The Phantom of the Opera

One of the great classics of American silent film, the 1925 Phantom of the Opera is now in its centenary year and is presented here with live spine-tingling and spell-binding music (The Guardian) music from Minima, one of the leading bands accompanying silent film in Europe, in their third visit to Leek.

Drums, bass, guitar and cello strike up a thrilling relationship with the film, following the Phantom down into his subterranean nightmare world.  Minima’s electrifying score for The Phantom of the Opera captures the horror of the story, but also finds pathos, romance and humour.  This will be their third visit to Leek – they sold out last November with “The Lodger”.

This is the original film version of Phantom. It stars Lon Chaney in the title role of the deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House, causing murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.  Chaney was allowed to create his own make-up.  He said:  “In The Phantom of the Opera, people exclaimed at my weird make-up. I achieved the Death’s Head of that role without wearing a mask. It was the use of paints in the right shades and the right places—not the obvious parts of the face—which gave the complete illusion of horror … It’s all a matter of combining paints and lights to form the right illusion”.

It was a critical and commercial success on release, as these press quotes from the time contest: an “ultra fantastic melodrama” (New York Times); “produced on a stupendous scale” (Moving Picture World); “probably the greatest inducement to nightmare that has yet been screened” (Variety).  The producer Carl Laemmle commissioned the construction of a set of the Paris Opera House. Because it would have to support hundreds of extras, the set became the first to be created with steel girders set in concrete. For this reason it was not dismantled until 2014

“Minima turned the 1925 Phantom of the Opera into an immersive and gripping emotional experience.” (Swansea International Festival)

In the ground floor function room, so wheelchair accessible. 

Tickets available online now.  You can buy before the end of July and avoid any price increase.