TBoNwM and Phantom - siblings-by-reference

[Ardub]

Here's something fun: In TBoNwM, they go to see the finale of Ffauwst (err, Faust) in Central Park:

The orchestra was playing a massive, deliberate accompaniment to three voices--two lower, one high--that wound forcefully and delicately about one another, scaling continually upward through slow changes of key...
The toms, singing the Lone Power and the doomed wizard cursed one another melodiously; the queen, ignoring them both, relentlessly declared her own salvation, requiring the aid of the Powers That Be.

I don't know that much about opera, but I was able to think hard when I read that and bring the music to mind. I've since listened to it a lot -- it's a great aria -- and if you're not familiar with it, I've put a short clip of this part up.

Ok, so fast forward to tonight, when I just went to my first performance of Phantom of the Opera (the Lloyd Webber musical). For all the many times I've listed to that music over the past, oh, 18 years, it wasn't until I saw it on stage that I noticed that the finale is almost the same scene, and a similar musical style as well (the quote above could just as easily refer to Phantom.) Coincidence? I was reading a little about the original Phantom novel after the show, and it turns out that in it, immediately before this end scene, the Phantom kidnapped Christine while she was singing... the aria in the quote I started with! So I think Lloyd Webber was having some fun with the reference that he otherwise cut out.

So TBoNwM and Phantom end up being part of one happy little Mephistophelian family.

And, of course, I still maintain that "TBoNwM" is a pun, but that's a different thread and no, I'm still not telling :-)

[Emi]

Ardub!!! That's exactly what I think the "opera" song is! I just listened to it, and it kind of sounds like what she was decribing... That's so cool. I can't believe I didn't think of that before. Hahaha. What a neat find...

I still don't know what that pun is!! It's driving me insane! I even read the book! Please spare me?

[kk]

I still don't know the pun either. All I think of is maybe a childrens' book (Goodnight Moon), or something from High Wizardry that probably isn't it.

Hints, Ardub, please?

[Ardub]

Originally posted by kk:

Hints, Ardub, please?

Nah, I said I wouldn't tell, so I should stick with it.

One more funny mote about this whole Phantom thing: if you try to equate it with "Faust", then Christine (who is singing Marguerite) is actually Faust. It's Raoul who's the Marguerite-analog! Heh.

Edit, three months later...: This goes further. The Phantom writes an opera called Don Juan Triumphant, imagining himself as the great romantic, Don Juan. But Don Juan is another Faust story, so if Christine is Faust, then *she's* actually Don Juan, and she is indeed triumphant in the end, to the Phantom's dismay.