Counting Down to 90 - Week 1557 - The Phantom of the Opera and Other Memories

The Concept Explained

Counting Down to 90 - Week 1579

Why 1579

Bhavin's WritingsBhavin Jankharia

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I attended a performance of “The Phantom of the Opera” at NMACC last afternoon. The sets were great, the performances nice, but the acoustics were off and the singing was a little too shrill. And that one last high note in the title song, when the Phantom draws out Christine’s voice…just about…worked.

These two videos are worth watching to understand what I mean. One features Sierra Borgess and the other, Sarah Brightman singing live on stage.

The best Phantom according to most was Michael Crawford and his rendition of “Music of the Night” is also worth viewing.

My parents had gone for a conference to Japan in the 1980s and they came back with a CD player and some CDs. Sometime in the late 80s, I acquired a CD titled “The Premiere Collection: The Best of Andrew Lloyd Webber”, mainly because I wanted to listen to “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” and “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” from the musical, Evita.

In the mid 80s, I think 1983, Alyque Padamsee produced and directed Evita, also an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Sharon Prabhakar played Evita and was just wonderful in the role. Dalip Tahil played Che and a young Alisha Chinai sang “Another Suitcase in Another Hall”…depicting one of the many women that Peron used to bed. 

I watched it 3 times, twice I think with Atul. I don’t quite remember, but I think the first shows were at Sophia Bhabha. The production was spectacular for those times. The funny thing is, we still haven’t had as good an English language musical since then…and that’s now 42 years…and counting.

“Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” in that CD was the version that Julie Covington had sung, when the number was released as a single in 1978 in the UK before the show. She never did go on to play Eva Peron in the musical…that was done by Elaine Page.

Elaine Page though sang another number that still gives me goosebumps…Memory from Cats.

Someone did try to do Cats in Mumbai, but it was quite a disaster. Alyque Padamsee also produced and directed Jesus Christ Superstar, but I think the first production was in the mid 70s and I was too young then, but legend has it that Nandu Bhende played Judas. There was a JCS revival in the mid 2010s, but that was again quite a disaster. Alyque by then was also past his prime. The standout song from JCS is “I Don’t Know How to Love HIm” by Yvonne Elliman.

Bijal and I had carried the CD player and the CD with us when we went to study to the US in 1994 and it was an album we kept listening to over and over again. When we went to New York in the latter half of that year, we managed to catch a performance of Phantom at The Majestic and it was worth every bit of the dollars we had saved up for the tickets. 

It is funny how one show can trigger so many memories, thankfully most of them good and not as sad as Grizabella’s lament…the second stanza from Memory still gives me goosebumps.

Midnight, not a sound from the pavement

Has the moon lost her memory?

She is smiling alone

In the lamplight, the withered leaves collect at my feet

And the wind begins to moan