If there’s any stage musical that can rest on its proverbial laurels, it’s “The Phantom of the Opera.”
But even after more than 40 years, the most definitive work of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s celebrated career continues to transform and refresh, as evidenced by the current touring production at the Detroit Opera House through Feb. 15.
This version of “Phantom,” the longest-running show in Broadway history and a seven-time Tony Award winner (including Best Musical), is billed as something of a return to form, and its original grandeur, after the sleek, modernized production that was last in town during January of 2019. In truth, however, it’s a hybrid of the two; yes, the “old school” splendor of the Paris Opera House and its environs is being conveyed once again, but with the assistance of contemporary technology that brings a visual richness and an easy flow to its very familiar proceedings.
The deft use of curtaining, high-definition video backdrops and efficient scenery does a lot with — well, not a little, but with less than perhaps was used back in the late 80s. And you don’t feel like it misses a thing. The pyrotechnics that were part of the last “Phantom” incarnation are still there and deployed effectively, especially when “Phantom’s” famed chandelier comes to life at the start of the show and subsequently drops to just a few feet over the audience’s head at the end of Act I.
The Phantom and Christine make their way to the catacombs this time using a single catwalk that lowers during their trip, while the boat journey to his candle-lit lair remains a visually arresting hallmark. The Phantom’s appearances and disappearances are as smooth as Isaiah Bailey’s fluid tenor, and speakers deployed around the venue only add to his moments of disembodied menace. The opera production pieces such as the “Hannibal Rehearsal,” “Il Muto” and “Don Juan Triumphant” feel like shows within a show, and this presentation of “Masquerade” employs mannequins and swirling choreography to start Act II off with a literal bang.
All of that said, the fact remains you can dress “Phantom” up most any way you want, but it’s the music of the night, and those performing it, that make or break any given production. And in this case the show has those bases covered, too.
Jordan Lee Gilbert, who will perform in all but five shows of the Opera House run, is magnificent Christine. She delivers her goosebump-inducing soprano in a manner that serves the songs more than her own skills, and she certainly plays nicely with others; signature duet pieces such as “Angel of Music,” “The Phantom of the Opera” and “The Point of No Return” with Bailey’s Phantom and “All I Ask of You with Raoul (Daniel Lopez) are nothing less than rapturous. Bailey, meanwhile, plays the Phantom with intriguing restraint, leaning into the psychological damage that’s part of his backstory for welcome nuance that makes more disturbingly macabre than monstrous.
And his “Music of the Night” is so authoritative you want to hear it again, immediately, after Bailey sings it.
Also notable in this production are the comic pieces. The likes of Midori Marsh (Carlotta Giudicelli), Christopher Bozeka (Ubaldo Piangi), Jerome Harr (Don Attilio) and William Thomas Evans (Monsieur Firmin) understand the rang of interpretations that are implied in these segments and camp it up accordingly — not to the lengths of, say, the Thenardiers in “Les Miserables,” but with a broad levity that helps to set up “Phantom’s” darker moments.
So while they’re claiming “Phantom” is “back” in some manner, the truth is it’s never left. It’s just that over the course of a long history it’s shown a capacity for change, and in this latest production it’s overwhelmingly for the good.
“The Phantom of the Opera” runs 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.
