Five years ago yesterday, David Bowie lost his battle with cancer. I had been a fan for forty years at that point, and I felt as though I’d lost a family member.
This song is one I hadn’t thought of in a while, but that I absolutely loved. Please enjoy this audio track from a live performance of the lovely “Strangers When We Meet.”
Hi, everyone. If you enjoyed my Seen Through the Phantom’s Eyes books, you may want to investigate this blogathon. Keep your hand at the level of your eyes!
“‘I had, no doubt, to do with a terrible, eccentric person, who, in some mysterious fashion, had succeeded in taking up his abode there, under the Opera house, five stories below the level of the ground. And the voice, the voice which I had recognized under the mask, was on it’s knees before me was a man! And I began to cry … The man, still kneeling, must have understood the cause of my tears, for he said, “It is true, Christine! … I am not an Angel, nor a genius, nor a ghost … I am Erik!”‘”
If these words cause a special feeling inside of you that is only felt by a true Phan, you have come to the right place! What I am about to announce is every Phans’ greatest phantasy, a blogathon dedicated entirely to all things phantasmic! Now, stay away from trapdoors, beware of shadows, and…
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As I looked at the rest of the challenge days, I realized that the remaining questions didn’t apply to me so much. Also, since it’s my blog, I can choose to combine them … so here we are on the last post.
For those unfamiliar with fandom lingo, that’s pairing worship … and I don’t really go in for it. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, each actor brings something new and different to the role. So, you won’t see me doing the Rierra (Ramin and Sierra) or Gemmy (Gerard and Emmy) or anything similar.
I have a number of friends who make fan art. I don’t have a favorite piece.
Again, for those unfamiliar with fandom lingo, this is something that is true in your head of a particular piece of fiction, but not true in the work itself.
Have I mentioned my Seen Through the Phantom’s Eyes series? It takes place after the events of Leroux’s novel, and introduces opera equestrienne Claire Delacroix into the Phantom’s tale. It’s available at the usual booksellers.
This story is not only biting social commentary about the shallowness of Parisian society, as Leroux intended, but also a story of redemption. It’s not so much a story of love; it’s clearly more about obsession. However, in the end we see that the Phantom has gone on a hero’s journey of sorts, changed very much from the beginning to the end.
Thanks to readers who have stuck with me through the entire challenge; I know it was quite a departure from my usual features. All the same, I enjoyed sharing my thoughts in celebration of Phantom’s 30th anniversary on Broadway.
Speaking of challenges, stay tuned for an announcement of my 2018 Blogging from A to Z theme. This is going to be a good one.
This is a hard one, to be honest. There’s the mask autographed by Franc d’Ambrosio, the custom jewelry by Stephanie Piro, and even the autographed photo of Gerard Butler in the Red Death costume.
At the end of the day it came down to this item. Several years ago, the props and costumes from the 2004 film were sold in a charity auction. I won the mask that Monsieur Reyer (Murray Melvin) wore in the “Masquerade” sequence. Not only is it a delightful piece of memorabilia, but the money was in a good cause: the funds went to a battered women’s shelter.
Watch for the conductor and you’ll see the mask!
Once again, I’ll be combining the challenge with Music Monday.
Frankly, it’s complicated. I hate the source material, Frederick Forsyth’s Phantom of Manhattan, with the flaming passion of a thousand white-hot suns. To this day, it remains the only book I’ve ever thrown across the room in disgust.
On the other hand, the voice in my head that said “If you think you’re so much better than the gifted novelist who wrote The Odessa File and Day of the Jackal, why don’t you write your own Phantom book?” resulted in In The Eye of The Beholder. So.
I bought the cast album and, honestly, thought its performers were far better than much of the material, especially the leads (Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess). There were a couple of songs that I liked, but that was as far as it went. Then, the Australian production was filmed; they put the songs in a different order and suddenly the plot was more coherent. I still wasn’t crazy about it, to be honest; we saw it in our local theatre, so I had something to go on. Still, it made better sense than the original version.
We have tickets to see the show as part of our theatre season next month, and I am trying very hard to reserve judgment. This is, after all, the show I’ve been calling Paint Never Dries for quite a while.
With all of this in mind, here is one of the two songs I thought stood out from the show: Ramin Karimloo’s “‘Til I Hear You Sing.”
