#oh hey POTO Italy starts today

[glassprism]

HELLO! I've started noticing random lyric changes in bootlegs of Broadway/West End Phantom... is there a timeline to why these changes occurred? Randomly? Is there any rhyme or reason? i.e. "Christine are you alright" in 2023 or the order of Masquerade lyrics switching in 2014 (?) or Bravi vs Brava. Just curious!

That's a pretty tall order, but I'll do my best! But there is definitely a rhyme and reason to it all, you just have to follow the timeline while taking into account that there will also be differences between productions and between actors as well. Keep in mind too that especially in its early days, it's not uncommon for a show to be tinkered with and it's lyrics altered as they get it running.

The first difference (if we don't count the Sydmonton production which was more of a concept production, but you can read about some lyric differences here) come between the original London production when it opened and the original London cast recording. There's already a difference in the 'Think of Me' lyrics, with the production opening with the lines, "Fly away, but when you lie awake" while the cast recording simply repeats, "We never said our love was evergreen", among other things. Furthermore, the London production had an extra line for Raoul in 'Little Lotte', where he says, in response to Christine talking about the Angel of Music, "No one could have sung the way you did tonight without a little help from him." By 1987 this line was cut, I assume because it's a tad redundant.

Many of the initial lyric changes came from 1988 Broadway transfer, such the changes to 'Think of Me', adding more lines for Piangi in 'Notes I', changing 'Wandering Child' from a trio to a duet, altering some lines in 'Point of No Return', flipping a line or two in 'Down Once More', and so on and so on. None of them make massive changes to the story or plot, but they are alterations all the same. You can read about all those changes here.

One more important addition was made in 1989, either for the opening of the Los Angeles sit-down production or the Toronto one, and that was the reprise of the line, "Help me to say goodbye" in 'Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again', which was added to end the song on a more powerful note. Since this was added in 1989, if you listen to any international productions that began before this period (such as Japan, Vienna, or the original Stockholm production), they will not have that additional lyric.

From here things start to get funky. Starting as early as 1990 in the London production, the production began using alternate lyrics for 'Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again', which began with the line, "Three long years..." There were used up until around mid-2002, when they were changed back to the more common, "Passing bells and sculpted angels". However, one or two productions that based their libretto off of London's would also use it, such as the Dutch production, and it would make a surprise return in the restaged US tour.

One other change I can think of came in 2006 with the Las Vegas production. Most of the changes in Vegas were because the show was cut down to a 90-minute, one act show, so most of them did not apply to other productions, but they did alter two words in 'Think of Me', going from, "Think of August when the trees were green" to "Think of August when the world was green". This is notable mainly because the line started showing up sporadically in other productions, such as the 25th anniversary concert (probably because SIerra Boggess was an original Vegas Christine) and Broadway.

From 2014 onward, another change: the song 'Wandering Child', which had been sung as a duet everywhere in the world except London, some of the UK tours, and some non-replicas, was changed back to the trio, and this was enforced across all productions except non-replicas, which can probably do what they want. That being said, there were still some lyric differences between London and other productions worldwide, which I go over here.

Finally, when the show was revived in London and reopened on Broadway after the COVID shutdown, there were multiple lyrics changed. The most famous is the one for 'Angel of Music', done to accommodate Christines of color but which underwent several changes in the first few months, but there are changes scattered everywhere, though some were reverted a few months later, which was just very funny to me. I go over it a bit here.

All right, got all the major timeline changes down? Great! Because now we're going to add another layer of complexity: production differences! Because as you might have noted, some productions have different lyrics between them, or will omit or add lyrics. The most notable are the differences between London vs. Broadway, and this is where you get things like the different 'Masquerade' lyrics (London has one version, Broadway has another that tends to be used worldwide), the use of "viper" vs. "vixen", Christine's hopes lying "shattered" or "murdered", and many others. I go over quite a bit of it here. Unfortunately, when the London production was revived, most of these differences were lost.

More changes came with the 25th anniversary concert, most of which were to accommodate the changed setting. These were then used in the restaged UK and US tours, but with even more alterations, with some again being done because of differences in the staging or props but others just because. I go over it here, and an additional one here, and I also discuss an old line being brought back to the concert here.

And finally, once you have all the timeline and production differences down, you have to account for the fact that in a few places, actors have a choice in what lyrics they can sing. One of the most famous is whether the Phantom chooses to sing "far-reaching gaze" or "fathering gaze" in 'Wandering Child', something that goes back all the way to the 1990s. Heck, some actors, like Hugh Panaro, will switch the word depending on their run or their mood.

And then when you get into "bravo" vs. "bravi" vs. "brava" (or "bravissima" vs. "bravissimi"), I can only assume it's a whole combination of the above. Keep in mind that both Raoul and the Phantom say variations of those words so it gets pretty complicated pretty fast. Officially, Raoul should say "bravo" and most do, but then in the Canadian production, whether due to direction or tradition, they almost all say "brava". Meanwhile, some librettos, such as the original and the Las Vegas one, state that the Phantom should sing, "Bravi, bravi, bravissimi", but later librettos, the 2004 film, or the RAH concert states it should be, "Brava, brava, bravissima". I wondered if they might be a little more consistent in the Romance-language productions (Brazil, France and the French dub, Italian dub, Mexico, Romania, Spain), but nope, it's all over the place there, which leads me to think that they don't actually care that much - except, naturally, for the Italian dub, which has Raoul congratulating Christine with, "Brava!" and the Phantom congratulating Christine with, "Brava, brava, bravissima".

So we'll see what they do in the actual Italian production! Don't let us down, Bradley Jaden and Ramin Karimloo.