love never dies phantom of the opera book

(Note that it is Christine who is earning money, paying for her husband's addiction, just like a good wife should.) But immediately after arriving in New York, the Phantom visits Christine, who thought he had died. The family is in need of money, due to Raoul's gambling debts. It's very convenient that Christine will be arriving in New York soon, under the invitation of Oscar Hammerstein to perform at the opening of a new Opera house. He now lives on Coney Island, running a sideshow of performers called Phantasma and plotting a way to lure Christine back to him. This was disturbing on numerous levels, but when she kissed him, I saw it as a kiss goodbye, not a kiss of pity. I personally viewed the ending as Christine actually wishing to stay with the Phantom but leaving because he ordered her to, despite the fact that she knew he had murdered several people and threatened to kill Raoul, her fiancé. Whether this awakening is sexual or not is left to the actors' and audiences' interpretation, as is whether Christine is kidnapped by the Phantom or if she willingly goes with him. The object of the Phantom's obsession, Christine is a classic ingénue - beautiful, innocent, and wholesome, and after her first encounter with the Phantom, she begins a transformation and awakening into a 'darker' woman. Both the Phantom and Raoul view and treat Christine Daaé like a possession and she obeys both of them like a 'good girl' rather than a woman acting of her own will. Granted, the 1986 musical The Phantom of the Opera is not exactly a treatise of feminist thought. But in the more than ten years that have passed since I last saw The Phantom of the Opera, my response to the roles women play in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical has changed from the rapt audience member to that of a skeptical - and disgusted - feminist.

I will admit to being a passionate fan of The Phantom of the Opera when I was a child, and I still find the story of the mysterious masked man who lurks beneath the Paris Opera House to be intriguing. I didn't have high expectations for Love Never Dies, but I still managed to be grossly disappointed.

Love never dies phantom of the opera book