by: JANINE GRESSEL
"The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber" with Michael Crawford, last night through Sunday at the Paramount Theatre (628-0888). Note: Crawford will not perform in the Sunday evening show.
At some point during "The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber," the word legend crept into my brain. It's a vastly overused adjective and I honestly had hoped to avoid it, but there you are: When Michael Crawford begins to sing "The phantom of the opera is here. . . inside your mind," the realization is impossible to ignore that you are seeing, hearing the real phantom. The London phantom. The Broadway phantom. The L.A. phantom. It's a short leap to. . . legend.
But "The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber" is more than Michael Crawford, more than the phantom. A dozen performers weave the audience in and out of "Jesus Christ Superstar," "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," "Starlight Express," "Evita" and "Cats."
(And for anybody who thinks "Memory" has become hackneyed, I challenge you to sit through Janet Metz's performance dry-eyed.)
Deft choreography maximizes use of the downstage area in front of the orchestra. This is not a stand-and-sing recital. There's movement as well as music. That and the use of several songs from each show give the effect of context, of making you feel you've seen a half-dozen whole shows.
Crawford makes his initial appearance at the end of the first half, singing the stirring "Gethsamane" from "Jesus Christ Superstar." At midpoint, he holds a dramatic note so long that the only explanation can be he's learned to store oxygen clear to his ankles.
He got a standing ovation and it was only intermission.
The bulk of the second half is seven songs from "Phantom."
It's interesting to see the expressive use Crawford makes of his hands in the role, no doubt left over from playing the part with his face obscured. Even sans mask, the hands enhance the performance in an ethereal way.
Catherine Hyde sings the role of Christine as they re-create the haunting "Phantom of the Opera" duet ("Sing for me, Christine").
Crawford tells a funny story about assuming he would play the young male lead (Raoul) in "Phantom" and preparing for a year, only to discover he was playing the older role. "I'm not a bitter man," he said. "But I did waste a year of my life."
So in the show, he gets his chance to sing Raoul in the love duet "All I Ask of You," with Cathy Porter as Christine. It's a highly charged, romantic moment.
The finale, of course, is his signature song, the poignant "Music of the Night," prophetic since last night's audience kept him well into the night: They wouldn't let him leave till he'd sung two encores.