Our First Broadway Musical

“Say you'll love me ev'ry waking moment; turn my head with talk of summertime…” Earlier this month Husband and I attended our first Broadway musical adventure. I find myself still humming the songs to Phantom of the Opera. I have always loved the music to Phantom, but have never been fortunate enough to see the production (I realize many people are shocked to learn I have never seen it since I am so familiar with the music). Well I can officially say that I have now witnessed the immensely popular and loved Phantom of the Opera.

Let me start from the beginning. Husband’s wonderful Aunt recommended us to join a group that provides drastically discounted tickets for some of Broadways best shows. A few weeks ago Husband and I were going through the website and I saw that they were offering tickets to Phantom of the Opera. We decided to use the Christmas gift that Husband’s sister had sent us to purchase tickets. We bought the tickets about two weeks before the date of our show – you can only imagine my excitement.

There was really only one flaw with our plan. We bought tickets for January 3, when it was still tourist season here in the city. Okay, so I know that every day of the year in NYC there are going to be thousands of tourists, but they seem to flock to NY during the holiday season (especially for that big, famous crystal ball that dropped two days before the date of our show). Everywhere in the theater there are signs stating that photography is not allowed and to please silence all cellular phones and beepers. Apparently, tourists believe that the signs do not apply to them because I could not begin count the number of cameras, video recorders, and cell phones I saw snapping pictures and recording videos, many of which Husband and I were in the background. Husband’s response was “Great. Now we are going to show up on YouTube.”

The show itself was terrific. Although I was already quite familiar with the music, I didn’t really know all that much about the plot (other than the obvious). Husband and I were rather disappointed to learn that we had several understudies in our viewing. We were particularly upset to learn that Raoul was an understudy. However, the understudy did a good job. He had a wonderful voice, but was not powerful enough. He definitely was overshadowed by Christine and the Phantom.

It was a wonderful night at the theater and I was pleased to finally see Phantom of the Opera. The next shows that are on our possibility list are: Les Miserables (I absolutely love this show), Jersey Boys (everyone recommends this), and Spamalot (long story). I am not sure if we will actually get to see all of these shows, but they are on our hopeful list.