Love Never Dies - Soundtrack review

I've finally finished listening to the soundtrack of Love Never Dies in its entirety and I thought I'd jot down a few of my thoughts. If you have no interest in Phantom or you do not wish to be spoiled before listening to the soundtrack yourself or seeing the show itself, then read no further, as I will discuss at length plot details. Obviously, not having discussed the musical I can't comment on the staging or set or the acting, but I have read people writing about it and I have a bit of a fair idea what goes on; but I will move on to comment on broader implications this musical will have on the fandom.

Plot

So the day after the first preview, I pretty much went on a Google-hunt to the juicy details of the plot. I wasn't going to care for being spoiled when it came to this because I would've listened to the CD anyway, and really, I don't go to see musicals for the plot, I go for the music and the acting and the singing and the set and the aesthetic experience to overwhelm me.

I soon learnt a few thing. The mysterious boy, Gustave, was the Phantom's child, as had been long speculated, especially since this plot was loosely linked to The Phantom of Manhattan. I read that the scene in which this information is revealed = rather exposition heavy and jilted, that she, on her wedding night to Raoul, tracked down the Phantom, slept with him and then went and married Raoul anyway. Raoul has become a drunk gambler and Gustave doesn't like him that much and neither does Christine. I learnt that Meg becomes jealous of Christine's re-emergence into their lives, kidnaps Gustav and as the Phantom tries to rescue him, she becomes agitated and accidentally pulls the trigger, killing Christine. Thus the musical ends.

My initial reaction to it? I wasn't a very big fan at all. I had long hoped that Andrew Lloyd Webber would use the phan's expectations of Gustave being the Phantom's child against us, surprising us and revealing that though the child bears many striking similarities with our beloved Erik, he is not the child. The fact that these synopses contradicted my hopes did annoy me somewhat.

At this point I ought to point out that the people who are going to go see the musical and then come and post all about it online and debate fervently into the late hours of the morning are going to be people who hated it going in and coming out, or at the very least didn't like it. So their description of the plot and opinions were going to be heavily biased. I knew this, but I always thought their basic understanding of the plot wouldn't be misguided either. (Turns out I was wrong :P)

I was glad, however, to find out that the night of conception was not at the end of 'Music of the Night' when she fainted and he somehow raped her. It would just be too much for that to be the case. However, the fact that she somehow left Raoul on their wedding night, tracked down the Phantom seemed just a little jilted to me, especially since she went back to the Phantom anyway.

I've actually since constructed my own nifty 'sequel' to the original Phantom story, a how-I-would've-done-it type of thing. And perhaps one day that story will come to fruition.

The things I did like about what I learned? That Meg became the villain in this one was great. I would've maybe preferred that she maliciously murdered Christine, rather than it being a big stroke of bad luck. I also quite love the notion that Raoul wasn't all he was hyped up to be. Obviously people do change, so I don't know why people got all up-in-arms about Raoul becoming a drunk, abusive husband ... How many women knowingly marry a man who's always been that way and had no intentions for their man to change? Not many I'm betting. For me it contrasts quite the differing loves for Christine and her men; with Raoul it's puppy-love, reminiscence brought on by the days they spent together as a child. With the Phantom it's a pure, consummate love, something that transcends human barriers.

With all these thoughts in my mind, I started listening to the CD today.

I was absolutely stoked to hear, in the song "Beneath a Moonless Sky" where the Phantom and Christine's tryst is described, that Christine wasn't just being incredibly capricious, that her finding the Phantom was not one-last-roll-in-the-hay and was a realisation that in the Phantom's Lair she made the wrong choice and she belongs with the Phantom (note the present tense of that). But why they didn't stay together was because the Phantom left, ashamed of what he was. I like that. If anything, it's more reminiscent of his redemption at the end of the original Phantom of the Opera, where he lets her go with Raoul. One interpretation of that could be that he felt so overwhelmed and so insignificant next to Christine that she should have the better man, afterall the Phantom is a tortured soul no matter how you look at it.

That was something a lot of people had trouble with, that the Phantom would now go out and seek Christine, after his redemptive action. I think after 10 years, asking to hear her sing again is not all that unreasonable, having pined for her so long. There's no indication on the CD that he'd ever planned on dueling with Raoul or trying to break them up, he was merely trying to hear her voice, his angel of music. But it was the revelation that Gustave was his son and that Christine loved him that prompted him in "Devil take the Hindmost" to actually have her choose between them.

I loooved the fact that Raoul was completely aware of how infinitely inadequate he was to her, that he was unable to provide for her the same way he saw the Phantom could. The fact that he suffers from the same frail complex the Phantom did (that he could never provide for Christine the way Raoul could). In fact, the fact that Raoul explicitly states in his song "Why Does She Love Me?" about how he wears a mask was enough to clinch the character for me.

At the end of the first act, I had thought that Madame Giry would become the villain and that she would use Meg as her puppet. I would've so preferred that to the revelation at the end that she's just a bitter good person. Seems like her character got a nice hook for development, but had it totally ripped away from her to focus on the daughter. But at the same time, had she become the major villain, there's no way they could resolve her AND Meg at the end.

And that's really one of the problems I have with Meg as a character. She opens as becoming a type of substitute Christine, she's the leading lady at the latest production at Phantasma, she and her mother had become very caring and helpful to the Phantom, and when Christine appears she gets agitated. Then when she finds out he didn't even watch her premiere she snaps. She takes Gustave to the pier, since he can't swim and then threatens to kill him with ... a gun?! Wouldn't you just push him into the water? :P

And then in the finale ... she shifts from having gone batshit crazy, to being totally jealous, to getting so angry that she pulls the trigger. AND THEN getting all apologetic. I just would've preferred if maybe she had some kind of development in those last moments ... maybe 'coming down from the ledge,' so to speak, before having the trigger pulled. It could always be the case the staging of the show elaborates on this, but the CD does not at all.

Perhaps one way to resolve this would be to have the Phantom become more badass in his revenge, and somehow in the process Christine gets shot. This gives Meg some closure to her character, without Christine's death feeling somewhat forced.

Gustave... there are so many things to love about this character. The actor who sings his voice brings so much to the character. An open-minded and curious little 10 year old kid, who though being disturbed at first at the Phantom's disfigurement, is able to look past this to the "Beauty Underneath," that he has the same disposition as the Phantom himself.

And the three henchmen of the Phantom, there's not much done with those characters. For that I have very few qualms, the story in this one was far more focussed on the actual love story. These new characters didn't need a whole bunch done with them, they were merely embodiments of the Phantom's power and influence and mystique. I couldn't expect to get another Firmin, Andre, Carlotta  and Piangi, could I?

I think after listening to it through, and having written this far in the blog post, I don't mind the plot much at all. Not even the idea that they slept together 10 years ago, something I had been rather against right up until the beginning of this post. My rebuttal to this, especially since most fans are hatin' on the musical on this point, was that though you might argue the plot of Love Never Dies was kind of retarded, you also have to admit that The Phantom of the Opera was somewhat retarded as well. Not the characters, who are very well written, but the plot itself, the what happens. The ending really saves it for the plot of Phantom.

Oh yeah, I should probably talk about Christine's death. I think it had to be absolutely necessary for the musical to make any sense without veering horribly into fan-fiction territory, because it would've just been a happy ending. I will say I'm glad it wasn't Raoul who became the villain of the piece and that it was a Giry. I think the death especially the very ends, with her singing to Gustave and the Phantom were very well written. A nice use of motifs and reprise to really get the emotions across, using the best songs too. I nearly cried, so that's good enough for me ;)

Music


I will say that this is what surprised me most about this. The music is very well written for most of the songs. It is definitely a very different feel from Phantom, and I don't just mean that it's not the same orchestrations. Just the tunes and the way the melodies work ... In Phantom these were heavily influenced by opera, since that is the backdrop against which the musical is written. In Love Never Dies, the backdrop is very different. It's Coney Island. It's America. It's a different time-period. That's why the music feels quite distinct. It's why we have songs like "Bathing Beauty" which would be the musical-within-a-musical for this show, which feel so un-Phantom. That's because it's not Phantom, and it doesn't try to be. I think "Bathing Beauty" fits right in with the context of the musical.


What does disappoint me is that there is so much of the sections between the songs, what in most musicals is just plain dialogue, has been converted into awkward dialogue set to music, rather than having any musical integrity of their own. Phantom was able to do this, Les Miserables manages to do this. The lines just aren't awkwardly forced onto a song, but feel natural and part of the song. That and the different changes in music are natural and progressive, not awkward and jaded as they are at times here. These are all issues I do not believe can be adequately (or even remotely) addressed by the context argument raised above.


I will categorically state that "The Beauty Underneath" is one of my favourite songs from the musical, even though it feels so out of place. But at the same time, so was "The Phantom of the Opera," which was written as a rock-opera ballad. Though thematically it was far more in common with "The Music of the Night" which I think is quite well written.


Yeah, some of the lyrics are horrible. But that's like maybe 10 different lines. The majority of it is passable-good, whilst a sizable portion are great. So far I've maybe heard 3-4 brilliant lines, but I will probably find more upon re-listens. Glenn Slater does a nice job here of mirroring many of the themes addressed in the original show and introducing and exploring some new ones. What I love best about the musical, that although probably classified as a different genre (or at least sub-genre) is that it still addresses the major-arcing themes of masks, of beauty, of art, of love, of darkness, of truth versus illusion. And personally I'm glad.


"Beneath a Moonless Sky" gets very expositiony at some points. But when they start singing about the actual sex it works quite nicely without getting overly explicit. "Devil take the Hindmost" and "Dear Old Friend" are lyrically the best and smartest songs. They remind me a lot of "Notes", "Notes II" and "Prima Donna" in their genius.


As for the songs themselves. A lot of them are good. I can't think of any particularly bad ones, except the awkward dialogue-set-to-music stated above. The great ones are:

• The Beauty Underneath
• Till I Hear You Sing
• Love Never Dies
• Coney Island Waltz (sounds brilliant when words added to the melody)
• Beneath a Moonless Sky
• Devil take the Hindmost
• Dear Old Friend
• Look With Your Heart

Basically the ones which are actually songs in their own right. I wish more songs were like this in this one, like in Phantom, that have a memorable musical character, rather than necessarily lyrical or plot or action relatedly memorable. Like I always remember "The Final Lair" because it's just musically brilliantly written, rehashing the right motifs and melodies at the right moments. I don't remember it because it's the scene where the Phantom hangs Raoul. Or "Wandering Child" ... I don't remember the sparkly fireballs, I remember the genius music.

The other gripe I have with the music is the fact that so much of it, particularly the expositiony parts, feel reminiscent of Woman in White for me. I suspect that's because it also has expositiony moments, and without linking them to any specific songs they kind of just meld into the same rut of musicality. There were some fleeting memories of Sunset Boulevard in this as well.

I also love all the Phantom related motifs, particularly "Twisted Every Way" which I thought was very well used. As well as at the end of "Look With Your Heart" though I'ven't the slightest what name to give it, it outside of using a lyric attached to it in Phantom. "He'll always be there singing songs in my head" is the lyric from the original. Oh! I guess it's best classified as "Little Lotte", which makes a more blunt reappearance near the end, in another scene where I think it works very well.

Overall

I just also want to say that the pacing of the first act is very well written. I quite like it. In the second act I feel like that maybe felt a bit ... rushed, in that it's really all just in the one day. Though at the end in "Gustave! ... Gustave!" the Phantom's anger and urgency is very well done.

As for overall implications for the story. I wouldn't necessarily classify this as canon to the story of the original. The way I've approached it is to kind of see it in a parallel universe, one which is "if the story continued, this is what would've happened" rather than saying "this is what happened" with all the definitive connotations. I suspect this is where much of the debate lies, whether or not it belongs in the canon. My suggestion isn't based on allegiance to either side of the schism, rather that this forms a unique position since it is the first really major sequel to a famous musical. It's kind of why they kept the name of Once Upon Another Time for the story, rather than changing it to Love Never Dies.

There's no way, especially since it's so long since the original, AND the fact that it's based off an even older story that has no sequel, that you could in any way argue for canon status for the musical, I think. But this has nothing to do with the story or the Phantom's redemption or any of those arguments.

This musical works as an isolated musical. I mean, if he had released it as a standalone musical, different names for the characters, you would have to change very little. Except people would then criticise him for just reusing stock characters and having no originality. It's a lose-lose situation. I'd be very interested to take an uninitiated-to-Phantom friend to watch Love Never Dies, just to see how it fairs. It is, in its own right a rather good musical. It's not great, let's be clear, but it had the potential to become great, even if much of the major elements of the plot are left unchanged, just the small minor details.

The only thing that is most abrasive about this as a sequel would be the Phantom's change in role. He is, for all intents and purposes unmasked from the very beginning. That is he is no longer the mysterious figure who only appears for 20 minutes on stage, ala Phantom. He becomes a leading man in this role, which is kind of interesting considering he's very much an anti-hero. The change in Phantom's role is also reflected in the lyrics, which've become very personal and first-person, something I wondered about when I first heard "Till I Hear You Sing." But I see now it's probably for the best to make this particular story work ... except as I'm coming with indepth knowledge of Phantom it's become quite abrasive.

Overall, I'd just this musical as good. It gets my seal of approval. I'm in no rush to delete it from my playlists. It's by no means perfect, but it's not a trainwreck. I look forward to reading official critical reviews and how similar/dissimilar they are to my own opinions. It's not Phantom, but it is a good musical ... probably better than much of ALW's recent works.

And before I forget, the singing on this CD is just sheer beauty. Ramin does a really good job, but so does everyone. They provide just the right character to the songs. Ramin is particularly scintillating in "The Beauty Underneath" but that's to be expected, since he is a rock tenor and all. I wish I knew more names of the actors and I could comment, but there's no need since no one comes out as horrible.