Recently, I watched the Phantom of the Opera which is one of the great Broadway show in the history. When I watched this show, I was shocked by the scene, the music, and the performance. Everything presented on the stage was perfect and amazing. Some of the musicals are pushing us to fall asleep, but The Phantom of the Opera can make us fall in love with the musical show. The Phantom of the Opera is the longest-running show in the Broadway history that it is a story about the love and revenge. The phantom was considered as a mysterious ghost haunts the opera with a mask to hide his ugly face. He fell in love with Christine, and then he taught her the skill of singing and help her become the leading character in the performance. However, Christine fell in love with Raoul, who was her friend in the childhood. The Phantom felt that he was betrayed by Christine, then he began to revenge because he thinks that Christine should belong to him. The ending of the show was interesting because the phantom disappeared and just left a mask on the stage which gives us a space to imagine the result of the Phantom. One thing makes me impressive was the music, such as “ the Angel of music,” “the Music of the Night,” and especially “ the Phantom of the Opera.”
One theme that we learned related to the Phantom of the Opera is the rationalization. In my opinion, the existence of the phantom was considered as irrational because he was named as opera Ghost that he should not exist. The Phantom was a talented music singer, but the ugly face push the Phantom became an inferiority person that he eager to gain attention and be accepted by the public. He was lived in the darkness alone for a long time without contact with others so that he was attracted by Christine who is a young, beautiful girl when he saw her. He considered Christine as his redemption and belonging, so he taught Christine how to sing, and he used his ‘power’ to help her to became the leading role in the play. He is an irrational person because of his radical behavior. He made the backdrop collapse without warning to scare the original soprano and made her angry so that she refused to perform. Then he pushed Christine to be the new soprano to perform. In addition, he is a crazy man in the play because he threatened and commanded the owner of the theater to let Christine replace the original singer to be the main character or there would be a terrible disaster. He made accidents and killed the man who controlled stage prop when the owner did not follow what he says. Moreover, when he found that Christine falls in love with Raoul, he forced Christine to stay with him forever or to kill Raoul. From his existence to his behavior, I can strongly feel that he is an unreasonable man. However, the Phantom became rational at the end of the show because he freed himself when he released Christine and Raoul. He understood he could not compel Christine to love him.
The Phantom of the Opera is related to Bewitched. In the show, the existence of the phantom is irrational because he was not accepted by the public due to his ugly face even though he had a talented skill of singing. In the same way, the existence of Manago is also irrational because she is the incarnation of the serpent demon that the society can not accept her. In addition, when Christine didn’t saw the face of the Phantom, she admired him and treated him as “angel of music.” However, when she saw the real appearance of the phantom, she felt so scared of it. Similarly, Toyo-o fell in love with Manago and wanted to marry her when he didn’t find that she was a serpent. He Toyo-o also felt scared and tried to escape from her when he found that Manago was the carnation of the monster. Furthermore, in the show, the Phantom killed the character who should perform with Christine and pretended the man to perform with her. But Christine found that she was singing with the Phantom and exposed his disfigured face to the audience. For the bewitched, Mango killed Toyo-o’s wife and dominated the body his wife and appeared in front of Toyo-o. However, Toyo-o discovered her was not his wife because Manago’s behavior was different from his wife. Therefore, the Phantom of the Opera and Bewitched have many plots that we can connect to each other.
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