Subject: The Phantom of the Opposite
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Posted on: 2019-07-16 14:28:00 UTC

In 1910, French author Gaston Leroux published the novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra. It was a beautiful love story about a misunderstood musical genius who pined for a backup opera singer, who herself was more drawn to her childhood sweetheart. Despite being violent and threatening, the unnamed Phantom was shown to be a tragic figure, produced by an abusive upbringing due to the disfigured face he was born with. The novel featured numerous musical numbers, with the lyrics written right within the narrative—some clearly diegetic, but others used to to further to plot or reveal the inner conflicts of the characters.

The novel was quickly translated to multiple languages and spread around the world. It was praised for the clever literary device of using lyrics to express the feelings of characters who produce or perform music for a living. More importantly, it was hailed as a metaphor for not judging people by their appearances, as the Phantom is actually described as having a very small blemish on one side of his face. All the other characters, however, react with disgust and fear, despite the Phantom being apparently quite handsome, and having a beautiful singing voice.

1925 saw the still beloved silent film adaptation, where Rudolph Valentino played the Phantom. Although the technology of the time failed to allow for Leroux's original lyrics to be included, the director opted to keep music woven into the experience by making the entire film a dance number. The film's enduring fandom is a testament to the creativity used in developing the dance routines for the film.

Leroux's sequel, Love Never Dies, was weird and panned by critics at the time. It is largely forgotten now, though most fans agree the lyrics to "Beauty Underneath" sound really cool.

Then, Andrew Lloyd Webber came along. The news that he was working on a stage musical adaptation of the novel was met with excitement. But then, in 1986, it released, to the confusion and disappointment of the world. Despite his plays being known for their musical numbers, Webber had elected to neither adapt Leroux's original lyrics, nor to produce any of his own. Instead, his presentation of the novel's story was a purely dialogue-driven narrative, and featured many strange changes besides. The mysterious Phantom had now been given the uninspiring name "Erik." Christine, lauded in the novel for having a very active role for a female character in the time period it was published, had been diminished to a much more passive, damsel-in-distress role, with Raoul taking over a lot of her duties. The popular character of Madame Giry had been reduced to a cameo as a crazy old crone near the end of the story, while her most important contributions to the plot were transferred to a new character of Webber's original invention, only referred to as "the Persian." (Critics joked that with the Phantom receiving a proper name, Webber must have felt a new character called only by their description must have been needed.) But worst of all, though, Webber undermined the original story's message against discrimination based on looks; Erik's mask covers his entire face, garbling his words throughout the entire show, and the face beneath the mask is now a mess of prosthetics that make the character's skull seem to be showing through his flesh. While some argue this change was simply to make the horrified reactions from the original novel seem more realistic, the slate of other changes in Webber's version make this argument fall a little flat.

Webber's Phantom became one of the shortest-running shows on Broadway, and has never returned to the stage, although to be fair, it does have a small but dedicated fanbase to this day. It's Leroux's original novel, however, that has survived the test of time and remains the definitive version of the story to this day.

—doctorlit suspects our Phantom mini in this timeline would be the toy cymbal monkey, rather than brass grasshoppers and scorpions

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