Winter weather (for us, anyway) has set in. Fall has come suddenly to Maryland after being late. Last evening we went with the Thomsens to a neighborhood gathering – to eat freshly-smoked meat (very tender) and a dozen side dishes. Being Aussies we were given a warm welcome and had several discussions, including a lengthy talk with Aaron, a Cambodian refugee, who together with his siblings escaped the killing fields. He and a couple of others had Australian connections or had visited our land.
When we got back ‘home’ we watched “The Phantom of the Opera” stopping midway to voice our opinions and wonder about its popularity. The DVD was a gift from Mariel’s boyfriend and that made us curious about why he liked it. For sure, the phantom is a creepy guy, but Jim could see some biblical undertones such as the name of the heroine, Christine, and her willingness to save for fiancé.
Before we caught this train, Jim and Mariel took us to Arlington Cemetery where we saw the graves of JFK and brother Robert. We were also able to catch the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. After homemade sandwiches, chips, and plums, we went past the MLK monument, and then to the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon. The number of American lives lost in wars and attacks comes home to you when you see all the names and the endless rows of graves at Arlington. What a cost!
Jim and Jayne and their girls have been wonderful hosts and we left hoping we could reciprocate one day.
At Union Station we bought a few supplies for this leg of the journey west to San Francisco. To our surprise the countryside all the way out of Washington and on to Chicago is quite spectacular; and the leaves are starting to turn and fall. Once again it’s the rivers and mountains that make this country so different from ours. If we ever get the chance to return, I would like to drive and discover the little places between the big cities. Also found the forests leading into the capital very impressive and the Potomac River with its rapids and canoeists.
In My Life 
October 10, 2012 at 12:02 am |
Sounds like the two of you are having quite a trip. It’s nice to get updates as I know when coming back from a big trip it’s hard to remember it all.
Just a thought re The Phantom. Having seen the stage play in London it’s true that the movie doesn’t do it justice regarding the drama & the emotion but I still enjoyed it quite a lot as the some of the songs are spectacular. As for the plot…are you familiar with the orginal story line?
The novel opens with a prologue in which Gaston Leroux claims that Erik, the “Phantom of the Opera”, was a real person. We are then introduced to Christine Daaé who with her father, a famous fiddler, travelled all over Sweden playing folk and religious music. Her father was known to be the best wedding-fiddler in the land. When Christine is six, her mother dies and her father is brought to rural France by a patron, Professor Valerius.
During Christine’s childhood (which is described retrospectively in the early chapters of the book), her father tells her many stories featuring an “Angel of Music”, who, like a muse, is the personification of musical inspiration. Christine meets and befriends the young Raoul, Viscount of Chagny, who also enjoys her father’s many stories. One of Christine and Raoul’s favourite stories is one of Little Lotte, a girl with golden hair and blue eyes who is visited by the Angel of Music and possesses a heavenly voice.
On his deathbed, Christine’s father tells her that he will send the Angel of Music to her from Heaven. Christine now lives with Mamma Valerius, the elderly widow of her father’s benefactor.
Christine is eventually given a position in the chorus at the Paris Opera House (Palais Garnier). Not long after she arrives there, she begins hearing a beautiful, unearthly voice which sings to her and speaks to her. She believes this must be the Angel of Music and asks him if he is. The Voice agrees and offers to teach her “a little bit of heaven’s music”. The Voice, however, belongs to Erik, a physically-deformed and mentally-disturbed charismatic genius who was one of the architects who took part in the construction of the opera and who secretly built a home for himself in the cellars. He has been extorting money from the Opera’s management for many years. Unknown to Christine, at least at first, he falls in love with her.
With the help of the Voice, Christine triumphs at the gala on the night of the old managers’ retirement. Her old childhood friend Raoul hears her and remembers his love for her. A time after the gala, the Paris Opera performs Faust, with the prima donna Carlotta playing the lead. In response to a refused surrender of Box Five to the Opera Ghost, Carlotta loses her voice and the Opera’s grand chandelier plummets into the audience.
After the chandelier accident, Erik kidnaps Christine to his home in the cellars and reveals his true identity. He plans to keep her there only a few days, hoping she will come to love him, and Christine begins to find herself attracted to her abductor. But she causes Erik to change his plans when she unmasks him and, to the horror of both, beholds his face, which according to the book, resembles the face of a rotting corpse. Erik goes into a frenzy, stating she probably thinks his face is another mask, and whilst digging her fingers in to show it was really his face he shouts, “I am Don Juan Triumphant!” before crawling away, crying. Fearing that she will leave him, he decides to keep her with him forever, but when Christine requests release after two weeks, he agrees on condition that she wear his ring and be faithful to him.
Up on the roof of the Opera, Christine tells Raoul of Erik taking her to the cellars. Raoul promises to take Christine away where Erik can never find her and to take her even if she resists. Raoul tells Christine he shall act on his promise the following day, to which Christine agrees, but she pities Erik and will not go until she has sung for him one last time. Christine then realizes the ring has slipped off her finger and fallen into the streets somewhere, and begins to panic. The two leave. But neither is aware that Erik has been listening to their conversation or that it has driven him to jealous frenzy. During the week and that night, Erik has been terrorising anyone who stood in his way or in that of Christine’s career, including the managers.
The following night, Erik kidnaps Christine during a production of Faust (by drugging the gas men and switching the lights off, he spirits Christine off the stage before anyone turned the lights on). Back in the cellars, Erik tries to force Christine into marriage. If she refuses he threatens to destroy the entire Opera using explosives he has planted in the cellars, killing them and everyone in the floors above. Christine continues to refuse, until she realizes that Raoul and an old acquaintance of Erik’s known only as “The Persian”, in an attempt to rescue her, have been trapped in Erik’s hot torture chamber. To save them and the people above, Christine agrees to marry Erik. At first, Erik tries to drown Raoul and the Persian in the water used to douse the explosives, stating that Christine doesn’t need another. But Christine begs and offers to be his “living bride”, promising him not to kill herself after becoming his bride, as she had both contemplated and attempted earlier in the novel. Erik rescues the Persian and the young Raoul from his torture chamber thereafter. When Erik is alone with Christine, he lifts his mask a little to kiss her on the forehead, and Christine allows him to do this. Erik, who admits that he has never before in his life received or been allowed to give a kiss – not even from his own mother – is overcome with emotion. Christine gives him a kiss back. He lets Christine go and tells her “Go and marry the boy whenever you wish,” explaining, “I know you love him”. She leaves on the condition that when he dies she will come back and bury him.
Being an old acquaintance, The Persian is told of all these secrets by Erik himself, and upon his express request, the Persian advertises Erik’s death in the newspaper about three weeks later. The cause of death is revealed to be a broken heart, and as promised, Christine returns to bury Erik.