Sarah and Silent Phantom

My daughter Sarah and I had a rare treat this weekend, we had some time to ourselves and watched Phantom of the Opera together. This has always been a treat that we have shared, we both loved the movie adaptation of the musical and have often sung the songs together. But this occasion was different as I had recorded the original 1925 silent film version that starred Lon Chaney as the Phantom. I didn't know if Sarah would be able to sit through the whole thing with no dialogue except for occasional text slides to read that were shown intermittedly. But we were both enthralled with it! It was captivating and we found ourselves singing some of the musical dialogue at the appropriate times during the movie as part of the storyline. It is actually a pretty good movie, and I have always been an admirerer of Lon Chaney, the "Man of a Thousand Faces" who was in so many monster movies. Growing up as a young kid I would read about him and even create and put on my own monster movie make-up to be like him.

 When it got to the masquerade ball, the film had some color in it, rare in those days. It was striking as the Phantom appeared in a red costume and a skull mask. The coolest part was the rooftop scene with Christine and Raoul, with the Phantom on a statue and his red cape and costume billowing in the wind.
 

This Phantom story and the music have always been something that Sarah and I have shared over the years. When she was quite young (age 3) we would play the DVD with the subtitles on (I didn't know the words as well as she did) and we would sing and act out the scene on the roof between Christine and Raoul, singing "All I Ask of You." Sarah would always have a rose in hand, and would kiss me as Christine (Shell would also fill in as Phantom when needed!).

 

We performed it together at a family reunion in Southern Utah once, and even used it to try out for a stake musical together. It has kind of been "our" song. Of course it became a couple costume for us at Halloween time as well.



When the musical came locally to the Segerstrom Performing Arts center, I gave her tickets for her birthday for us to see it together. We got all dressed up as a formal daddy-daughter date, she felt so regal walking into the theater. It was an AMAZING musical that we will not forget, with the crashing chandelier and disappearance of the Phantom in the end. These will always be special memories that I have shared with Sarah.