phantom of the opera how is it romantic?- Page 1

[Zeitoujo]

Posted: 10/13/07 at 10:39pm

it's a story of seduction. i seriously hate this play. it's so dumb. some guy living under an opera house seduces a soprano into loving him? please. if this is what is considered a classic what is this world coming to?

[Fenchurch]

Posted: 10/13/07 at 10:53pm

It is romantic in the musical sense, as in the music is evocative of the Romantic period.

It's a beautiful story, and a well-done show, especially when you understand all the classical music/opera homages involved (some call them stealing, but if so, composers have been doing for way longer than ALW).

[jo]

Posted: 10/13/07 at 11:00pm

Wasn't it based on the novel by Gaston Leroux, which was the subject of a number of older films? ALW simply set it to music -- and came out with quite a romantic period piece.

Btw, at the Opera Garnier in Paris ( the setting of the story of the Phantom of the Opera), there is supposedly an underground river or lake, which the tour guide will confirm as existing or having existed.

[fnyboi88]

Posted: 10/13/07 at 11:04pm

It does exists, they show it on TPOTP movie 2-Disk DVD.

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 10/13/07 at 11:08pm

Well, it's romantic if you focus on the Christine-Raoul relationship.

[BrianIdol]

Posted: 10/13/07 at 11:18pm

I think falling in love with someone's voice is really sexy, and romantic as well....Christine has a very dramatic choice to make in the end of the show, and it hits me everytime.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 10/13/07 at 11:24pm

Creepy old man stalking a young girl and convincing her it's true love. That happens every day on MySpace. It's not romantic in any context.

[BrianIdol]

Posted: 10/13/07 at 11:35pm

orangeskittles - an underground lake in a 19th Century Paris Opera House is JUST like Myspace!!! You're a genius!

[Chason]

Posted: 10/13/07 at 11:47pm

I think it's VERY romantic. It proves the theory that people CAN, indeed, fall "in love" with people who are not as attractive as THEY are - or even UGLY (by the worlds standards). You seriously need to re-evaluate your "theory" of WHY a person falls in love with another; it's much DEEPER than you have any idea.
BTW - I think the MOVIE version, in which Christine & the Phantom are a bit CLOSER in age is the "best" version. What did you think of it?
Sometimes a person can fall so incredibly in love with another - that looks hardly matter at all.
Phantom of the Opera is much like Beauty & the Beast in that it is trying to teach you the agonizing reality of falling in love with someone for MORE than their looks. No offense - but only a very SHALLOW person would not understand that.

[BrianIdol]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 12:00am

right on Chason!

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 2:16am

Erik isn't just an ugly guy. He's a psychopath. The guy is not mentally healthy. In the novel, he threatens Christine to marry him or he'll blow up freaking Paris. He stalks her and convinces her that he's some angel that her father sent. How is that romantic?

And Erik isn't Christine's age. According to Leroux, he helped build the Palais Garnier years back. He would, therefore, be old by the time of the incident with Christine.

[MerMaggieGalinda]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 2:43am

I don't find the relationship between Erik and Christine romantic at all, like SporkGoddess said, Erik is cleary a psychopath. I think the romance of the story comes from Christine and Raoul's relationship, or it should anyway.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 3:36am

Roses in the advertisements are romantic.
Velvet curtains are romantic.
Big lush Cost Plus-y pillows in the Phantom's boat are romantic.
Curly hair is romantic.
Tuxedos are romatnic.

WHAT'S NOT ROMANTIC ABOUT PHANTOM?! Maria Bjornson and Dewynters TRIED SO HARD! You stoneyhearted child!!!

[Marianne]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 4:08am

Of course it's romantic--it's about fantasy and seduction and make-believe. The fact that the personality under the Phantom persona is just as ugly as the face behind the mask hardly matters; it's the mask, not the uglified makeup, that's the emblem of the show. It's aaaaall about the fantasy.

[alxscrz2]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 4:26am

The romance in the story is only between christine and raoul. She loved him, not the phantom. So I really don't get why people say that christine was in love with the phantom. No where in the musical does it show that she loves the phantom. Not even in the kiss sceane. The only reason she kissed him was to save raoul

[Tkt2Ride]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 5:02am

The Phantom is suppose to be human. I think he first fell in love with her voice and circumstances. They were both orphans. To gain her trust and to help her talent, he had her believing he was her Father. I don't believe though that was so much his gimmick as it was her own perception. He is just the Phantom of Music to her. An angel she believes is sent by her Father to watch over her. So he goes along with the idea.

In time he falls in love with her. It does turn into an obsession when he starts believing he can make her love him back. That isn't so abnormal except when he begins to realize she wasn't falling for his charm. This is his flaw though. She actually does care for him but his actions, like murdering people , have ruined whatever could have been. His jealousy over Raoul adds fuel to the fire and puts the Phantom in a jealous rage.

I just figure it is what happens when a guy spends too much time locked up in the sewer or maybe on the internet. It's easy to start believing all kinds of things. The hard part is convincing someone else to feel the same.

So the way the Phantom tries to woo Christine is kind of romantic. He truly believes she is gifted and wants her to succeed at the Opera. It is only when she falls for Raoul that things get ugly. Of course we have read of many people who go mad, after falling in love, so it is a sad story with a lesson in it too. You are never going to impress anyone by murdering people. Just not a very successful dating maneuver.

She does only kiss the Phantom to save Raoul but I believe she truly cares for him. Mostly out of pity. She tells him it is his murderous ways that have turned her completely against him. If he hadn't, she may still have rejected him as a suitor but she would have embraced him as a friend. It is a very sad story. Creepy in the way that he hunts down his rivals or anyone who he thinks is standing in his way of getting what he wants. That's the madness though. You don't have to grow up like he did though to act so foolish. Plenty of creepy, dangerous people around, even in every day life. Luckily there aren't too many of them though.

[Marianne]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 5:11am

It is only when she falls for Raoul that things get ugly.

Except for the part where she doesn't fall for Raoul until after she's spilled her guts about how terrified she is of Erik.

I don't see the kiss as motivated out of pity, or even completely out of her desire to save Raoul. It's forgiveness. She's seen the naked truth of his actions, seen that his soul is just as deformed as his face; she can't love him, but she can forgive him.

[Tkt2Ride]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 6:06am

Lotti and Raoul were childhood sweethearts. She still expresses that she has a crush on him. The Phantom learns some of this when Lotti and Raoul are talking together in her dressing room. At that point they are not a couple but they both are in love. Clearly the Phantom realizes this and it leads him to murder. He had done it only one other occasion that I know of. I haven't read the book.

She is forgiving the Phantom for stringing up and trying to murder her Fiance? For trying to force her into Marrying him? The other deaths? I doubt that. It just seems she feels sorry for his unfortunate life. She already knew he was scarred and lived secluded because of his perceived rejection of his disfigurement. So, I don't think she really forgives him for what he has already done. She just feels so sorry that it has all driven him to madness on her account. It just doesn't appear to be forgiveness to me.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 11:25am

In the novel, she cries with him and kisses him because she feels pity for him. I don't know how that works in the musical, because she clearly is past the point of pity there: "The tears I might have shed for your dark fate / grow cold and turn to tears of hate."

Sure, maybe a normal person would have acted the way Erik did... and would now have a restraining order against him.

Erik isn't just in love with her: he is obsessive. He doesn't want her around Raoul at all. And sure he was helping her career, but not in the best of ways: sure he helped her rediscover her love for singing, but he also merely took out the competition.

I do like Erik and all, but all of the girls who hate Christine for choosing Raoul over him need to consider her situation and stop viewing Erik as some tragic romantic hero. Sure, his situation was sad, and his love and passion for music as well as his love for Christine his redeeming factors, but he also had some pretty sociopathic tendencies.

Updated On: 10/14/07 at 11:25 AM

[EganFan2]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 12:56pm

If you believe some loonies, in the movie the Phantom isn't a crazy psychopath but he is possessed and that's what makes him drop chandeliers on people's heads. Christine's kiss at the end breaks the spell a la "Beauty and the Beast".

You all need to seriously check this out. Some scary s**t.

http://www.phantomgerry.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=2
Updated On: 10/14/07 at 12:56 PM

[Marianne]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 2:10pm

tkt2ride--His reaction to Christine and Raoul's reunion in the dressing room was to take matters into his own hands, lead her down into his lair and try to seduce her. When that didn't work, he sent Raoul a note essentially telling him to back off. The first murder was clearly out of fury towards the managers for not obeying his instructions/not putting Christine in the lead, and had virtually nothing to do with Raoul--but it was also what drove Christine into Raoul's arms.

[gypsy4]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 2:27pm

zietojo what are you on its totaly romantic did you watch the whole thing.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 3:01pm

Oh yeah, the part where he strung up the girl's childhood love and threatened to kill him if she didn't marry the disfigured psychopath just warmed my heart.

[Tkt2Ride]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 5:56pm

^^No kidding! I know I was ready to give Erik his,"get of jail and the looney bin card" right there and then! No, I'm afraid not. To forgive a lunatic like that is to spit in your fiance face and call him desperate.

You are forgetting too that Eric chastises Christine for even considering to go out with Raoul. Even if the Phantom didn't interfere, she would have Married Raoul. Yes, Spork those words are in the Movie, that she did pity him but now she hates him.

I don't see any action on Erik's part that is worthy of pity. Especially after he tries to kill Raoul. Erik is a nutty as a fruitcake. He kills the stagehand yes, because they didn't make Christine the lead. Part of that was his romantic obsession with her though. He didn't want to hear or see anyone but Christine. That and Raoul did not leave his box empty, a clear challenge on Raoul's part in defiance to the Phantom's demands.

No forgiveness, I was probably reaching even for pity. She kissed him merely to save Raoul's life.

I think that Erik made her curious but I never saw that she was actually in love with him. To me the story shows how obsession turns into madness or are one in the same. Sure an attractive person may end up with someone less attractive because of love and merit. This however is not a good example of that kind of story to me.

[SDav 10495]

Posted: 10/14/07 at 6:08pm

Erm...how many of you have read the original novel? It's different from the stage adaptation, yes, but the two are mostly the same regarding the relationship between Erik and Christine. The character of Erik is hardly as simplistic as a few of you are making him out to be--it's not a matter of "he's totally normal or he's totally a psycho".

Obviously I can't stand here and claim that Phantom--novel or musical--is everyone's cup of tea, but there's certainly a reason why Erik is one of the most well-known and sympathetic characters in literature. He's much more nuanced and romantic a character than some of you are giving him credit for.