Fast forward 15 years later and I fulfilled my dream to watch it performed in the West End on its 30th anniversary run, and I remember crying my way through most of the musical, to my partners’ chagrin. But therein lies the magic of the music of the Phantom of the Opera, and that magic has endured for the last three decades.
SINGAPORE (May 22): When I was 15 years old, I heard ‘Music of the Night’ for the first time from an old CD my father purchased long ago. It was a recording of the Highlights of the Phantom of the Opera, with the original London cast that performed the musical in the West End, London in 1986.
The song, which the titular character sings to his muse and protégé Christine Daaé as he smuggles her away to his (for the lack of a better description) dungeon in the depths of the city, was brilliantly performed by Michael Crawford then. His haunting, pitiful and desperate seduction in the form of song stuck in my mind and never left– till today, it still brings tears to my eyes.
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