Ken Hill's Version

Believe it or not, this was the first Phantom musical, and Andrew Lloyd Webber had even considered producing it, until he had the good sense to compose his own version!
 

My review:

        When I was living near Reno, this version came to town, and I was able to see it twice. Needless to say, I was shocked. I had not seen Lloyd Webber's version yet, but I certainly knew the difference! Hill wanted a more comic version and insisted that it could work with drama. 

        It does to a point. I can see where comedy with the magagers of Opera company would fit in - e.g., how they would react to the Phantom's demands, but what digusted me was that Hill also placed comic elements that are very vulgar in areas that I consider to be very serious! For instance, in the "marriage scene" at the end, Hill introduces a defrocked priest and his mistress - it is THIS priest that is supposed to do the honours! First of all, this is not at all in keeping with Leroux! (I like to stick with the original story.) In the novel, Erik wished to have a solemn ceremony in a church, not one carried out in a vulgar manner like this! Also, it proves rather offensive to those of the Catholic religion and descredits the work done by priests faithful to their vocation.

        Also, the Phantom and the Persian in this show are supposed to be brothers, and their parents were circus performers! Erik is supposed to have killed them by greasing their trapeze rope...This again is a corruption from the original story! Erik's parents were of the wealthy middle class, and in the novel there is evidence that he did love them very much, he certainly did not kill them! And the Persian is his friend, not his brother. 



        Such treatments of the orignal story are an actual shame, as the rest of the show stays very close to the novel in other areas - such as the idea of the torture chamber, and Erik actually rows the boat, and at least the ornamental grasshopper
is mentioned. Also, the scenry in some places was very good, such as the graveyard. Most of all, the music in it is stunning! This version would have fared better in my books had Hill been a little more discreet with his comic elements. 



(If you wish to see a larger version of the pictures, just click on them, and be sure to use your browser's back button to return to this page. I hate to have to report this to some of those who may be regulars to this page, but  due to lack of webspace, most of the articles I had on Hill's version  had to be scrapped. I've kept only the most important ones which would give an idea of what the show was like.)





Contents 

"Phantastic" - News of the World "Sunday" Magazine - 1991

The Songs from the Musical

A Note From the Author - Program Note

"A Phantom Stalks", by Mary Warjcka. 

It's a 'Phantom for Folks Who Love to Laugh'", By Victor Williams

"A Tale of Two Chandeliers", By Matt Wolf

 "Phantastic" - News of the World "Sunday" Magazine - 1991



See how Ken Hill's Phantom gets prepared for the show!





The Songs from the Musical

(Okay, so I was too lazy to type them out!)

A Note From the Author - Program Note

Program Cover

When I strolled into that old junk - shop and browsed through the tatty books my mind was on other matters.

DRACULA had been a howling success at the Lancaster Repertory Theatre, and they were screaming for another idea. One with the same 'thrills and laughter' they insisted. But what? I'd had a lot of success translating classic tales of romance
and drama into theatrical entertainment with songs, plenty of action, and a good layer of laughter on top, but I didn't want to do another DUMAS or HUGO or  STOKER. Then the old book fell on the floor: PHANTOM OF THE OPERA by
GASTON LEROUX. Had there been such a book? Some tired old story about a Composer having acid thrown in his face and his manuscript stolen, wasn't it? Hammer Horror remakes Universal Pictures. Still...an interesting title.

By the time I arrived In Lancaster for the next Production Meeting I knew I had found their next popular piece. Universal and Hammer had ruined the story; there was a lot more to it. It was a great tale of romance and chills, a myth. Moreover, I saw how to keep it human for Lancaster, how to keep the fun they wanted flowing. After all, if YOU were a pompous little Theatre Manager with the vexing task of running a respectable Opera Company with some lunatic hiding out in the building...

Nor need this detract from the true pathos of the Phantom and his blind love: for this was always in another place, hidden. we could have Comedy AND Drama.

Then in 1984 with the same scenery and musical arrangements you are now seeing - with tunes from Opera lovingly fitted to banal words in true operatic tradition - it exploded onto the Theatre Workshop stage in London to almost universal love and acclaim. In the audience sat Andrew Lloyd Webber and
Cameron Mackintosh. They'd like to talk to me about it...But that's another story.

Enjoy it. It's all fun. Though it has its serious bits. As in life. -- Ken Hill.

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"A Phantom Stalks", by Mary Warjcka. 

'Best Bets Magazine, Reno Gazette- Journal. Feb. 20 -26, 1992

The Phantom and Christine    

Christine, Raoul and the Phantom on the Roof 

The Opera cast members of "La Boheme" playing this week at the Pioneer Center should be watching their backs: the "Phantom of the Opera" is in town.

The masked Phantom, after all, is nortorious for haunting the catacombs of the Paris Opera House, tormenting the opera cast and falling in love with a beautiful singer. So what's to keep him from doing some free - lance phantoming at Reno's "opera house" in between performances at Bally's?

Simple. In his spare time, the Phantom plans to tour the area, not haunt another opera house. For under the Phantom's mask lurks a 6 - foot- 4- inch blond actor, who looks like he should be bumming around on the beach, not killing five people as the play prescribes.

"It's a nice chance for someone like me," says Steve Blanchard of his role as the Phantom. "You go through so many emotions: anger, jealousy, unrequited love, pain...It's got just about anything you want to play."

The Ken Hill musical is based on a turn - of - the- century Gaston Leroux novel and should not be confused with the version playing on Broadway, the worldwide hit with a score by Andrew Lloyd Webber. This version by a San Francisco producer Jonathan Reinis is more a mix of melodrama and vaudville. The Bally's version also features opera music from the period of the play - Mozart, Verdi, Offenbach, and Donizetti.

"We interject more humor than the Broadway version does," Blanchard says. "At the same time, we stress equally the horror of the story as well."

As a result, Blanchard says the Phantom pokes fun at opera companies and the killing isn't even that gruesome.

"If you're going to kill five people, you're going to have to kill off the person the audience least likes, so it doesn't seems so bloodthirsty, so you have sympathy for the Phantom," Blanchard adds. "The people I bump off are usually the people
you don't like anyway."

Blanchard has played the Phantom before, but just recently finished up a role in Houston as a pompous American pitted against a Russian in "Chess". His other acting credits include touring with " A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" with Mickey Rooney and playing a milkman in "Our Town" his first acting role as a freshman in highschool.

"I wanted to be a jock," Blanchard explains. "Unfortunately, my body didn't permit me at the time.....My body shot uo to early, and I was not accustomed to my new found limbs."

So he stumbled into acting instead. A kid dropped out of the "Our Town" production and the director asked Blanchard if he'd like to fill in. Blanchard said sure. And, the 33 - year- old has spent the last 15 years as a profesional actor. He
says his ultimate dream is to do two films and one play a year and live in a big house with his wife and dog.

When Blanchard watches other actors, he gets revved up over brilliant performances such as Robert De Nero's in "Cape Fear".

"I just get a charge out of seeing someone who has you in the palm of their hand,"  he says.

"The best part of doing (acting) is when you have a script and you break down  the script to the meat and potatoes, to what you want to do," he adds.

"What is most satisfying is when you're on stage or on camera and you're doing what you set out to do. The hair gets fuzzy on the back of your neck.

"When it happens...that's the best drug you can buy."

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Your hand at the level of your eyes!




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It's a 'Phantom for Folks Who Love to Laugh'", By Victor Williams, 

"Fun and Gaming Magazine", Bally's Reno. March 5 - 11, 1992.



Cover Picture of "Fun and Gaming"



My, how times have changed.

A decade ago, when the Reno entertainment scene was a lot more standard -issue Nevada - topless shows galore, million - dollar epics such as "Hello, Hollywood, Hello!" and big name - name headliners as far as the spotlight could see
- to consider bringing a production like Ken Hill's "Phantom of the Opera" into a casino showroom would have been laughable, if not suicidal.

Not anymore: after watching several other Reno and Tahoe resorts find amazing success in staging road versions of Broadway plays, Bally's has jumped onto the bandwagon with this delightful, comic adaptation of the 1911 Gaston Leroux novel, leaving a forgotton stream of sequins and feather boas in its wake.

No one knows for sure whether the days of Donn Arden mega - productions are over, but "Phantom" is certainly a worthy stopgap, just as the rousing Brazilian excursion "Oba Oba" proved to be for the 2000 - seat Ziegfeld Theatre last year.

Now that "Phantom" has been extended to at least April 5, people who may still think they're seeing the more serious and special effect packed Andrew Lloyd Webber version have ample time to set themselves straight.

Ken Hill's approach is all - out vaudvillian fun with a storyline that follows the original book more closely than Webber's foray - though Hill, as writer - director, has taken great pains to defuse most of Leroux's post - Victorian melodrama by putting witty and sometimes absurd lyrics to operatic compositions by Offenbach, Donizetti, Verdi, Gounod, and others.

The result is a light and lively (but not dietetic, action wise) two -and -a - half hours of Moliere - like wit and whimsy. Every character - from the pompous Paris Opera House manager Richard (William Linton) to the "boxkeeper" Madame Giry (Su Ellen Estey) to the Phantom himself (campily portrayed by Steve Blanchard) -
is really more of a caricature, a means to a comic end; you don't get the impression that there are souls to be plumbed here.

Even a climactic wedding scene between the Phantom and his previously betrothed love, Christine (Courtenay Collins in the show's least funny role, but also its most "glowing" musically, thanks to her stunning soprano voice) is skewered by the entrance of a defrocked priest and his courtesan companion. And the final
death scene,with the entire cast looking on as the Phantom sends himself into eternity, is both touching and tickling.

The story is familiar to late - night movie viewers. Horrible disfigured at birth ("The skin peeled back to white bone," says a mysterious Persian visitor, played by Kevin Baily), the Phantom takes up his residence far beneath the Opera House - six levels down, next to an underground lake, where Madame Giry's father used to
torture scores of poor souls. For years he's been looking for the perfect love, the antidote to his loneliness, and he has no qualms about 'doing in ' any male who gets in his way. Oh, and he's also a frustrated composer who likes to play Bach's
"Tocatta and Fugue in D minor" on his subterranean organ.

This show's feverish and somewhat giddy storyline revolves around a production of Gounod's "Faust", and the Phantom does everything in his power to disrupt the proceedings, including rubbing out the lead singer - an egomanical diva hilariously rendered by Suzanne Grodner - with the help of a chandelier ( he also gives the big crystal job hanging over the audience a good shake or two, just to keep
people on their toes). It's clear he won't let up until Christine wins the lead role, and she does, singing "Ah, Do I Hear Thee Once Again?" to her invisible "angel of music".

Problem is, nobody believes the Phantom exists except Christine and Madam Giry, who has worked at the Opera House "since it was built"and steers everyone clear of Box 5, the Phantom's designated viewing spot. Her mood turns frightful when the manager, Richard, demands use of the booth: she knows the Masked One won't stand idly by and expects a run of horrific events to be set in motion, which
they are...though they're as funny as they are fearsome.

Christine's beau, Raoul (Christopher Monteleone) tries to keep tabs on her and even overhears a conversation between her and the Phantom. He ventures into her dressing room only to find it empty; he catches up to her at a local graveyard
(singing "Love Has Gone, Never Returning" by Offenbach in the show's most gut-wrenching vocal performance) and gets all choked up at the hands of you- know- who; and he later finds her on the roof of the Opera House, which is also
populated by an addled old man calling "Here, pigeon, here, pigeeee..." (Steven Berger in one of his half - dozen roles). The rooftop is the final scene of Act I, and Raoul and Christine are joined by the Phantom for a charming and melancholy bit of round harmony on "To Pain My Heart Selfishly Dooms Me."

Eventually, after her initial songas Margurite in "Faust", Christine disappears in a blackout; the rest of the cast then looks high and low for her, taking their lanterns into the audience singing "I See No Sign." No luck - the Phantom has obviously lived up to his written warnings to Richard and kidnapped the fair maiden.

He takes her to the underground lake, ties her to a fog - shrowded dock and rows into the darkness, leaving Christine time to put her predicament into song, "Somewhere Above the Sun Shines Bright". Again Collins' voice is stunning, laced with the dramatic poise and control of a Julliard award- winner - which she is, of course.

Meanwhile, everybody else migrates to the boiler room, and after the Persian reveals his true identity, (as the Phantom's brother!?- EAAB) fills us in on the Phantom's history and arms himself and Raoul for a final showdown, things start
heating up literally. It looks like curtains for these unfortunate Opera House denizens, even the pretty ballet dancer Jammes (Diana Gonzalez), who spends the whole show on tiptoe in a tutu and certainly doesn't deserve to die.

Along the way the hopelessly superstitious Madam Giry reads tea leaves, and their message ain't all that healthy - so, the motley group breaks into a crackpot chorus of "What an Awful Way to Perish," in essesnce throwing up their arms in
surrender and laughing their way to doomdom.

The finale takes place in the Phantom's lair, with his organ and its unkempt riot of sheet music as center - piece. He's determined to wed Christine despite he arguments, and that's where the priest and showgirl come into the picture (only to
confuse matters). 

Finally, the Phantom lulls Christine by singing "Ne'er Forsake Me, Here Remain" and the audience gets its first true feeling for Steve Blanchard's towering presence - this is one big guy. Soon the Phantom's resolve wanes, however. His limp become more pronounced, and when Christine knocks off his mask, all is lost. A union sealed in death seems his only option, and he'll take the beauty with him.....

Or will he?

"Phantom of the Opera" does have its serious moments, and Blanchard leaves the laughs to his cohorts, but ultimately he creates a villian that is only quasi - tragic. He's all ham and not what I call menacing - not at all. As I mentioned before, he's a caricature, the veritable Freak With a Heart ... a broken heart.

Other cast members include Ganon McHale as Richard's secretary, Remy: the rotund and wonderful Vince Trani as Faust and Anne Hampson as Lisette. All are obviously seasoned pros who, together with the major characters, make Ken Hill's "Phantom of the Opera" a refreshing and worthwhile change of pace for Reno's revue - weary entertainment fan. This is devilishly good fun.

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The Phantom and Christine on the lake.





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"A Tale of Two Chandeliers", By Matt Wolf, 

'Best Bets Magazine', Reno Gazette Journal, April 16 - 22, 1992.



The Motley Cast The Phantom





London - Call it a tale of two Phantoms. Or let's just say London has a pair of falling chandeliers.

In October 1986, Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical "The Phantom of the Opera" opened in London and went on to become one of the biggest international successes in the history of the British musical.

In December, Ken Hill's "Phantom of the Opera" joined Lloyd Webber's on the West End, the same story told to different tunes and smaller audiences.

The Hill version now plays at Bally's Reno through April 26. So while local audiences who haven't seen Lloyd Webber's "Phantom" can't fully appreciate both sides of the duel, they can see Hill's half of it.

The difference in the two productions amounts to a lush extravaganza (Lloyd Webber's) with an original score vs. a relatively low - budget, campy pastiche (Hill's) sung to various 19th - century operatic highlights.

While Lloyd Webber's is full of syrupy earnestness and mooney ballads about "the music of the night", Hill's depends on the sort of bad jokes that greet the arrival of an opera - singing Mephistopheles: "Who the devil are you?" asks the Paris Opera's new manager.

Another of Hill's jokes: "His mother would turn in her grave, if she hadn't been lost at sea."

There's a distinction paramount to Hill: His show got there first.

Oddly, the crashing chandelier which ends Act 1 in both versions seems, in Hill's hands, a parody of Lloyd Webber. But Hill insists it was a fixture of the original.

"As far as I'm aware, mine was the first musical version," Hill said of his treatment of the tale of the lovesick "Phantom" who lives in a lake {Yes, "in" ;  actual typing error in the article - EAAB}beneath the Paris Opera and pines for
soprano Christine Daaé.

The 55 - year - old playwright - director adapted his "Phantom" in 1976 for the Duke's Playhouse in Lancaster in northwest England, reviving it in 1984 for the northeastern city of Newcastle.

That production transferred to the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, in east London where it was seen by - among others - Andrew Lloyd Webber and
Cameron Mackintosh. 

In a seperate interview, Lloyd Webber remembered his response to the evening: "I said to Cameron, 'Well, this is clearly not for us...The last thing I'm going to do is this jokey thing...'"

(Thank God! - EAAB)

But the material returned to haunt him. Lloyd Webber found a translation of Gaston Leroux's classic story while browsing at a New York bookshop.

"The romance leapt out at me," he recalled, "and I realized it's all in the book, so I thought, 'Hang on; maybe I should do that.'" 

The result went on to be a worldwide money spinner pleasing millions - except Ken Hill.

"Mine was dead and buried at that time, " said Hill. "Who was going to do another 'Phantom' once Andrew announced his?"

Hill's version surfaced instead around the United States, first in St. Louis in 1987, then in San Francisco. A 21 - month national tour traveled from August 1989 to May 1991, moving on to Europe for 23 weeks concluding Dec. 1.

The tour resumed Feb. 18 in Reno, prior to stints an Argentina and Paraguay, then two weeks in Singapore from June 23. 

All of which means that the West End, then, is one of the last homes for Hill's "Phantom"

"It would have been crazy not to have given it an opportunity to play the West End," said co-producer Bernard Theobald, who called Hill's version "a terrific show."

Budgeted at about $900,000, about one -fourth the cost of its competitor, the Hill "Phantom" opened Dec. 12 at the Shaftsbury Theatre, about a 15 - minute walk from Her Majesty's Theatre housing Lloyd Webber's version.

Breaking even at about 45% capacity, the show is booking through July. 

Are the theatregoers aware of the difference? It's hard to say, but one American tourist at the intermission took news of the two Phantoms in stride.

"My whole family saw it back home," said David Jerome, a 26 -year -old aspiring playwright from Los Angeles, "and I was here in London and thought I'd see it."

Only problem: He wasn't seeing the same one.

"I don't even know what the differences are," said Jerome, adding that he found Hill's slant "pretty funny". {And this guy wants to be a playwright...? -- EAAB}

In the future, there may be even more choices. Tony - winning composer Maury Yeston ("Nine") has long been adapting his own version that may one day end up on Broadway. And according to the trade paper Variety, a new "Phantom" - called "Phantom 4" - is being planned for Broadway come fall.

Lloyd Webber seemed nonplussed by reports of spectral rivals.

"I don't think it's going to cause us any sleepless nights, to be honest, because it's just not similar." 

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Cover picture of "Best Bets"

The Phantom and Christine 

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