Phantom

We watched Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall, last night.  The full stage version was filmed  Sept, 2011, in honor of it's 25th anniversary.
                                                                 It was Brilliant!
It was majestically done and at the end Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber speaks and  brings on original cast members,  Phantom - Michael Crawford and Christine- Sarah Brightman, and there is a big sing along.

It was most fun sharing this musical with Laila.   She has seen the movie version- and likes it, but it's just so much better on stage...even if it's a stage recording.  The music is just so spine tingling.  The staging was beautiful and the performances, particularly that of Christine and the Phantom were incredible.

LOVED IT!.... we rented it from a Redbox..... $1.

I remember when Phantom came out 25 years ago.  We were dying to go, but with new babies, and little money we knew making it to NYC was out of the question.  When Phantom started playing in LA we new it was our one, fun chance to see it.  We went with Marcie and Gary, Sandy and Clark and Tami ( no Rob) to California..... I think that's right.....maybe others played with us, but my memory is getting bad.
 We played in Disney Land during the day and then saw Phantom at night.  I remember the traffic being bad and we were racing to the theatre.  We ran up the steps and got to our seats just barely before the ushers closed the door  for the first scene.  My heart was racing.  The theatre was dark and eery....then the chandelier got lifted from the stage to it's position over the audience, and I was sucked into the story.

It's a different story than the beautiful one of redeeming love found in Les Miz...but I still love it.  I know the Phantom is a murderer... I know he is crazy.... but I cry every time Christine shows him just a little bit of kindness and it changes him and his plans forever.

Kindness matters....that's what I take away from Phantom.