Phantom of the Opera

I watched the musical version of The Phantom of the Opera today. :D It was the 2011 one performed at Royal Albert Hall for the 25th anniversary.

I've enjoyed Phantom a lot for a long time, but I've never actually seen the musical. I've watched the 2004 film, and one of the old B&W versions, and I've read the novel. That's it. Back when I was in high school, there was a big in-person "fandom" for the musical among the artsy kids, me included. But none of us had ever actually seen it, and only one of us owned the cast recording on disc (and it wasn't me). For the rest of it, it was scattered individual pirated tracks all the way.

So... finally being able to actually watch it was a real treat. Delightful! Good fun! Tempted to watch it again, honestly. It feels good to finally be able to see it in some form. And of course this particular one is a great performance. (And they did some clever things with the staging that I really liked.)

It'll be up on youtube until Sun 11th, 2PM Eastern, if anybody else is interested in watching while it's available: here.

It's part of "The Show Must Go On" - an offical stream for a full musical goes up every Friday (channel here). I haven't been able to find a schedule for these; it looks like the titles are announced a couple of days before streaming.