The Phantom of the Opera (miniseries)

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The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera, 1990 dvd cover.jpg
Official DVD cover
GenreDrama
Music
Mystery
Horror
Created by Saban Entertainment
Based on The Phantom of the Opera
by Gaston Leroux
Written by Arthur Kopit
Gaston Leroux (novel)
Directed by Tony Richardson
Starring Charles Dance
Teri Polo
Burt Lancaster
Theme music composer John Addison
Country of originUnited States
France
Italy
Germany
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes2
Production
Executive producersGary Hoffman
Ross Milloy
Haim Saban
Edgar J. Scherick
ProducersRoss Milloy
Mitch Engel (associate)
William W. Wilson III (co-producer)
Production locationParis
Cinematography Steve Yaconelli
EditorBob Lambert
Running time168 minutes
Production company Saban Entertainment
Budget$10 million [1]
Original release
Network NBC
ReleaseMarch 18 (1990-03-18) –
March 19, 1990 (1990-03-19)

The Phantom of the Opera is a 1990 American two-part television miniseries directed by Tony Richardson and starring Charles Dance in the title role. It is adapted from Arthur Kopit's book from his stage musical Phantom , which is based loosely on Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel. [2]

Contents

Plot

The Phantom of the Opera is a disfigured musician named Erik who lives below the Opéra Garnier in Paris. He has a large part in managing each performance until his friend Gerard Carriere is dismissed. The new manager Choleti refuses to listen to warnings about the "ghost" who haunts the opera house, even when the wardrobe man goes into the depths of the opera house and is killed.

Christine Daaé comes to the Paris Opera House to receive voice lessons; however she is dismissed by Choleti's wife, Carlotta, to working in the costume department. The doorman lets Christine stay in a storage room in the Opera House. Upon hearing her sing, the Phantom is entranced by her voice. He offers to be her teacher, but must remain anonymous; that is why he wears a mask. They begin lessons, and the Phantom falls deeper in love with her.

Erik begins a campaign of humiliation against Carlotta, sabotaging her performances. With Erik's encouragement, Christine earns a singing contract. The Comte de Chagny realizes Christine was his childhood sweetheart. Erik witnesses them together and stays up all night in the rehearsal room.

Finding out Christine has been living in the Opera, Carlotta blackmails Christine into telling her about her vocal coach. When Carlotta informs her husband that Christine's teacher is the Phantom, Choleti gives Christine the female lead of the opera Faust; he is working with the police to capture the Phantom. Carlotta gives Christine a drink that weakens her voice during the performance. The audience boos and Erik is enraged. He cuts through the ropes holding the chandelier and drops it on the audience, then abducts Christine to his underground lair.

The Phantom discovers Carlotta was behind Christine's voice problems and dumps rats on her, driving her insane. Carriere pleads with him to let Christine go, but Erik refuses. He insists that the world above is not fit for her and believes that in time she will love him. Carriere goes to Christine and urges her to get out. He tells her the story of Erik's past and of Erik's mother, a great singer named Belladova to whom she bears a resemblance. Belladova gave birth to him below the opera house, and Erik has lived there his entire life. Christine refuses to leave without talking to Erik.

She asks Erik to show her his face promising him that she would be able to look at him with love and acceptance, as his mother once did. When he does unmask, she faints. In the midst of an anguished breakdown, Erik locks her in one of his chambers. Christine escapes, and Carriere and the Count take her from the Opera House. Christine is stricken with guilt and begs Phillipe to take her back. The Comte agrees and he and Christine approach Choleti about singing that night. Choleti secretly arranges to have police planted throughout the opera house.

Carriere tells Erik that Christine did not mean to hurt him. The older man reveals that he has seen Erik's face, because he is his father. Erik says he knew, as they have the same eyes (the only thing of his face he can bear to look at). Christine sings at that night's performance of Faust. Erik hears her and forces himself up to Box Five. He begins singing with her. Christine and the Phantom sing to each other with such passion that the audience is awed and gives them a standing ovation.

The police shoot at Erik and he grabs ahold of Christine, carrying her off to the roof. The Comte pursues them, but in the ensuing struggle is knocked off the roof, dangling above the street. At Christine's pleading, Erik pulls him to safety. Erik is cornered by police determined to take him alive. Carriere has retrieved a gun and upholding a promise, Carriere shoots him. Erik falls from the roof and Christine runs to him. While cradled in his father's lap, Christine removes Erik's mask, looks him straight in the face and smiles. Erik dies with his father and Christine at his side. Christine replaces Erik's mask and is led away by the Comte.

Cast

Production

Arthur Kopit had long been an admirer of Gaston Leroux's story, but felt that the horror premise had left out the possibility of a more compelling relationship between the two main characters. So he came up with a script in which the Phantom is a romantic hero, frightening only to those who would misuse the opera house wherein he dwells – and to those who would stand in the way of Christine's eventual rise to stardom. And he decided to use plenty of music in his storytelling – not original music, but classical opera arias that would imbue his production with a sense of the Phantom's heart, soul and passion. Then Andrew Lloyd Webber came along, and Kopit was devastated: "Here was work that I deeply loved, and it looked for all that world like it would never be seen."[ citation needed ]

He later heard that the network was in the market for a miniseries, so he sent them a copy of his script. "I had to convince them that I wasn't following on the heels of Lloyd Webber's success," he said. "But once I was able to do that, it wasn't difficult to help them see the potential of this interesting, unusual love story." [3]

Reception

The miniseries won two Emmy Awards out of five nominations in 1990 for Outstanding Art Direction and Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling for a Miniseries or a Special. [4] It was also nominated for two Golden Globe Awards in 1991 for Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television and Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television (Burt Lancaster). [5]

Entertainment Weekly critic Ken Tucker gave the film a score of A− and said Kopit and director Tony Richardson "make the romance between the Phantom and Christine both touching and frightening, and the casting of Burt Lancaster as Carriere, the manager of the opera company, gives the story weight and great charm...The Phantom of the Opera has a few old-fashioned but genuinely scary moments...It's as if Richardson went back to look at old horror movies by such filmmakers as Val Lewton and James Whale to figure out how they got their spooky but never gruesome effects". Although he found Adam Storke's Count de Chagny bland, he declared that: "...all in all, The Phantom of the Opera is a real achievement: It's rare enough for a costume drama to show up on TV these days; the fact that this is a good one is amazing." [6]

People critic David Hiltbrand gave the film a score of B+ and said "Director Tony Richardson has mounted a sumptuous, stately version of this oft-told epic melodrama, far surpassing the previous TV version with Maximilian Schell and Jane Seymour in 1983. But Lon Chaney must be spinning in his grave, seeing what a rakish romantic his ghoulish Phantom has become over the years." Hiltbrand praised that Burt Lancaster "lends his usual air of refined dignity, and Charles Dance makes an elegant Phantom. But the real zest is provided by Ian Richardson and Andrea Ferreol, who bring great comic verve to the roles of the pompous popinjay of an opera director and his deluded diva of a wife." [7]

The Deseret News critic Joseph Walker said, "Kopit's script maintains his vision throughout, expertly mixing moods ranging from the ridiculous ('I'm not used to killing people,' says the Phantom after a rare violent episode. 'It throws me off.') to the sublime. And the production values throughout are first rate..." Walker also added that Charles Dance is a "superb Phantom – brooding and mysterious, and yet somehow approachable. Polo makes the most of her big TV break, creating a flesh and blood heroine who is utterly believable...The rest of the cast is similarly effective, especially Ferreol who practically steals the show with her broad comic Carlotta." [8] TV Guide gave the film four out of five stars and said Charles Dance is an "excellent Phantom" and "excellent support from Richardson and Lancaster." [9]

The New York Times critic John J. O'Connor was puzzled how the recluse Phantom became "cultivated and talented" and criticized Adam Storke's performance and the "international menu of accents." However, he stated "the physical production is gloriously lavish...And the director Tony Richardson deftly captures the fairy-tale aspects of the story," describing the film as a "variation on Beauty and the Beast, with echoes of Cinderella and enchanted forests." He also stated that "most of the performances transcend the accent difficulties. Mr. Dance is elegant, Mr. Lancaster dignified and Miss Polo, not yet 20 years old, strikingly beautiful. The show is just about stolen, however, by Ian Richardson and Andrea Ferreol...," and concluded "Phantom adds up to an odd but fascinating prime-time diversion." [10]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>The Phantom of the Opera</i> (novel) 1909 novel by Gaston Leroux

The Phantom of the Opera is a novel by French author Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serial in Le Gaulois from 23 September 1909 to 8 January 1910, and was released in volume form in late March 1910 by Pierre Lafitte. The novel is partly inspired by historical events at the Paris Opera during the nineteenth century, and by an apocryphal tale concerning the use of a former ballet pupil's skeleton in Carl Maria von Weber's 1841 production of Der Freischütz. It has been successfully adapted into various stage and film adaptations, most notable of which are the 1925 film depiction featuring Lon Chaney, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical.

<i>The Phantom of the Opera</i> (1986 musical) 1986 musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber

The Phantom of the Opera is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart, additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe and a libretto by Lloyd Webber and Stilgoe. Based on the 1910 French novel of the same name by Gaston Leroux, it tells the tragic story of a beautiful soprano, Christine Daaé, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious, masked musical genius living in the subterranean labyrinth beneath the Paris Opéra House.

<i>The Phantom of the Opera</i> (2004 film) 2004 film by Joel Schumacher

The Phantom of the Opera is a 2004 musical romantic drama film based on Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical of the same name, which in turn is based on the 1910 French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux. Produced and co-written by Lloyd Webber and directed by Joel Schumacher, it stars Gerard Butler in the title role, with Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson, Miranda Richardson, Minnie Driver, Simon Callow, Ciarán Hinds, Victor McGuire and Jennifer Ellison in supporting roles.

<i>The Phantom of the Opera</i> (1925 film) 1925 American silent horror film

The Phantom of the Opera is a 1925 American silent horror film adaptation of Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra, directed by Rupert Julian and starring Lon Chaney in the title role of the deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House, causing murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star. The film remains most famous for Chaney's ghastly, self-devised make-up, which was kept a studio secret until the film's premiere. The picture also features Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Gibson Gowland, John St. Polis and Snitz Edwards. The last surviving cast member was Carla Laemmle (1909-2014), niece of producer Carl Laemmle, who played a small role as a "prima ballerina" in the film when she was about 15 years old. The film was released on September 6, 1925, premiering at the Astor Theatre in New York. The film's final budget was $632,357.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christine Daaé</span> Fictional character

Christine Daaé is a fictional character and the female protagonist of Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera and of the various adaptations of the work. Erik, the Phantom of the Opera and Viscount Raoul de Chagny both fall in love with her.

Carlotta is a fictional character from Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera. She is the leading soprano at the Paris Opera House who is criticised by the narrator and the Phantom for the lack of emotion in her performances.

<i>The Phantom of the Opera</i> (1989 film) 1989 film by Dwight H. Little

The Phantom of the Opera is a 1989 American horror film directed by Dwight H. Little and based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel of the same name. The film is an updated and gorier version of Leroux's classic tale, and stars Robert Englund as the Phantom. The film was a critical and commercial failure.

<i>Phantom of the Opera</i> (1976 musical) 1976 musical by Ken Hill

Phantom of the Opera is a musical with lyrics and a book by Ken Hill. It is based on the 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. Hill wrote the original lyrics to the music of Giuseppe Verdi, Charles Gounod, Jacques Offenbach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Carl Maria von Weber, Gaetano Donizetti, and Arrigo Boito. It premiered in Lancaster, Lancashire, England, in 1976, and had a West End production in 1991. and further international productions

<i>Phantom</i> (musical) Musical by Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit

Phantom is a musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Arthur Kopit. Based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera, the musical was first presented in Houston, Texas in 1991.

<i>Phantom</i> (Kay novel)

Phantom is a 1990 novel by Susan Kay, based on the 1910 Gaston Leroux novel The Phantom of the Opera. It is a biography of the title character Erik.

<i>The Phantom of Manhattan</i>

The Phantom of Manhattan is a 1999 novel by British writer Frederick Forsyth, written as a sequel to the 1910 novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux. It is widely known to have been written at the request of Andrew Lloyd Webber as material for a potential sequel to The Phantom of the Opera.

Adaptations of <i>The Phantom of the Opera</i>

There have been many literary and dramatic works based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera, ranging from stage musicals to films to children's books. Some well known stage and screen adaptations of the novel are the 1925 film and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical ; Susan Kay's 1990 Phantom is one of the best known novels and includes in-depth study of the title character's life and experiences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madame Giry</span> Fictional character

Madame Giry is a fictional character from Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera. She is a fairly intermediate character in the novel, although her role is much increased in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical. Madame Giry is also a character in the 2010 musical Love Never Dies, a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera.

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Meg Giry is one of the fictional characters from Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera. In the story, she is Madame Giry's oldest daughter.

Erik (<i>The Phantom of the Opera</i>) Fictional character

Erik is the title character from Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra, best known to English speakers as The Phantom of the Opera. The character has been adapted to alternative media several times, including in the 1925 film adaptation starring Lon Chaney, the 1943 remake starring Claude Rains, the 1962 remake starring Herbert Lom, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical.

<i>The Phantom of the Opera</i> (1998 film) 1998 Italian film

The Phantom of the Opera is a 1998 Italian romantic-horror film directed by Dario Argento, adapted from the 1910 novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux. It is not to be confused with the 1987 film Opera, also directed by Dario Argento.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Persian</span> Fictional character

The Persian is a major character from the 1910 Gaston Leroux novel The Phantom of the Opera. In the book, he is the one who tells most of the background of Erik's history. Erik refers to him as the "daroga" and his memoirs are featured in five chapters of the novel. He is also considered Erik's only friend.

The Phantom of the Opera may refer to:

<i>The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall</i> 2011 British film

The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall is a 2011 British concert film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical The Phantom of the Opera, which in turn was based on the 1910 French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux.

References

  1. ↑ Champlin, Charles (1990-03-18). "The Phantom Acquires a Father : NBC's $10-Million Miniseries Casts Burt Lancaster in the New Role". Los Angeles Times.
  2. ↑ Hodges, Ann (1990-03-18). "TV version of 'Phantom of Opera' celebrates music but is not a musical". Houston Chronicle. "I sent them this.' It was the book for a musical, but it was virtually a play, and NBC took it.[ permanent dead link ]
  3. ↑ Walker, Joseph (1990-03-18). "PHANTOM OF THE OPERA: NO, IT ISN'T THE HIT MUSICAL – BUT IT'S STILL GOOD VIEWING". Deseret News.
  4. ↑ The Phantom of the Opera NBC Emmys.com
  5. ↑ Awards Search: Phantom of the Opera, The Archived 2012-04-04 at the Wayback Machine . goldenglobes.org
  6. ↑ Tucker, Ken (1990-03-16). "TV Review: The Phantom of the Opera". Entertainment Weekly (5).
  7. ↑ Hiltbrand, David (1990-03-19). "Picks and Pans Review: The Phantom of the Opera". People. 33 (11).
  8. ↑ Walker, Joseph (1990-03-18). "PHANTOM OF THE OPERA: NO, IT ISN'T THE HIT MUSICAL – BUT IT'S STILL GOOD VIEWING". Deseret News.
  9. ↑ "The Phantom Of The Opera: Review". TV Guide. 1990.
  10. ↑ O'Connor, John J. (1990-03-16). "Review/Television; Telling the Story of Monty Python, in 2 Episodes". The New York Times.
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