spoken for

IT WAS AWESOME. Completely awesome. We loved it!

This may sound silly, but I never saw The Phantom of the Opera (TPOTO) until a few months ago when we had a free preview of HBO and the 2004 movie came on. I had been immersed in the music for years due to a piano book I own, but had never seen it on stage or film until this year. I loved the movie. Even Steve liked it. When I heard it was coming to the Fox I decided I had to go. My mom just had her 50th birthday this month, so it was the perfect time to take her. I couldn’t afford great seats, but we ended up in the middle balcony right in the middle of the auditorium, so it wasn’t too bad at all.

It’s also been years since I went to the Fox. I am confident that I went for Girl Scouts around third grade or something and that my mom went with us, but she doesn’t remember it. I don’t remember what we saw or anything, just sitting in there waiting for the performance with her. So when we got to the Fox last night I was just amazed.

The architecture is just… really unique. Very beautiful. However, should one be sitting in the auditorium and all the power went off… it would be scary. :-) A lot of it reminds me of that movie, The Haunting. You know, that house is all decorated with the faces of the little children and stuff? The Fox has a lot of what appeared to be Hindu art. It was built, apparently, in January of 1929 (Mom and I had guessed the 20’s), the same year of the great stock market crash which would leave the owner in $91,000,000 worth of debt. You can read more of the history here. I’m going to read more later myself.

Anyway, we had to wait outside for a few minutes before they opened the doors. Everyone already had tickets, we were just waiting for the doors to open.

Once inside, we both had to go to the bathroom after our long drive. It was like pulling teeth, getting to the bathroom. That was our biggest complaint, really, our only complaint. We had to get on the elevators and go up to the top balcony I think it was. Either that or the lower balcony. And go to the bathroom there and the employees were all really anal about making sure you got back on the elevator and went back down to wait in the lobby. The elevators were really cool though, old style with the manual controls and an attendant. But still, they made me dizzy like all elevators do. :\Once we were finally able to get seated, I was just amazed with the auditorium. It’s just so detailed and not like what we are used to seeing.

I wish I could have gotten better photos, but I had to be careful. Didn’t want to get hollered at like I saw other people were.

Well, the play started and it was so quiet. I was thinking, wow, there is no way I’m going to be able to understand everything if it keeps on at this level. It was the auction scene and the place was so very quiet, straining to hear. But the part where they bring out the chandelier? I was looking through my binoculars to get a good look at it and suddenly it flashed very brightly and the Phantom’s theme started. Very loudly. I was almost blinded and deafened at the same time. I jumped. :-)

The acting was wonderful, the music was wonderful, the sets were wonderful, the special effects were wonderful, it was all… wonderful! Even the set changes, were wonderful, they were so quick and sometimes even unnoticeable.

I was especially fascinated with how they did the Phantom’s underground sewer home. There was fog everywhere on stage, yet it was confined in a seemingly specific place, and lights came out of the floor and went up and down in rows to really make it look like lights on the water were bobbing up and down.

Oh, and back to the chandelier. When the music was playing and there wasn’t anything going on but the music, the chandelier went up up up up to a spot high over the stage where it stayed until it was time for it to come crashing down. And then it came down down down down and folded up a little bit and the lights blinded me again.

There is not really much I can say, more than I already have. If you know the story, you know how it goes, it was just like the movie in most respects (as far as can be when limited to a single stage).

But I really, really, really enjoyed it and I’m glad I could go. Tuesday night I go with my mom to The Muny (schedule) to see Aida. Wow, that’s a lot of culture in a week for me. ;-)

My mom likes to take us girls to the Muny. We’ve done it every year since I’ve been married except last year. This year we’re each going to two performances, only my second performance I’ll be going with Morgan, my sister-in-law, instead of Mom (long story). Morgan and I will be seeing The Wizard of Oz.