Independent Weekly Review of Phantom

By Zack Smith

For the record, Phantom, N.C. Theatre's musical adaptation of Gaston Leroux novel currently playing at Memorial Auditorium, is not the Andrew Lloyd Webber version whose tunes are constantly covered by aspiring singers and elevator-music companies. It's a different version, developed before Webber's, with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Arthur Kopit, author of Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad. It plays frequently around the world and was made into a 1990 NBC miniseries you can find on YouTube. While this version features forgettable music compared to Webber's bombastic ballads, it boasts a far stronger, more dramatic story that strikes a deep emotional chord.

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Complex 'Phantom' Shows a Human Heart

By Orla Swift, Staff Writer
RALEIGH - If Memorial Auditorium were inhabited by its own mercurial phantom of the opera, Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit’s musical “Phantom” would surely soothe him.

As for the more famous Andrew Lloyd Webber version of the story? He’d shut it down.

Yeston and Kopit’s little-known adaptation of the 1910 Gaston Leroux novel about a disfigured man who lives beneath the Paris Opera House has been dubbed “the other ‘Phantom.’ ”

It’s also the better “Phantom.”

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Michael Minarik stars as The Phantom/Erik in the production.
Photo Credit: Curtis Brown Photography