Judy and Rick marked a musical milestone: They joined the throngs who have seen The Phantom of the Opera. Already the longest running show in Broadway history, its current touring incarnation visited Minneapolis recently.

We are glad we went. We were also slightly alarmed that we weren’t all that impressed. What? It’s a cultural phenomenon. The aforementioned Broadway show is in itself a tourist destination; it’s one of the things you “should see” when you’re in New York. Did we miss something? Was it an off night? Was it a case of “the emperor’s new clothes”? What’s wrong with us?

One 2014 reviewer for The New York Times wrote, “At this point the crowds flocking to see “Phantom” are making a pilgrimage to a pop shrine more than they are coming to see a Broadway musical…” [emphasis mine]. This same reviewer also says he was “not particularly entranced by” the show when he saw it fifteen years ago. Really? So it’s not just us.

Another reviewer (for the New York Daily News, in 1988, and republished in 2016) wrote, “It is a spectacular entertainment, visually the most impressive of the British musicals…” Yet, Andrew Lloyd Weber’s “lack of originality is apparent in the music he writes for the Phantom’s opera, which is merely harsh, not interesting.” Finally, “The characters are not fleshed out, the lyrics are forgettable and the melodramatic plot is not as evocative as it might be…. Nevertheless, that master conjurer [director] Hal Prince has woven these seemingly outmoded materials into a grand evening of theater.”

Okay. It’s a spectacle. It’s well produced. It’s a grand entertainment. It’s live theater. But otherwise, meh? So how did it become such a powerhouse play and conquer not only Broadway but London’s West End? The NYT reviewer points out that it has “grossed $6 billion dollars worldwide (more than any other musical or even, gasp, movie!)” Can all those people be wrong? We certainly thought so.

The set and staging were phenomenal. The performances were outstanding. But I think the bottom line is that Lloyd Weber should have left opera to the masters. It’s harder than it looks to have the music support and move the story. To weave complex melodic lines from multiple characters into an enjoyable whole was apparently beyond his ken. Anything beyond a duet was a muddle, and there was a lot of muddling. There were only a couple of lines of music that are even memorable, and those only snippets that run around in your head without connecting to anything.

Finally, Judy and I both failed to engage emotionally. We couldn’t buy the phantom’s motivation to either haunt the theater or to capitulate when confronted with selfless love.

So, with apologies to the millions who love Phantom, there you have it. We do not.