The musical is based on Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical The Phantom of the Opera. The Phantom of the Opera is, in turn, based on the original novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by French novelist Gaston Leroux. The number one reason why I do not agree with LND's existence would have to be the fact that Lloyd Webber himself did not pen the original source material. The only person who could respectfully write a true sequel to The Phantom of the Opera would be Leroux himself. It could be viewed as Lloyd Webber writing a sequel to his musical and not the actual story, but considering how close the first musical really is to the original story I don't assume it.
The second reason I dislike Love Never Dies so much HAS to be the fact that it, though technically a sequel to the original POTO, it really isn't a sequel at all. The storyline is just bizarre and the characters are absolutely NOTHING like their ten years previous counterparts from Phantom of the Opera. We will ruminate below:
In the first installment, Christine is raised by ballet master Madame Giry in the Paris Opera house and is basically a sister to Mme Giry's daughter Meg. After Christine falls in love with her childhood friend Raoul, the Phantom goes just a little crazy, stalking Christine, killing a few people and ultimately setting the opera house in flames. Christine is kidnapped by the Phantom and taken to his lair, where he then traps her fiance Raoul. She is given an ultimatum: marry Phantom and live with him for the rest of their lives, or watch Raoul die and go free. Christine takes pity on the Phantom and kisses him. He is so moved by the first show of compassion towards him in his entire life that he lets both go free to be together.
The storyline of LND goes as so: After being freed by the mad man who was holding her in his creepy lair entirely against her will and nearly killing her fiance who she loves, Christine returns to the Phantom on the night before her wedding to sleep with him. The next morning, the Phantom, who has been obsessed with Christine since she was a young girl and had weeks before kidnapped her, LEAVES Christine for no discernible reason. She goes on to marry Raoul, who by the events of LND has lost all of his money and is a drunk. The Giry's hate Christine now for leaving the Phantom. Basically Meg kidnaps Gustave for the Phantom's attention, shoots Christine by accident (somehow), and Christine dies in the arms of the Phantom (but not before she can tell Gustave that his real father is the Phantom and not Raoul).
Just no. Christine even sings to Phantom about how much she loved him. Unless Christine is suffering from a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome, I don't see how that could have been the case. Phantom is basically portrayed as being more sane than Raoul in this installment. In fact, every single character present in LND who was in the original is a near opposite to what they were in the original. Love Never Dies also takes place on Coney Island, where Christine is called to perform. When, exactly, did all of these natives to France learn to speak English? And am I really expected to believe that the Phantom would react the way he did to Christine being shot and killed when she was finally agreeing and happy to be with him? He was killing dudes left and right when she got engaged.
In all seriousness, Love Never Dies is technically just a fanfiction by Lloyd Webber that cost a whole lot to produce. One thing going for it: the score of the show is gorgeous. But I'm not buying that storyline. Legend has it that when he was first writing the show, Lloyd Webber's cat jumped onto his computer and erased the entirety of the work he had written so far. This is the man who composed the musical Cats. If that isn't a sign from above to cease and desist, I don't know what is.
No comments:
Post a Comment