The Phantom of the Opera - His Majesty's Theatre

A nice new show that’s a total flash in the pan you mean? And they’ll have closed a legendary show and put a lot more people out of work for some piece of rubbish that doesn’t last five minutes? 

To be fair, I feel as though St Louis does the best that she can with what she was given. I genuinely think Donnelly is just awful. He honestly has the charisma and stage presence of a rock. When I last saw it a few months back, some members of the audience cackled as he fell to the floor during 'Stranger...' because it was just so lifeless. Both of the managers aren't great and you had a Carlotta whose diction was horrendous and missed literally all of Carlotta's comic moments (although she was significantly better towards the end of her run!)

Greg Castiglioni is so underrated, but the changes to Piangi make him a nuisance throughout. Rhys Whitfield's Raoul was probably the saving point of the show; genuinely probably the best Raoul I've ever seen. He genuinely embodied the character. It's a shame we didn't get to see him with a better cast around him.

I am rather confused over this as I still don't quite get who was able to call the shots re London and how Cameron ultimately got his way. Currently the greater ownership of the production vehicle is with RUG, and RUG/ALW also has a much greater say over Broadway (Cameron for his part is now entirely disinterested in Broadway, with his favourites not running there any more). But the picture is muddier when it came to the original London production.



It's true most people won't know. The media has not exactly helped raise the spotlight on the issue and what went on and there is still a lot of disinformation coming from the producers (e.g. that the production is 36 years old). But they do care, I think. You can see that not just in the comments from loyal fans who have now stopped attending altogether (and there seem to be quite a few based on the social media comments), but also from those who find out about this afterwards. I see a lot of people post excitement on social media that they're going to see the place where it all began (having perhaps discovered it back in the 90s when it was touring America), only to find out that that's all been ripped out and replaced. They go in expecting the gloomy, spot auction we all knew, only to find those washing-line half-hearted drapes, a butchered proscenium, and a urine-coloured oversaturated light wash.



I kind of feel Lucy St Louis has been used. They knew there was going to be negativity over what they did to the show, so they thought they'd mask it by finding a positive spin on new (and far overdue) diversity in the casting. But rather than taking the time to find someone right, they just went to someone who sounds like she had auditioned before and been rejected, and who still isn't right for the role. Contrast to Broadway where Emile Kouatchou can sing and act that role far better to her London counterpart. In fact, the recent Broadway casts have been very strong. It's like an inverse situation of what happened in the early 2000s, when London's casting tended to be much better and more interesting.

I agree with this - Lucy was fine when I saw the show - the problem is with Killian.  I've liked him in other roles, but not as the Phantom.  He brought nothing to the role, and the majority of the big notes he has to sing were painful to listen to.  I enjoyed the show far more when James Gant was the Phantom.  I've been a regular to Phantom over the years, but am not going back until Killian has gone.

My other issue was with how quiet the orchestra sounded at times - particularly Masquerade and during the Final Lair.  It was painfully obvious they had reduced the band quite significantly during those 2 songs.

You've answered your own question.

The licence is aimed at US high schools, which invest significantly in these sort of extra curricular activities (band is a huge deal over there) The production value of these productions tends to be quite big... seriously, some of them put the West End to shame sometimes.

Good luck finding musicians willing to do Am-Dram for free! Yes, they’re generally paid (the only ones in the whole thing who are), and they usually charge for rehearsals too, so the first time the performers sing with the band is often the first dress rehearsal.

Slightly different for schools as they can use music students and incorporate that into their assessments.

But staging an am-dram production with a 26 piece orchestra is a near impossibility outside of an educational setting, or some very wealthy sponsors

My son is considering it for their 48 hour musical. Do RUG do charity?

The licence isn’t high, £500 plus 16% of royalties, plus around £500 to hire the music…. But the only version available to amateur groups is the one with 27 piece orchestra.

Given I tend to have band call, sitzprobe, dress and 5 performances, you’re looking at around £1000 a musician….

Biggest I’ve gone was 11 for Joseph.

There is something rather tone deaf about an amateur group of volunteers having to scrape together to somehow find and fund a 27 piece orchestra, compared to billionaire producers cutting their own orchestra size in half.

How much is the Sinfonia license out of interest?

Having checked the programmes for the amateur productions I've seen, all by the same company, the musician numbers are listed as follows: Ruddigore 19, The Mikado 9, The Pirates of Penzance 16 & South Pacific 29! So presumably they either do have some very wealthy sponsors, or they don't pay their musicians. Maybe Cambridge just has more musicians than other places? Certainly the Cambridge Philharmonic seemed to have no difficulty in fielding a full symphony orchestra & large chorus for the operatic concert performances I've seen from them and they're a non-professional organisation, though they hire professional soloists.