role in Hamburg. The solid sideburns is a good clue. This photo is also a scan from a Hamburg brochure.

“Gerónimo Rauch as the Phantom”: I blame this one on the official social media team. They put up the photo as Rauch at the official webpage, and also reposted this in social media. So people are only quoting what should be a reliable source. But it is Scott Davies - and luckilly the souvenir brochures gets it right, with his name underneath.

“Sierra Boggess as Christine”: Close, but no cigar… This appeared at the Broadway FB page as a “guess who this Christine is?” kinda post. I think 80% answered Sierra Boggess, some with an additional comment of “I’d recognize those eyes anywhere”, and although the moderators later updated that it’s JULIE HANSON and not Sierra Boggess, the mislabeling somehow stuck.

“Ramin Karimloo as the Phantom”: This one is in all possible ways a tricky one. You can’t really see the actor, only the mask, and it’s the style Ramin K. wore. But the photographer is Catherine Ashmore, and her first West End cast was David Shannon and Gina Beck. Hence: David Shannon.

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I created a Discord server about Hugh Panaro.

See if anyone be interested in.

https://discord.gg/qstNX6CH4W

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？？？

Danny Burstein says.

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I think so too.

Do you find that Ted Keegan sounds like Hugh Panaro? Just heard an audio of the former and thought it was Hugh! Are there any actors in your opinion that sound like Hugh?

Yeah, he did when I listened to audio of him, occasionally to the point where I would forget and think I was listening to Panaro. The inflections were at times uncanny in their similarities. I think him and possibly Franc D’Ambrosio reminded me a lot of Panaro, vocally anyway, though their actual interpretations differed somewhat.

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For your information.

Susan Kay's Phantom

Japanese play cast information：

（Yes, there is a fansub group which is going on making subtitles and works on part 2 2012 now but it will be done after at least one year. I dont know any Japanese, and another person translated it）：

PART I Phantom - The Untold Story （2015）- The Unkissed Child

Erik：Yamamoto Yoshiki/ Matsumoto Shinya

Madeleine：Sekido Hirokazu

Father Mansart：Makishima Shinich

Mademoiselle Marie Perrault: Ogata Kazuya

Professor Guizot：Kuramoto Tetsu

Midwife：Suzuki Tomohisa

Dr. Etienne Barye：Funato Shinji

Javert：Okuda Tsutomu

Miya：Yamamoto Yoshiki/ Matsumoto Shinya

Orka：Miyama Hirotaka

Dunicha：Tanaka Shunsuke

Gypsy old woman：Fujiwara Keiji

Giovanni：Kasahara Hiroo/ Soze Kaiji

Luciana：Kubo Yuji

Gillo Calandrino：Nakahara Hiroyuki

Isabella：Miyama Hirotaka

Others：Matsumura Taiichirou/ Ishitobi Koji/Eguchi Shohei/Etc.

PART II Phantom - The Untold Story （2015）- The Kiss of Christine

Erik：Yamamoto Yoshiki/Kasahara Hiroo

Christine：Kubo Yuji

Raoul：Soze Kaiji

Dr. Etienne Barye：Ishitobi Koji

Young Erik：Matsumoto Shinya

Madeleine：Sekido Hirokazu

Father Mansart：Makishima Shinich

Professor Guizot：Kuramoto Tetsu

Javert：Okuda Tsutomu

Luciana：Kubo Yuji

Giovanni：Kasahara Hiroo/ Soze Kaiji

Shah：Matsumura Taiichirou

Reza：Miyama Hirotaka

Darius：Eguchi Shohei

Mirza Taqui Khan：Funato Shinji

The Lady：Suzuki Tomohisa

Mademoiselle Marie Perrault：Ogata Kazuya

Garnier：Nakahara Hiroyuki

Madame Giry：Tanaka Shunsuke

Poligny：Fujiwara Keiji

Meg：Matsumoto Shinya

Carlotta：Makishima Shinich

And others etc.

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Lestat the Musical/ The Vampire Lestat comparisons 3/??

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Favourite Musical Performers: 5/???

Hugh Panaro

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An Interview on Phantom, with Susan Kay

Back in 1993 I wrote a fan letter to Susan Kay, and asked if she’d be willing to give me an interview for the Phantom Appreciation Society fanzine. So this is the interview she gave me, by letter, published in “Masquerade” issue 4, Spring 1994. (Masquerade and Beneath the Mask were the same zine, it just changed name on issue 5 as I discovered there was already a musicals zine called Masquerade.)

AN INTERVIEW WITH SUSAN KAY

When and how did you first become interested in the story or the Phantom?

My first contact with the Phantom was a chance purchase of the soundtrack of the Lloyd Webber musical. The music took me to the London production and the show took me to the original Gaston Leroux novel, which I hoped would satisfy the immense appetite I had developed for further knowledge of the character. My reaction to the book was a mixture of disappointment and fascination. It told me so much less than I had hoped for, and yet the little there was intrigued me even further: the odd paragraph here, the throwaway line there which mentioned the Phantom’s earlier life. Increasingly the last two pages of Leroux’s book began to read to me like the plot of another story, a story which refused to go away and clamoured ever more incessantly to be written.

Do you think that Leroux’s novel was based on a true story?

It’s very tempting to think so.

How many times have you seen the Lloyd Webber show?

I’ve seen it ten times in all. Six times in London, twice in Los Angeles, and twice in Hamburg where I was the guest of the German Phantom, Thomas Schulze.

Do you still see it?

The last time I saw the musical in England was in London in April 1991. The following day “Phantom” was announced Romantic Novel of the Year at the RNA awards luncheon, so perhaps that particular show was a good omen for me.

Who is your favourite Phantom?

Michael Crawford was wonderful, and I found Dave Willetts very powerful. Anyone who has the opportunity should try to see Thomas Schulze in the Hamburg production.

How did you create the character of Erik in your book?

When I came to examine the character myself I came to the conclusion that the real tragedy of his life was not his disfigurement. but his complete inability to accept that his mother had ever loved him. This fatal belief warped his whole existence and rendered him incapable of recognizing love even when it was staring him in the face, whether it was the first infatuation of a young girl, the dark desire of an older woman, the affection of a friend, or the real admiration of those who came to work with or serve him in one capacity or another. This idea became central to the whole storyline, leading inexorably to one tragedy after another. Certainly his life was shaped by the rejection of society, horrific experience and some cruel twists of fate, but ultimately this was always a character relentlessly set on a course of self-destruction. I also felt that, in spite of the terrible crimes he commits during the course of his life, the Phantom was neither a psychopath nor an inherently evil man. In order to make that last act of self-sacrifice for the sake of love there must always have been an essential core of good within the character. Leroux himself allowed his Phantom certain traits of kindness, humour and civilized behaviour. I felt that essentially this was a fiercely proud man who came to desire his own human dignity to an almost insane degree and would go to any lengths to protect it. Couple this with the unstable temperament that often accompanies pure genius and you have a very dangerous man, a man capable of killing for a real or imagined slight even the people he most desperately loves. Those attracted to him are always rightly aware of an underlying fear, and I believe it is this mixture of attraction and fear which is responsible for his powerful sexuality. It’s what separates the Phantom from Raoul and all the other nice young boys like him who offer a safe mundane existence to a woman, but no thrills or chills.

What was the most difficult part of the book to write?

The first two sections dealing with his childhood were the most straight-forward. The sections from Rome through to the building of the Opera House were very demanding from the point of research, some of which was obscure and hard to obtain. But the section I found most hard to actually write was the part of the story which directly overlaps Leroux’s. It’s very difficult to trespass nonchalantly over someone else’s story, particularly when it has been adapted so many times in different mediums. I had to dispense with a lot of inhibitions, the chief of which was “"How can I ever dare to meddle with this?”

What would you have done if you were Christine?

I think I would have had to do what she did in the book, and go back that one last time to make things right. It would have been a terrible thing to live with otherwise: it would have destroyed both her and Raoul in the end.

See also: the original UK paperback cover art for Kay’s Phantom, and some nice tarot-style art from a magazine at the time.

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"Strange, but whenever I looked at him I found myself remembering that Lucifer himself had been an angel before he fell." (Susan Kay)

-Through cataclysm, Andreas Birath

- Wedding of heaven and hell, Roberto Ferri

"I could kill anyone tonight, Daroga. If the Holy Virgin herself was to appear before me I could put a dagger through her heart without a moment's compunction! I no longer have a foot in either camp; I have made my choice. Like Lucifer, I prefer to reign in hell." (Susan Kay)

- The fallen Angel, Alexander Cabanel

"Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves." (Milan Kundera)

- Fligeroffizier, Karl Alexander Wilke

“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel …” (Mary Shelley)

"There, out in the darkness

A fugitive running Fallen from God

Fallen from grace...

...And if you fall as Lucifer fell

You fall in flame!" (Stars)

-Paradise lost, Gustave Doré

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I’m playing the Phantom in my High School Production of Phantom of the Opera! What is your biggest tip for playing the role?

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【Hugh Panaro has sung for this. Hope more people can hear it~~~~~~~😭😭😭😭】

Babes In Toyland 2001 Studio Cast (Never Released)

https://archive.org/details/babes-in-toyland-2001-studio-cast-never-released

(And by the way, this operetta has been on stage at Majestic Theater, Broadway, in 1905. Is that amazing?)

(I like it😭😭😭😭I really like it😭😭😭😭）

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moving

This was years and years ago, but I remember Phantom bootlegs being posted on MySpace (yeah, I'm that old), and there was one MOTN which was Hugh Panaro's last performance in '05 and apparently, you could see Sandra Joseph was actually crying. Can you see that or am I just imagining things?

Well, the video of Hugh Panaro’s last ‘Music of the Night’ (of his first run) has been posted here on YouTube. (The MySpace of the 2010s! Or not.) So you can take a look for yourself and see.

I’d heard about Sandra Joseph getting teary-eyed in the ‘Final Lair’ from the same performance and doing other stuff like kissing the ring before returning it, but I had not heard of her crying during MOTN. She does seem like she is going off the linked video, most noticeably right before the “floating, falling” part, though it might just be the blurriness of the video.