Article
’Think of Me Fondly’: Voice, Body, Affect, and Performance in Prince/Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera
Studies in Musical Theatre
(2013)
Abstract
This article argues that Lloyd Webber’s megamusical The Phantom of the Opera, and specifically Michael Crawford’s original performance of the title role in London, New York and Los Angeles, combined sound, voice, gesture and technology in a unique physical expression of desire that reinscribed, exceeded and even redefined spectacle at the level of both the visual and the aural realms (paradoxical as that may seem). This argument runs counter to existing arguments about the separation of scopophilia and audiophilia in the theatre and also departs from some of the arguments about the narrative in different forms which is often discussed as privileging sound and hearing over image and sight.
Keywords
- Andrew Lloyd Webber,
- Michael Crawford,
- The Phantom of the Opera,
- body,
- theatrical spectacle,
- voice
Disciplines
Publication Date
December, 2013
DOI
10.1386/smt.7.3.309_1
Citation Information
Alison L. McKee. "’Think of Me Fondly’: Voice, Body, Affect, and Performance in Prince/Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera" Studies in Musical Theatre Vol. 7 Iss. 3 (2013) p. 309 - 325 ISSN: 1750-3159 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/alison_mckee/2/