THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical about a scarred genius’s love for a young opera singer receives splendid treatment in this production. Indeed, this staging, the first by a non-professional company in NSW, is far superior to the work’s first professional Australian production that I saw in the 1990s.

That did little for me and accentuated the writing weaknesses, but this one kept me engaged – indeed, enchanted – throughout its two acts.

The production team has used the classic design of Newcastle’s Civic Theatre auditorium to make those watching feel part of a Paris opera house audience in 1881, the year of the story’s setting. Opera officials and occasionally the title masked character watch rehearsal and performance scenes from the boxes near the stage and sometimes the Phantom’s voice booms from behind audience heads.

The Phantom (Chris Maxfield), a ghostly legend for the opera house workers, is unseen by Christine Daae (Caitlin Rose Harris), a young soprano chorus member, when he helps her improve her singing skills and gain leading roles. Christine and an opera patron, count Raoul (Daniel Stoddart), fall in love, leading to moves by the Phantom to end their relationship.

Director Julie Black and the large production team ensure that the story is riveting from 

beginning to end, with brisk changes in setting, as the action moves, for example, from a ballet scene on the opera house stage that is interrupted by a shock incident, to a rooftop meeting between Christine and Raoul in which they declare their love in the delicate All I Ask of You.

The combination of music, costumes, lighting and performances repeatedly produces magic, as in a scene where Christine sees the Phantom as a moving and continually changing image in a mirror in her dressing room in the duet Angel of Music before he appears and takes her on a breathtaking journey through the caverns and streams beneath the opera house to his lair.

In that haunting venue, Chris Maxfield delivers one of the most beautiful of the show’s songs, The Music of the Night.

The production’s magic peaks in a costume ball sequence, where the costumes, masks and wigs worn by the large ensemble in the number Masquerade set the scene for the sudden appearance of the Phantom at the top of a long staircase.

In addition to Maxfield, Harris and Stoddart, the excellent performances include Whitney Erickson as the opera company’s vain prima donna, Carlotta, Ann Hartsuyker-Accardi as the terse ballet mistress Madame Giry who has knowledge of the Phantom’s activities, Chloe Jeffery-Williams as her daughter, Meg, who supports Christine in awkward moments, and Malcolm Young and Ian Crouch as the new owners of the opera house who are beset by problems.

Greg Paterson’s large pit-based orchestra, Kirby-Leigh Coker’s choreography, the set designs by Graeme Black, Alex Adams and Donna Nipperess, the costume designs of Bev Fewins and Steven Harrison, the hair and wig creations of George Francis and Valmai Drury, Kim Houston’s make-up, the lighting design by Jacob Harwood, and the sound design by Harwood and Trent Pickles all contribute to the show’s enchantment.

Ken Longworth