Phantom’s in Singapore again and I caught it on Friday evening. Now, there’s no way this could go badly for me, because if it’s Broadway, there’s almost zero chance I’ll hate it; if anything, my inner gay man will be squealing in joy from all my overboiling fandom and the years I’ve spent overanalysing the magical stage, with its big voices and overlapping round-robin song parts.

However, some of the magic was lost this time. I’m not sure if it’s because I had inflated expectations or if it just plain didn’t make the grade. I remember it being so much better some ten years ago when the show came to Singapore, but you know how it is when you’re a child, everything seems bigger, brighter, bolder, better?

Well, the biggest disappointment was Christine. Her performance seemed so halfhearted, and worse, she overworked her vibrato to the point where her words got gobbled up and tone went off pitch.

Imagine that, a Broadway singer going off pitch!

But she did. I’m not above pointing out that her name, Rebecca Pitcher, makes for a rather ironic statement, either. *Guffaw*

I thought it pretty funny when, during a particularly pained (and painful) plot section, she sang “Point of No Return”. Ha ha ha.

And Raoul. Such a wimpy Raoul. His voice was naked and bare, and barely made a dent. When the dramatic song between him, Christine and the Phantom arrives towards the end, his lack of presence made it a duet between the latter, while he faded into the background.

To compound things, he could barely shake off his Aussie accent. I know this was an Aussie production, but ideally, you should only realise that when you check the programme. (Or find the production somewhat lacklustre. Ahem.) This revelation shouldn’t hit you when he makes his move as the Vicomte de Chagny sounding like crocodile dundee.

I remember as a child (and even when I caught the movie adaptation) willing Christine to go with the Phantom. Thinking she made the wrong choice. Because someone as wonderful as her would need someone who truly loved her, rather than Mr Suave Smoothy who came by and swept her off her feet quite as effortlessly.

This time though, when they ran off, I thought, oh. Chhhhuh. They deserve each other. Annoying shrieky girl and wimpy flat man. Go. Begone.

And the chandelier did not crash down on the audience so much as it gently lowered, paused for a thought and abruptly swung to a crash on stage, instead. What? I feel cheated. Give me back my chandelier crash! Nobody in the audience even flinched.

But at least the production was of good quality. And the Phantom, Brad Little, saved the day by being quite, quite impressive. I was particularly taken by Carlotta (Pauline du Plessis) and Pianggi, but since they’re technically the ‘bad guys’, my liking them over Christine and Raoul chalks up yet another failure for those two.

^{Video: Interview with the Phantom, Christine and Raoul. (The Christine here isn’t Rebecca Pitcher.)}

Video: Brad Little doing “I Gave You My Music”. A handheld and probably illegal phonecam video, by the looks of it. But you get to hear his voice and a rather magnificent scream he does in the middle in anger at Christine and Raoul. He’s probably pissed they couldn’t sing.

After numerous conference calls, I’m convinced that if people aren’t rolling their eyes, sniggering, falling asleep or gesturing in confusion when I’m talking, it’s going to karmically happen eventually. Because that’s what I’m doing during those calls.

And it got me thinking about a bunch of these newfangled (yes, I’m a tech writer, but I still say newfangled like a 60 year-old housewife) videoconferencing solutions like Cisco’s Telepresence and HP’s Halo, where a ‘real’ meeting is simulated as best as possible.

What these do is have a studio-lit room outfitted with a line of high-definition screens and a half-table. Kind of like a crescent.

The table merges visually into the other crescent image provided by the screens projecting an identical half-meeting room from the caller/callee.

Get it? It’s ridiculous explaining but a lot easier if you just looked at the picture.

Anyway, when I attended the press preview of this some months back, they were saying that companies are willing to invest in these (a cool US$1 mil for the HP Halo system, by the way) because it bridges the gap that phone conferences provide.

Which is just a nice way of saying no one can tell when you’re covering your mouth, sniggering, or picking lint off your shirt, or glaring at the phone (as my editor does, at times), or flipping it the bird, or resting your head lightly on the table.

What will happen to teleconferencing as we know it? Will we actually, gasp, have to pay attention?

Good thing the images projected stop waist down, and we can still subtly nudge each others’ knees. Or be in shorts.