There’s a slight difference between Erik and most villains – he knows Christine doesn’t love him. Early in the series an opera employee dies in the vaults, but it’s an accident and Erik mentions to Carriere that he’s never killed anyone before. While Erik does kill people, his love for music leads him to worship Christine Daee (Teri Polo), who resembles his mother, the only person who could look on his real face and still love him. Born with some kind of facial deformity, Erik has an appreciation for music that borders on the fanatical, and he’s been secretly managing productions in the opera for years, through Gerard Carriere (Burt Lancaster, playing the former Opera manager and Erik’s only human contact with the outside world). Kopit gives Erik a tragic backstory that would break anyone’s heart – it’s schmaltz writ large, and I eat it with a spoon. Gaston Leroux wrote him as a monster akin to Frankenstein, and that’s how Lon Cheney played him… but that’s not how Arthur Kopit, who wrote this miniseries and had hoped to create a musical based on the story until Webber beat him to it, adapted him. If you’re going to stan someone toxic, you could do much worse than Erik.Įrik, as the Phantom is known, is definitely a villain. And identifying with him is why he’s a compelling villain. Nobody should take the Phantom’s behavior as a blueprint for relationships. But then I decided, you know what? Screw it. I waffled on whether to even do a deep dive on Phantom, because I enjoyed the rewatch but was aware it was an example of romanticizing stalking behaviors and normalizing toxic masculinity. Most actors have trouble projecting through masks – since most of Dance’s most memorable roles required him to be restrained to the point of frosty, a mask was almost the perfect counterbalance to negate his coldness – in Phantom, he’s warm, earnest, even silly or funny sometimes, and more likeable than ever.įor a deeper dive, please keep reading. His Phantom is the best parts of the 20th century’s most famous Draculas – Bela Lugosi’s courtly manners and hypnotic menace combined with the tigerlike attacks and sexual charisma of Christopher Lee. Although usually a more sedate villain (at least in recent years), Dance in the tv series is more physical – he leaps, runs, swordfights, climbs, and yet can still intimidate with his piercing eyes and tall frame. I can’t recommend it highly enough – filmed in the actual Palais Garnier Opera House in Paris, with spectacular costumes and a beautiful, unique score by John Addison, it presents a romantic, tragic version of the Phantom and gives equal time to Christine’s journey as an ingenue singer. The titles are in German, but the show is in English. If you are already a fan or if you just like Charles Dance and want to check it out, it is uploaded to Youtube in two halves. Yes, the Webber version has all that, but I saw this one first. It had everything a 12-year-old romantic’s seething, fevered heart could want: unrequited love, misunderstood romantic gestures, flowing poet shirts, sword fights, caves, capes, opera, and fantastic costumes. At mention of the name, a long-forgotten door blew open within the crumbling, decrepit Memory Palace of mind, and suddenly I was 12 again.Ĭonfession: I’ve never cared much about the Andrew Lloyd Webber production, and this television series is why. A recent Twitter discussion mentioned the 1990 ABC/Disney production of Phantom of the Opera.
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