Catch Las Vegas’ spectacular ‘Phantom’ before curtain falls

So the Vegas "Phantom" is closing but the original show will carry on in New York. That should be consolation, but instead it's just frustrating.

Bad retitling aside, "Phantom - The Las Vegas Spectacular" is the definitive version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera." The only people who would disagree are die-hards who would want to hear the theater managers sing twice.

You would have to be that reverent about the 1986 musical not to consider The Venetian's 95-minute trim to be an improvement to the repetitive score.

But those are the changes, overseen by original director Hal Prince, that will be easy to preserve. You only have until Sept. 2 to see this "Phantom" in a wrap-around environment, with mannequins in period garb and a 15-foot chandelier, weighing nearly a ton and coming together in four pieces above your head.

The "spectacular" also includes a jolt of lighting at a key moment of angst and onstage fireworks over a facade of the Paris Opera House. All of these extras, plus a stunt man's surprise or two, are mere icing on the late Maria Bjornson's original production design, which has treated generations of Broadway audiences to grand, curving staircases and boat rides on underground lagoons.

But all this came to Las Vegas too late by years, and on the same week in 2006 that Cirque du Soleil opened "Love." A lot of people seemed to have decided they had already seen enough of the "Phantom."

And when the recession sent all the shows into deep discounting, the "Phantom" producers were trapped in their costs and initial debt. As one optimist says early in the show, attempting to explain a different set of tragedies, "These things do happen."

It's to their credit the producers did not cut the orchestra and put the music on tape, or significantly reduce the cast size. But now comes, as the show famously puts it, the point of no return.

For those to whom "Phantom" is still not a ritual - or kitsch that won't leave them alone - there's one more chance to back up and see the musical as a melodrama that dares take itself seriously, thanks in no small part to its cast.

If Lloyd Webber and Richard Stilgoe anticipated "Twilight" with their mopey love-struck Phantom, Anthony Crivello draws upon the original novel and Lon Chaney movie to put a bit of menace back into the classic character. There's a ferocity in his disfigured genius who haunts the Paris opera, tutoring a young soprano to traumatic results when he can't physically possess her.

"The Music of the Night" may belong to original star Michael Crawford when you hear the signature song out of context. But Crivello makes you hear the modern standard's lyrics as though for the first time; his singing not as pretty but fully belonging to a character that's a bit unhinged and a lot overheated.

("The joys of the flesh have been denied me," he later explains.)

Kristi Holden handles more of the spot-on singing as Christine (sharing the role with Kristen Hertzenberg in some performances), but it's Andrew Ragone who does the underappreciated work as the heroic Raoul to balance the love triangle.

Ragone has to be strong enough for the audience not to root for the Phantom to get the girl, but also has to keep a straight face singing some of the tongue-tied lines - "And what is it that I'm meant to have sent?" - that haters cite as hack writing, but defenders hold up as a winking sense of self-parody kept just in check.

It's a balance well-preserved in the way Crivello makes you really hear and feel for the Phantom when he sings with resignation, "He was bound to love you when he heard you sing."

The climactic scenes play out to a hushed audience that isn't used to hanging onto every word in anything they see on the Strip. Go hang one more time before Labor Day, but watch out for that chandelier.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.