Phantom of Opera Review
Being a typical teenager my age, I despised musicals. Although I have never saw one of such large scale I dreaded the thought of watching them. I regarded them as boring, uneventful, and of poor quality compared to today’s cinema movies. When I started watching Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera on Netflix I expected myself to be asleep by the end. However, after about 17 minutes into the play I actually found myself pulling my jaw back up after hearing Sierra Boggess
(Christine Daee) sing for the first time.
Even though I was watching from the comfort of my home, I felt as if I was watching it live. The close-up shots of the actors put me right in the action and made it feel like a movie. I was able to see the details of the play that would have been impossible for the audience to appreciate unless sitting in the first several rows. Most of the audience probably did not see striking details such as the makeup of the
Phantom in full.
The Royal Albert Hall housed the musical and it is a quite large concert hall.
The stage was positioned on the end of the long side of the oval stadium. There was a massive chandelier on top of the hall. The orchestra was cleverly placed on the second story of the stage next to the large screens that acted as the background of the play. The screen changed backgrounds depending on the scene and added effects.
Special effects such as fog, the pyrotechnics, or the flashy lights were remarkable.
The costumes were vibrant and choreography was fantastic. What surprised me during the musical was the instrumental music. I was not expecting to hear electric guitars, drums, or the 80’s techno music in a musical written so long ago. (I thought the play was several hundred years old before discovering the debut was in 1986)
Although the stadium and the special effects were spectacular, the acting in the play were the major factors in making the musical one of the best. Actor Ramin
Karimloo played as the Phantom while Sierra Boggess played Christine Daee. I can not say if Karimloo’s interpretation of the role outperformed other phantoms, but I was

very pleased with his performance. Karimloo was able to capture all the emotions of the Phantom well, especially the tormented side. His energy and body language during powerful moments were memorable. Both his and Boggess’s singing were amazing as I noticed that they were in perfect sync with the orchestra. Out of all the voices of the musical I would say Bogess’s has the finest one. The first time I actually had a jaw-opening moment because of a song is when Bogess sang for