Phantom of the Opera Orchestral Medley - DPops

The Phantom of the Opera: A Love Story
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Arranged and conducted by Michael Wang JE'17
Performed at 'DPops Finds Love' in Battell Chapel on March 4, 2017

0:00 Angel of Music
0:33 The Phantom of the Opera (ft. Georgia Smits on Organ)
2:00 Think of Me
3:19 Prima Donna
5:09 All I Ask of You
7:51 Masquerade
8:44 Chase
9:34 The Point of No Return (ft. Linus Lu Viola Solo)
12:23 Wishing
13:45 The Music of the Night

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The most financially successful musical of all time and the longest-running show on Broadway, The Phantom of the Opera has been viewed by over 131 million people. It is not a love story in the traditional vein, but given that this work was born of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s desire to write a piece of romance, the subtitle seems apt.

We begin in the first movement with a lone violin playing the “Angel of Music” theme (listen carefully, as it makes two masqueraded reprises!), together with “Masquerade” on the music box. It’s lyrical and cute, but things quickly turn dark, for the Phantom is more demon than angel (“The Phantom of the Opera”). After the title track, we introduce Christine and Carlotta on their operatic solos – “Think of Me” sets up the former’s rendezvous with Raoul, and “Prima Donna” encapsulates the entirety of the latter’s one-dimensional personality.

With all the main characters in play but one, the second movement opens with Raoul, who catalyzes the chaos of the plot with a deadly love triangle (“All I Ask of You”). We receive one final light-hearted respite in the form of a “Masquerade” party, but the Phantom crashes it – and later steals Christine! The bass drum panics, the violins sweat, and then alone with the Phantom in his lair, we plunge into the depths of seduction (“The Point of No Return”). He sings Christine and Raoul’s refrain, only to poison it with a sinister end. When the orchestra plays next, Christine longs for her deceased father, either for the gladder times of the past or for the wisdom to resolve her plight (“Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again”). Without warning, this ode swells into a climactic anthem, and “The Music of the Night” ends this arrangement as it does the original, love and pain and beauty and nighttime all at once.

Phantom is the most wholehearted celebration of melody that I know – melodies that are subtle, unforgettable, and enchantingly orchestrated. I had fun figuring out how to arrange the leitmotif puzzle pieces into a cohesive work, and I hope you become as captivated by Webber’s genius as I am.

Program notes by Michael Wang

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