My Gerard Butler Rant

Okay, I have this little pet peeve:

I hate the Phantom.

I mean, I LOVE the Phantom. His is, after all, the role I have devoted a good portion of my time to, um, having (weeeeaaaaaaak sentence).

I simply have yet to hear a Phantom that I like. Michael Crawford, wonderful a singer and actor as he is, simply did not, ah, sing the role to my liking. His voice was a little bit reedy on the high and loud notes, making for some spectacular anticlimaxes.

Then next to come to my attention (as I hadn't really paid too much attention to the prospect of any Phantoms other than Crawford) was Gerard Butler of the movie version of Phantom. He acted the part very well. His singing, though -- well, for one, his voice was strained and untrained. His vowels were rough and at times poorly shaped. He had no vibrato. Where he should have been singing well into the higher tenor range, he sang down an octave; he screamed his A flat on "Down Once More" which, though it fitted the scene well, would have been better appreciated by me if it had been sung loudly and passionately. He often whispered or spoke the lyrics to the songs. In short, he had hardly any vocal technique or training, which is what Andrew Lloyd Webber wanted for the part, I understand. I simply didn't like it. It struck me as odd that he should be giving Christine voice lessons when she was clearly a vastly superior singer already. I suppose it just bothered me that they gave one of the most sought-after male roles in theater to a man with little to no vocal skill.

I've since heard a number of others sing/play the role of the Phantom, and on each one I have some major complaint: too nasal, too "bright tenor opera hero"-esque, too scratchy, too screamy, too feminin, too awful... I simply have not ever heard a Phantom I like.

Often I am criticized for this. It is not uncommon for someone, usually a devout female fan of Butler, to confront me in a manner much like this:

"Hey, [censored] [waaay cencored]! If you don't like Gerard Butler's singing, then [censored]ing back the [censore] off, [censored]!"

"No," I reply, "It's actually rather nightmarish. Backing off, especially in the manner you described, will do nothing to stop the barrage of audio torture and psychological damage that this is inflicting upon my poor cranal extremities."

"Well then, [censored], why don't YOU [censored] sing it?" She'll reply, apparently agitated.

"Perhaps I should," I reply, pensively. It was such an encounter that inspired this blog.

Anyways.

Back to the point: as I have never heard the Phantom sung in a manner I like, I have taken upon myself the task of singing it, for the first time, in a manner which I, well, like.

I have yet to achieve this, of course. But hey, I'm learning...

And to all those of you who confronted me in the manner detailed above...

well...

go away.

:D