Angel of Music

“From that moment, she sang with all her heart and soul. She tried to surpass all that she had achieved until then, and succeeded. In the last act, when she launched into the invocation to the angels, she set the whole audience a-quiver and carried them with her, making them feel as if they too had wings.”

Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera (1910)

The lights dim. The audience hushes. Darkness takes the stage. Within the silence, music erupts. Mournful piano keys, weeping violins, and dark cellos crawl into the audience’s ears. Yet they have not come to see a musical. They have come to see Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera by Kyle Walker. Posters, promotions, even the marquee outside the theater, proclaim it to be a non-musical adaptation. Yet still, the Angel of Music visits them with song.

Question: How do you adapt a classic novel into a non-musical stage play when the classic novel is famously set at an opera house?

This question kept the pen from paper for many years. Yet, as with all issues arising from an adaptation, the answer lies at the source. The quotation above, along with many other passages from the novel, revealed something lying in plain sight.

Gaston Leroux was an investigative journalist before becoming a novelist. So, when he wrote The Phantom of the Opera, he wrote it like a journalist. The entire book is told through interviews, news stories, and first-hand accounts. It’s not a story told through the music. It is told by the reactions of those who heard the music, woven into a narrative by Gaston Leroux.

Answer: To adapt The Phantom of the Opera into a non-musical stage play, make Gaston Leroux the narrator of the story.

And so, the character of Gaston leads the audience through the backstage passages, trapdoors, and catacombs of the Paris Opera House. Music is heard, but in the distance, just offstage.

This also worked well with my other source material: Universal Studios’ movie adaptation from 1925. Afterall, it wasn’t a musical either. It was a silent film. Yet, even then, music was an important aspect.

Despite their name, silent films were never really silent. The technology to sync music and vocal tracks didn’t come along until 1927, but silent film audiences didn’t sit in soundless movie theaters. In the early days, live musicians would accompany the film on an organ or piano, improvising or using existing songs to match the mood of the film. Eventually, composers wrote specific music for the film.

Gustav Hinrichs, a German-born American composer, wrote the musical score for the 1925 film.

Todd M. Lewis, a Grand Rapids-born American composer, wrote the musical score for my play.

In early January 2016, Todd invites me and my sound designer, Sean Francis, over to his house to hear what he’s been working on since November, when he agreed to write an original score for my play. We walk through an unassuming house on the northeast side of Grand Rapids. Todd leads us down into the basement where a slew of musical instruments and computers surround a piano keyboard. And there he plays the Phantom’s main theme.

After playing through the moving and somber song, Todd expresses doubt in the way he interpreted the play, accentuating the romance instead of the horror. It’s an odd feeling to hear him say this. The music he composed captures the soul of the music that’s been playing in my head since I envisioned this play. In doing so, he also captures the horror.

The horror of The Phantom of the Opera comes from its romance. A romance that the Phantom sees as pure and true, yet the world sees as dark and evil. Todd’s music is the music that the Phantom has heard in his head since first seeing Christine Daáe. Beauty and passion to him. Madness and obsession to everyone else.

This soundtrack stays with me long after the final curtain falls. Years later, after extensive rewrites, workshops, and a global pandemic, I unearth all of the original music cues from the show. I listen to them while working on the script revisions, finding new colors and emotions within each character.

Christine’s theme, brought to life through the ghostly violin of her father, reveals the tragedy of her mournful longing. Grief steals the music from her voice. It sends her into the shadows to reclaim it. And it only brings her grief in the end.

The heaviness of Gaston Leroux’s theme harmonizes with the heaviness of the story he must tell. A story that changes him, unmasks him. Yet it is a story full of hope. A story whose weight grows lighter in the sharing.

Rediscovering this music also uncovers some surprises. Unearthing the song files unearths ALL of the song files. This includes tracks never used in the production. Their very omission tells a story of their own.

Act 2 finds Christine trapped and imprisoned in the Phantom’s underground kingdom, dark thoughts flooding her mind. During the production, we juxtapose this with the echoing sounds of the opera above. But in this unused composition, those dark thoughts echo in Christine’s soul.

The Persian is a character left out or amalgamated in most adaptations of The Phantom of the Opera, but his mysterious backstory and knowledge of the Phantom is pivotal to the book and to my play. Therefore, his theme is jarring and strange, otherworldly. He is a character unlike all the others, with a unique theme to match.

But this alternate track shares a lot with the Phantom’s theme. The use of stringed instruments and sly melodies ties the Phantom and Persian together. This is something that seeps into the performances of the actors. Something that seeps into the revisions of the script. A connection between the two tortured souls, forged in pain. And now, in music.

Future productions of Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera by Kyle Walker may find themselves trapped by the same question that once trapped me: How can I produce a non-musical stage adaptation of a classic novel when the classic novel is famously set at an opera house?

The answer will always lie in the source material. Gaston Leroux found a way to bring Christine Daáe’s angelic voice to life through words alone. Gustav Hinrichs brought sound to silence. For theater companies interested in licensing my show, Todd M. Lewis’s captivating musical score can be made available for performances. For more information, you can contact him HERE.

Rest assured, the Angel of Music will find you.

The lights rise. The audience erupts. Darkness recedes from the stage. Music joins the applause. Mournful piano keys, weeping violins, and dark cellos crawl back into silence as the Angel of Music calls us to song and bids us farewell.

• Dress Rehearsal Photographs by Chris Kotcher
• Original poster art by Scott Baisden