Mounds of promotional materials supplied by the production company make one thing obvious: Ken Hill's version of "The Phantom of the Opera" is billed as the "funny" production.
The word "funny" is not used in a derogatory sense at all. It's used to describe the difference between Hill's version and the mega-hit presented by Andrew Lloyd Webber."The Phantom of the Opera" is a last-minute addition to Cache Performances - the Utah State University/Community Performing Arts Series and is being presented Tuesday, Nov. 17, on the USU campus. It is part of inauguration week for USU's new president, George H. Emert. The inauguration ceremony is Nov. 16.
Curtain is 7:30 p.m. in the Kent Concert Hall of the Chase Fine Arts Center. (The production replaces a jazz concert with Richard Stoltzman that has been rescheduled to Dec. 5.) Tickets are available at the USU Ticket Office in the Smith Spectrum, at the Information Desk of the Taggart Student Center and at the door. Adult admission is $15 and USU student tickets are $6. (Season subscribers may purchase tickets for $12.) Children under the age of 5 are not admitted.
Producers bill the production as "The Original London Stage Musical" and stress the description of "musical comedy." Reviewers seem to agree. Charles Spencer of the London Daily Telegraph captures what many critics have written:
"Now, the original `Phantom' has come back to haunt Andrew Lloyd Webber," Spencer writes. "This production has real freshness of wit, a better score, the singing is terrific. Hill somehow contrives to have his cake and eat it too. He sends up the conventions of melodrama with a hilarious parade of sudden deaths, horrid screams, secret tunnels and a fine musical gag involving the famous chandelier. This is a thoroughly endearing evening!"
The story of "Phantom" is now universally known, thanks to the phenomenon known as "Phanto-mania." Hill adapted the well-known horror story and added the music of many opera greats. Hill wrote original lyrics set to the music of Verdi, Gounod, Offenbach, Mozart, Weber, Donizetti and Boito.
Ken Robison, a critic for the Fresno, Calif., Bee, enjoys the lighter approach to the story, saying it mixes opera and gallows humor.
"Hill's version is an accessible, for-the-masses `Phantom,' and the snooty be damned," Robison writes. "In fact, part of the play's charm is in poking fun at opera and all its pretensions. People who love the spirit and music of opera will get a kick out of the pompous owner, fidgety manager and egotistical diva. Those who take their opera too seriously might feel the sting of Hill's pointed humor."
Other reviews continue in the same vein: "Hill's `Phantom' is full of fun. A thoroughly enjoyable show," "I reveled in this version far more than I did Lloyd Web-ber's woozy musical melodrama," "Ideal for this year's family outing!" and "Strikingly and audaciously staged by Hill, with clever magic tricks."
Hill directed this touring production, which began in September and concludes in late November in Denver. The performance in Logan is the only Utah offering of the tour, which is produced by Allen Spivak and Larry Magid in association with Jonathan Reinis Inc., Brad Krassner and Magic Promotions.