The metro area’s return of “The Phantom of the Opera” is a full-circle moment for a Bloomfield Hills native in the cast.
Alyssa Giannetti starred in an Andover High School production of “Phantom” during her junior year and performed at the Detroit Opera House — where “Phantom,” the longest-running show in Broadway history, is being staged — with the Andover High School choir during her senior year. And her first national tour, after graduation from Northwestern University, was in the cast of the first national touring company of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom” sequel, “Love Never Dies,” which played at the Fisher Theatre in 2017.
“I’m so excited to be back, and it’s just such a different time in my life,” Giannetti, 31, says via phone from the “Phantom” tour stop in Chicago. “When I first came with ‘Love Never Dies,’ it was my first professional contract. Now I’ve had a career, and I’ve learned so much — how to work on stage, how to be a better scene partner, just experience and training and continuing to hone my craft.
“And now to be back with the original ‘Phantom’ is really magical.”
Giannetti — who, as in “Love Never Dies,” understudies the female lead Christine Daae — is also happy to have a chance to help tell the first part of the “Phantom” story now.
“I’m aging backwards 10 years,” she says, with a laugh, before adding, “Just watching (Daae’s) journey, I think, is important, that connection of how she finds her voice and what she wants from her life and the people in her life and what she can learn from each of them. That connection runs through each of these shows, so that experience really informs how I approach being in (‘Phantom’).”
Giannetti is a lifelong theater fan, introduced by her parents. “I had (‘Les Misérables’) memorized before I even saw it on stage,” she recalls. She took piano lessons and was in the school choir, but she considers herself “a late starter” in musical theater, not starting until she auditioned for “Phantom” at Andover, surprising herself by winning the Daae role.
“The lead role in those shows usually goes to a senior, so I never expected to get Christine,” she says now. “I was taking voice lessons at the time, and I gave my voice teacher a heart attack. She said, ‘Do you know what you have to do to pursue this?!’ It was like a crash course in opera.
“But I thought, ‘I really enjoy this, and I think I can do it.’ So by that summer, I had decided I was going to pursue performing. I did a summer program at the University of Michigan, and by that fall, I was making steps for pre-screenings for college programs. It was definitely late in the game, but when you find that thing you want to do, you have to follow it.”
After studying opera at Northwestern and since touring with “Love Never Dies,” Giannetti — who’s been based in New York for nearly a decade — has worked with several productions, including the Webber revue “Unmasked” at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, “Into the Woods” with the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera” and “Mary Poppins” in St. Louis. She also began a “side hustle” doing makeup for everything from shows to weddings. “It’s great to have something artistic and creative that’s flexible with my performing schedule,” she notes.
Being part of the “Phantom” legacy, meanwhile — with seven Tony Awards and seen by more than 160 million people in 213 cities worldwide — is an unquestionable high point of Giannetti’s still-young career.
“I would say this (current tour) is as close to the Broadway production as you can get,” she says. “Everything is magnificent and beautiful and large. There’s a lot of beautiful odes to the original and some new, fresh energy — some (cast members) who have history with ‘Phantom,’ some who have never been part of the show. I think it’s another great representation of this great work, and I’m happy to still be in that world of ‘Phantom.’”
“The Phantom of the Opera” will be staged Wednesday, Feb. 4 through Feb. 15 at the Detroit Opera House, 1526 Broadway St., Detroit. A special Open Caption performance takes place at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 8. 313-872-1000 or broadwayindetroit.com.
