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Fifteen years later, director Joel Schumacher has finally brought this well-loved musical to the cinema screen as a lavish, large-scale costume-drama which looks set to be successful both at the box-office and at awards ceremonies in 2005. It premiered on the London stage with Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman in the lead roles, and was an immediate smash hit, with its combination of lush romance, Gothic horror and classic themes of love and loss.
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“You were once a friend and father, then my world was shattered.” She had never truly healed from her loss, and it seems she probably never will.One of the most beloved musicals in modern history, The Phantom of the Opera was written by British composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber in collaboration with lyricists Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe. In the 2004 film version of Phantom of the Opera, Christine (Emmy Rossum) wanders between the monochromatic tombstones and monuments singing her desire to be with her father with such yearning and sincerity that it’s clear how lost she is in the world without him. “You were once my one companion, you were all that mattered,” Christine sings in the graveyard on the fateful day before the performance that will decide her fate. Perhaps that’s why the song “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” is so moving. Does Christine feel pity, or is it the authoritative power that the Phantom possesses that draws Christine to him? The young woman, whose father has died long ago, seems to have, well, a bit of daddy issues.
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While he did put Christine into the limelight, the Phantom’s obsessive tendencies and a predilection to violence don’t seem like the qualities that would win a woman’s heart.
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Gerard Butler & Emmy Rossum in “The Phantom of The Opera” (2004) Raoul is released, but here’s a surprise - after all that - Christine actually loves her captor.ĭoes Christine feel pity or is it the authoritative power that the Phantom possesses that draws Christine to him? Christine decides to stay with the Phantom. When Raoul comes to save her, he’s tied up and tortured while Christine is given a difficult decision to make: she can either stay with the Phantom while Raoul goes free, or reject the Phantom while Raoul dies, and she goes free.
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The Phantom kills the leading man, sets the opera house on fire and escapes with Christine. This opera is actually a complicated plot devised by the Phantom to kidnap Christine after finding out that she’s in love with Raoul, the Vicomte de Changy.Ĭhristine, whose operatic triumph was orchestrated by the phantom, knows that during the performance she will be taken away to the phantom’s lair under the theater. Christine Daaé, once an obscure ballerina, is given a lead singing role in “Don Juan”, an opera written by the Phantom of the Opera, a disfigured man who is obsessed with the lovely, young woman.
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