Phantom of the Opera Audio Project/ Voice Acting Group
Miggs86 for Erik
Otherwise known as the Phantom of the Opera. A secluded, horribly deformed genius. Not evil, but extremely morally dubious. Can be domineering and intimidating, but has many moments of being childishly pathetic. An extremely complex character with unpredictable emotions.
His voice is his most beautiful and prized quality. It's often described as being unearthly. His voice should be deep, smooth, and musical. If you'd like a reference, I'm looking for something along these lines: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuyLzYvaq8o) However, feel more than welcome to put your own spin on it!
I'm undecided on whether or not you'll actually have to sing for this role, so I'm putting two separate roles for Erik: one for his lines and one for his singing. If you can do both, please include it in your audition! If not, don't worry. You can audition with just talking.
(Gentle and affectionate. Erik congratulates Christine after a performance. Should sound deep and lovely, as he's presenting himself as an angel right now.)
"Your soul is a beautiful thing, child, and I thank you. No emperor ever received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight."
--
(In an absolute rage, after Christine removes his mask. Scream/growl this whole thing, and sound slightly insane. Bonus points for adding insane laughter!)
'Look! You want to see! See! Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik's face! Now you know the face of the voice! You were not content to hear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like! Oh, you women are so inquisitive! Well, are you satisfied? (sarcastic in an insane and angry way) I'm a very good-looking fellow, eh? ... When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me. She loves me for ever. I am a kind of Don Juan, you know!
(laughing bitterly, unhinged)
"Ah, I frighten you, do I? ... I dare say! ... Perhaps you think that I have another mask, eh, and that this ... this ... my head is a mask? Well, tear it off as you did the other! Come! Come along! I insist! Your hands! Your hands! Give me your hands!"
(he seizes Christine's hands and digs them into his skin, tearing at the flesh)
"Know that I am built up of death from head to foot and that it is a corpse that loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you! ... Look, I am not laughing now, I am crying, crying for you, Christine, who have torn off my mask and who therefore can never leave me again! ... As long as you thought me handsome, you could have come back, I know you would have come back ... but, now that you know my hideousness, you would run away for good... So I shall keep you here! ... Why did you want to see me? Oh, mad Christine, who wanted to see me! ... When my own father never saw me and when my mother, so as not to see me, made me a present of my first mask!"
(The following is a direct excerpt from the novel. Read Erik's dialogue. I've included the rest to help with directions.)
"The requiem mass is not at all gay," Erik's voice resumed, "whereas the wedding mass—you can take my word for it—is magnificent! You must take a resolution and know your own mind! I can't go on living like this, like a mole in a burrow! Don Juan Triumphant is finished; and now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a wife like everybody else and to take her out on Sundays. I have invented a mask that makes me look like anybody. People will not even turn round in the streets. You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself. If you loved me I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased."
Soon the moans that accompanied this sort of love's litany increased and increased. I have never heard anything more despairing; and M. de Chagny and I recognized that this terrible lamentation came from Erik himself. Christine seemed to be standing dumb with horror, without the strength to cry out, while the monster was on his knees before her.
Three times over, Erik fiercely bewailed his fate:
"You don't love me! You don't love me! You don't love me!"
And then, more gently:
"Why do you cry? You know it gives me pain to see you cry!"
(Distraught and disbelieving, in tears. Erik tells his friend, the daroga, about his exchange with Christine before she left)
I am dying...of love...That is how it is.... I loved her so!...And I love her still...daroga...and I am dying of love for her, I...I tell you!...If you knew how beautiful she was... when she let me kiss her...alive...It was the first...time, daroga, the first...time I ever kissed a woman.... Yes, alive....I kissed her alive ...and she looked as beautiful as if she had been dead! I kissed her just like that, on her forehead... and she did not draw back her forehead from my lips!...
(OPTIONAL: Record a few bars of yourself singing opera. It's okay if you can't, as this won't be the central part of the project.)
