The following post by Christopher Scott is part of an ongoing 'Gothic
Bible Blog Series' and part of the Gothic Bible project, a collaborative
project run by Sheffield Gothic and SIIBS at the University of
Sheffield, and also the University of Auckland. You can find out more
about the project here,
and if you want to contribute to the blog series you can email us at
Gothic Bible@sheffield.ac.uk or tweet us at @GothicBible.
Satan as the Masked Antagonist in Andrew Lloyd
Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera
(1986)
Even
after its thirtieth anniversary, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hit musical The
Phantom of the Opera (1986) continues to amaze audiences. For regular weekend showings, including a
matinee performance on Saturdays, a typical ticket sells between £49 and
£129. Among the musical’s competitors, Phantom
reigns supreme as the longest running show on London’s West End. That the spectacle still fills Her Majesty’s
Theatre and garners success thirty years later constitutes a remarkable
feat. This timeless quality of Phantom
invites nuanced interpretive analyses by critics and academics alike. Jerrold E. Hogle published a monograph on
Gaston Leroux’s Le Fantôme de l'Opéra (1910), the novel from which
Webber orchestrated his musical rendition.
As Leroux’s novel bears the markings of the Gothic aesthetic, which
Hogle discusses in his study, Webber’s spectacle stages an interaction between
the titular villain and the Gothic heroine, a relationship that bears striking
similarity to that found in the archetypal Gothic narrative, The Castle of
Otranto (1764).[i] But as I watched the
performance of The Phantom of the Opera for the first time, something
else arrested my attention—something biblical.
Focusing closely on the spectacle’s characterization, mise en scène,
and choreography, I progressively recognized the scriptural simulacrum. The eponymous Phantom and Christine mirrored
Satan and Eve in Genesis 3. Utilizing
both Gothic and biblical prisms when observing Phantom yields a
magnified perception of Eden’s notorious tempter as he takes the form of the
masked villain in Webber’s staged version of Leroux’s novel.
When
the lights in Her Majesty’s Theatre dimmed and the curtain parted, I anxiously
awaited the notorious Phantom. Yet to my
dismay, the opening scenes depicted an opera about the Carthaginian conqueror
Hannibal Barca (247-183/1 BCE). What? Hannibal?
Where’s the Phantom? Set in a
Parisian opera house, Phantom opens with a frame narrative about
Hannibal; strategically, it lulls the audience into a false sense of
comfort. Then it happens. BOOM!
A body drops from the rafters, and the bewildered actors below assume
the nefarious event confirms the work of the Phantom. (When the corpse flew down into the scene,
the spectators sitting to my left actually jumped in shock!) But my initial impatience still
lingered. Where was the Phantom? During the opening of the performance the
Phantom fails to appear, and his existence is questioned continually by the
characters. The musical’s titular
antagonist exists as a myth to some—a harbinger of death to others. The Phantom is simultaneously present and
absent, for the notion of his looming intrusion lingers throughout the
performance. This characterization of
the Phantom confers a notion of incorporeality, and after the audience wade
through a deluge of speculation, the Phantom finally appears. He materializes, though, only for Christine,
Webber’s heroine, and does so only through a transparent mirror in her dressing
room. The Phantom’s interaction with her
bears an intimacy unlike any other in the performance. As she offers him her hand, he pulls her
through the mirror into a numinous dimension, and the orchestra commences a
melody that accompanies a subterranean descent.
(The Phantom seduces Christine) |
The
Phantom and Christine’s journey through labyrinthine passageways rivals that of
Walpole’s Isabella. Descending into the
bowels of the earth, corridor by corridor, they arrive at the Phantom’s lair,
reminiscent of a Christian cathedral. But rather than showcasing any religious
iconography, this underground chamber boasts a chiaroscuro that portrays more
of an inquisitor’s oubliette than the interior of any sacred Christian
structure. The Phantom operates within this mysterious underworld, and from
here his ostensible omnipresence inundates the remainder of the
performance. One moment he occupies the
rafters; another moment his shadow is visible behind the curtain. Though the audience and other characters
observe him, the possibility always remains that he may be incorporeal. Observed in the context of his nature,
actions, and influence on Christine, the Phantom reflects a diabolical image.
When
I arrived at Her Majesty’s Theatre, I never expected to encounter a spectacle
centred on Satan—that is, an allegorical Satan.
But the Phantom and Christine’s descent through Gothic labyrinths to an
underground netherworld eventually leads to a pivotal scene in the spectacle,
one that imitates the biblical scene in Genesis 3. The Phantom desires to have his own dramatic piece
performed with Christine as its lead actress.
During the performance, he clandestinely enters the climactic scene,
clad and hooded in black, singing a duet with her titled ‘The Point Of No
Return’. The mise en scène and
choreography that accompany this musical piece synergize into a scene of
seduction wherein the Phantom tempts Christine to eat an apple as she sings the
words ‘point of no return’. Satan’s
triumph over Eve in the biblical garden also results in a literal ‘point of no
return’ or, in other words, her ignominious expulsion from Eden. Presenting a spectral seducer, a solitary
female, and an apple between them, Webber composes a key moment in the
spectacle that suggests an allegorical interpretation of the Phantom’s satanic
identity.
[i]
See Jerrold E. Hogle, The Undergrounds of
The Phantom of the Opera: Sublimation
and the Gothic in Leroux’s Novel and Its Progeny. New York: Palgrave, 2002.
Christopher Scott is a PhD researcher at the University of Sheffield, focusing primarily on Edwardian fiction and with a particular interest in the literary Gothic mode, theological iconography, and representations of the natural environment in literature and film. Co-director of the Gothic Bible project, we can confirm that Christopher does not perform his research in subterranean chambers.
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