“The Phantom of the Opera,” by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe, directed by Simon Phillips for Opera Australia’s Handa Opera on the Harbour, Sydney, until April 24. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA.

THIS spectacular production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s most famous musical was no ordinary theatre experience.

With a pleased-looking Lord Lloyd Webber in attendance for last night’s premiere (March 25), a three-hour break in the rain and the explosion of fireworks, it was a night to remember.

Simon Phillips’s outdoor revival of “Phantom” proved to be  a complete change from the usual grand opera experience, with a moderately sized, heavily amplified orchestra conducted by Guy Simpson and all the tricks of showbiz at hand, especially seen in the underground night-time boat-ride of Act I.

Viewed from one perspective, it was designer Gabriela Tylesova’s night, with a richly  gilded staircase placed at an angle upstage, two opera house boxes and an inner chamber, spectacular against the city skyline and superbly lit by Nick Schlieper

Tylesova’s costumes too were breathtaking, from the delicately colour-washed tutus suggesting 19th century Parisian ballet to the garish getup for the masquerade scene, not to mention metres and metres of magnificent silk in exquisite gowns for the show’s heroine Christine, played by Georgina Hopson.

The stage effects were executed on a large scale as befitted the outdoor location, but there were a few glitches on opening night when a stage prop didn’t quite crash down on cue and that chandelier wobbled its way to the floor, but luckily the fireworks covered the shakiness. Live outdoor performance is notoriously unforgiving and at times one could quite literally hear the machinery creak.

It was a huge stage to fill, but choreographer Simone Sault and her dancers did so effectively.

Dramaturgically weak, for much of “The Phantom” is arrant nonsense, so there were times when one struggled to follow what was going — it is at heart a story of passion and obsession, with only a handful of characters having real significance.

The heavy-handed horseplay and squabbling with the Paris Opera House occupies a fair bit of the evening, but seemed trivial to the central story.

That, of course, is about of a young singer drawn by the magnetic power of the Svengali-like maestro who becomes her “angel” of music and the young count, who represents the normal (some might say boring) real world.

Callum Francis, famous for his drag role in “Kinky Boots,” is cast against type as Raoul, Vicomte De Chagny, but gave his character weight and gravitas — easily the best Raoul I have seen.

Maree Johnson, who has played Christine in the past, made her mark with a powerful realisation of the formidable Ballet mistress Madame Giry, ally of the Phantom.

I’ve left the best till last.

The moments of high passion between the Phantom and his protege are what this show is all about.

Hopson’s voice has extraordinary range, reaching far down then soaring to the sky to great audience applause and Joshua Robson as the tormented Phantom is a fitting vocal match for her. Their duets were the most thrilling moments of the night.

Here director Phillips proved most successful, as he took the tawdry goings in the opera house to a higher, universal level, leaving the audience wondering whether Christine really did  have a thing for the Phantom, as one long, lingering kiss suggested.

Questions lingered? Would Christine and Raoul live happily ever after? And where did the Phantom go when he vanished?

Some of us  know the answers, since  Lloyd-Webber reveals it all in in the sequel, “Love Never Dies”.

But that’s quite another story.