“Every time you go to new cities, you have new blood, new musicians bringing their own thoughts and ideas to how this music can be played.”
“It’s such a delightful process,” he says. They have just six hours to rehearse with these new musicians before opening night, Johns adds. In addition to traveling with 40 cast members and six musicians, the show performs with an additional 10 local musicians in each city. The current score also features heavy brass and string performances that add to the rich sound, he says.īringing the show’s music together is no small feat. We actually travel with 75 to 80 speakers of our own, in addition to the house speakers, to create this incredible surround sound – the kind of sound that no one will be able to fall asleep.” “It’s a sweeping, full-bodied approach to the scoring,” he says. He describes the current tour’s version in one word: “cinematic.” The show’s score by Andrew Lloyd Webber has actually been through several permutations, he says.
“The story is important and the acting comes together to tell the story, but it’s the lushness of the score that’s the draw.” “The music is positively operatic in nature, and like an opera, the music takes precedence,” he says. The music of “Phantom” has driven the show’s popularity for nearly 30 years, he believes. “They have huge smiles on their faces and they’re staring into the pit, wanting to see how it’s done and ask us questions.” “After we play the exit music, largely the audiences leave the auditorium, but invariably 100 people hang out for the entire play-out,” says Johns, maestro for the show’s national tour. Especially during performances on a holiday like Mothers Day, when families come out together. Every time Jamie Johns finishes conducting a show of “The Phantom of the Opera” he turns and sees a huge crowd peering into the orchestra pit.
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