I want women and men out there, finding their emotions in what I do." Know that I've got a sense of humor.' I don't just want women in the audience, screaming.
So one tries gently to break down the image and says, That was a role. Maybe all they really want to hear is Phantom.'. "The first time I did it, I was absolutely terrified of all those people sitting there in expectation. "Now it's me coming out onstage as me," he says. As the guest star of "The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber" in the early '90s, he turned up at the end of the first act and sang six songs by the master, including the Phantom's trademark "The Music of the Night." This time, he's on his own - if you can say that of a performer who is supported by a 40-piece orchestra, a 24-member choir and a state-of-the-art sound system that transports his slightest whisper to the back of the vastest arenas. He pauses, then adds, "And I ended up being a Phantom." From the huge roar of approval that goes up, it is clear that the audience wants it no other way.Ĭrawford has taken to the concert trail before. The role that makes you can be the role that imprisons you.ĭuring his concert, he tells the audience how seeing a production of "West Side Story" in his youth awoke him to the world of musicals. And that, he says, is "what every actor wants, surely." But there can be a downside to such success: the artistic equivalent of house arrest. Of the dozens of performers who've played the Phantom all over the world, Crawford is the one everyone recognizes.
If you were to mention somebody else who played the part, I'd be jealous."Ĭrawford knows better than to question the role that won him a Tony and made him an international star. "Even now, when I sing a number from the show, it's as if I'm doing it for the very first time.
"I went out on that stage as the Phantom every night for 1,300 performances and I loved it," says the 56-year-old actor. And Michael Crawford - cue the organ - is the Phantom of the Opera.Įven without the cape, the half mask and the wide-brimmed hat slung low on his brow.Įven in a tuxedo, with a navy-blue shirt opened at the neck, his garb for "An Evening With Michael Crawford in Concert," which comes to the MCI Center in Washington on Saturday night.Įven when he's singing Irish ballads or inspirational hymns or songs by Stephen Sondheim. Carol Channing will always be Dolly Levi. Yul Brynner, to his dying day, was the King of Siam. Some theatrical associations are forever.
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