El Fantasma de la Ópera (The Phantom of the Opera), Teatro Albéniz Review
Written by Laura
It’s been twenty years since The Phantom of the Opera was last performed in Madrid, quite a long time considering the absolute success of the play in London’s West End, and, until recently, on Broadway as well. As of now, the show has played in 46 countries and in 21 languages, and it’s one of the most well-known musicals of all time. This new, reimagined production has an Italian counterpart that premiered in Trieste in 2023, which featured the beloved Ramin Karimloo as the title character.
The set, designed by Federico Bellone, was created with the aim of being adaptable to all kinds of stages for possible tours or new international productions. It features an impressive rotating stage, which cleverly uses the space to set most of the scenes, such as Christine’s dressing room, the rehearsal area, or even the managers’ office. The Opera Populaire’s rooftop was beautiful looking but extremely narrow, which made for a very strange and motionless All I ask of you that fell completely flat for me. The chandelier, rather than being above the audience, is positioned inside of the stage; I can only assume this is to facilitate its installation in case of the show being on tour, but it works well in my opinion.
There were some very cleverly choreographed scenes, such as the Masquerade dance, which featured moving dolls to fill out the stage, manned by the dancers – as opposed to the static mannequins used in the West End – or during the Ouverture. Something I did not quite like about the staging was that there were not many levels to the stage, visually. For example, after Masquerade, the Phantom appears and stands in the middle of the ballroom with the rest of the characters around him; that dwarfs him a little, as opposed to the replica productions in which he appears menacingly at the top of the stairs. After All I ask of you, he crawls from under the rooftop instead of rising from one of the statues. Placing the Phantom in line with the other characters so often makes him less extraordinary and mysterious, and more like just a man, which I believe does not help the story.
It is very hard not to compare the costumes to Maria Björnson’s beautiful designs. While I did love this production’s Phantom black and red cape and the Hannibal and Il Muto costumes, Christine’s wardrobe was a tad too simple and plain in my opinion, as well as the corps de ballet’s outfits, which were pretty much unchanged throughout the show.
Something this production did very well was to play up some of the humour. For example, I have never understood why everyone was saying Carlotta was such a terrible actress; granted, she was a bit overacted, but nothing too awful. However, in the Spanish production, she is shown exaggerating her movements in the most awful way, flailing her arms about and being ridiculous on stage. It made much more sense to me that way! There are some hilarious moments by the dancers as well that give them more of a personality, even if their presence on stage is limited.
I was very impressed with the cast as well. Gerónimo Rauch, who plays the Phantom, already portrayed the character in the West End, starting in 2013. His performance is nuanced, emotional and raw, and his singing is essentially perfect; his last note in Music of the night gave me chills! Talía del Val plays a soft, sweet and innocent Christine with her fantastic voice that sounded effortless and vibrant. There were times, though, where I could not quite understand her if she modified her vowels too much or when she spoke quietly, but I believe this may also be due to some technical issues in sound mixing. I was very lucky to watch Íñigo Etayo’s first performance as the caring and lovely Raoul; his singing and acting really did the character justice. The supporting cast was also incredible; I cannot mention them all, but I must give a special shout-out to Enrique R. Del Portal and Omar Calicchio as the hilarious Monsieurs André and Firmin.
El Fantasma de la Ópera is a timeless classic, reimagined in a clever and original way with the aim of reaching a wider public. It’s a different and refreshing production that can be enjoyed both by newbies and longtime fans of the show.