After watching Love Never Dies with a friend of mine months ago… I realized that I never got around to watching the 25th Anniversary Concert / Production of Phantom of the Opera. So I borrowed her DVD completely forgetting two things:
1: her version was a non-U.S. DVD region
2: I already purchased my own DVD in the U.S. region

So since I had already watched Love Never Dies with the Australian cast… I had a bad habit of comparing the Australian cast to their Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary counterpart roles. Interesting thing to note is that three of the roles in the 25th Anniversary Production of Phantom of the Opera were portrayed by the same actors that were in the original West End production of Love Never Dies when it opened:

There is no denying it, Ramin and Sierra are absolutely amazing vocally and character-wise in their respective roles. Sierra’s voice is absolutely exquisite as Christine, she gives that innocent iridescence to the role and provides the growth necessary as she makes a choice between the two men that she had come to realized that she has loved in her young life.

Here is Sierra as Christine as she slowly acclimates herself as the lead soprano in the aria “Think of Me”

And again when she runs to her father’s family tomb to “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again”

Ramin is strong and powerful and is able to give that sense of vulnerability when the one thing he has ever wanted he realizes that he would never have and let’s Christine go in the end. There is something about Ramin that is just absolutely mesmerizing and there is no denying it.

The song from Phantom of the Opera is should give me chills no matter how many times I have listened to the production is “Music of the Night” and for some reason Ramin sings this in such a way that I feel like I am hearing it new for the first time:

And of course now that I have shown videos featuring Sierra and Ramin separately… how about a duet?

Did you think I was going to post the title song? Did ya? Ya did, didn’t ya?

Anyway…

Unfortunately, Madame Giry doesn’t sing much in Phantom of the Opera, but the imposing figure is as scary as always. I mean look at her! Would you want to cross her? I sure as hell wouldn’t.

Speaking of overlapping dialogue / solos and people conversing with one person then another, etc…

It would seem that it is a formula that Andrew Lloyd Webber especially enjoys for this particular series of musicals.

But I digress, this post is about the 25th Anniversary Production of Phantom of the Opera as opposed to Love Never Dies… besides I already wrote a post about the latter.

I remember when much younger I was watching Phantom of the Opera on stage while it was on tour through my hometown. I was in love with the sets, the staging, the lights, the dark feel and tone of the whole thing. There was just something about it that drew me into the pain and unrequited love that the Phantom had for Christine… as wrong as that one-sided romance was.

For the 25th Anniversary Production I expected the staging to be absolutely fantastic with a far fuller sound, etc… and this production did not disappoint, not in the slightest. The sets were amazing, and I couldn’t help but watch the production over again… I can see and understand the allure and what draws people to keep coming back over and over again.

But then again when you have an absolutely breathtaking musical, complete with stellar singing / acting, great costuming, etc… you can’t help but have a production that people would want to come back to see over and over again.