The Maestro, The Angel, The Man And The Monster

The Maestro, the angel, the man and the monster

Oh, gotcha! And yikers...Seems like a bizarre choice done by the costumes leg. West end in general, from my observation, seems to be even more consistent than Broadway sometimes when it comes to the whole silhouette thing (except recently when they start putting a more second era oomph on Christine's costumes for the whole dress deflation situation 💀)

How come the wedding dress for Christine in the musical is somehow based of the bustle era? Which was in late 1880's. But then Wikipedia says its based of 1860s for the musical but now I don't know which to trust?

Always a good question. For this and more I give you the following tag:

THE TIMELINE ISSUE

Long story short, there's many different takes on when the story is set, both in the prologue and the main story. For example, the original cast album said 1861, but the West End stage show said 1881. Meanwhile Hamburg listed 1871, and the Japanese productions "mid 19th century". Today I think they all list "Late 19th century". And that's just the replica versions!

Meanwhile the prologue has been pushed from 1905 to 1911. But then "Love Never Dies" came along and claimed its main story was 1907.

So in short, nothing makes sense.

10 of my favorite Hadley Fraser as Raoul moments (gif edition).

No doubt Hadley is, and will probably remain, one of the most popular Raoul’s. Personally, I think his Raoul could sometimes be a bit emotionless or on the more aggressive side, though I don’t entirely blame him. Besides the fact that he was going off of what he was being directed to do, he had also never been in the show before and had only a short time to get acquainted with the part. But I think he also had some wonderful moments that make up for it. So here are some of my favorites!

Being so proud of Christine and excited to see her again,

I have always interpreted this as him not just being happy to see her, but also happy that she remembers him too!

Visibly being more serious/concerned/sympathetic when Christine mentions that her father has passed and coming down to her level to comfort her.

Him being adorably confused as to why Christine is asking him to love her when he already is!

Just cause I love Hadley’s smile.

Bringing her hands to his chest and closing his eyes because that’s just how much he loves Christine and needs her to love him in return.

I love how he holds Christine’s head. And of course the kiss. Cuteness overload.

More of his smile. And also how happy and relieved he is to find Christine after looking all over for her.

Christine is his number one priority.

This part has always stuck with me all these years. He looks so defeated and disappointed thinking Christine chose the Phantom.

People, why are you sleeping on Czech Raoul? He has such a cool design 🗣️

Phantom of the opera x TWICE

Just my old random art of Christine and Raoul in the fits of Mina and Momo from Talk That Talk era 🥺💞 My babies...My bi ass loves them sm.

Didn't know that the plague has infected the wedding dress too...I get that it's to keep the dress silhouette the same after all the sitting on the stage but goddamn that's ugly as hell.

What are your thoughts on the ugly taffeta worm on the train of the current west end wedding dresses? 🙃

This made me laught out loud. HAHAHA, but tell me what you really think of it, don't hold back... :D

But I'm with you. I like the addition in Lucy St Louis' Wishing dress, where it manage to look quite period and reflect on Victorian fashion plates with a puffed-up bustle. Here's her dress next to an 1874 day dress from La Mode Illustrée:

The wedding dress backdrape, on the other hand, looks like an afterthought. Or a way to drape the backdrape up so it won't get in the way? In my personal opinion it's not particluarly elegant, it's just massive:

I'd rather see them funk up the bow which (again in my personal opinion) is just big and limpy. A more defined bow with long decorative ends would make more of an impact and more of a bustle without drowning the waterfall backdrape. Something in the vein of the Aussie/World Tour and Canadian dresses:

Yeah, not a fan of the "worm" overall. But I do like the same idea (albeit different execution) for the Wishing dress.