Learning English Malaysian style.

OK, so this lyrical wax is dedicated to the fact that I finally bought an original copy of The Phantom of the Opera. So called because the novel was originally in French and the common English version of it (I got one published by Penguin popular classics, the first translation that was done in 1911) is a lot shorter, which is sad...maybe I should learn some French.

Anyways, I'm enjoying reading it now. That makes me wonder why we studied out of that tiny little book back in form 3(if I remember correctly). How long was it? 15 pages? Probably even less if you don't count the illustrated pages. For comparison, Konserto Terakhir is 285 pages, and the Penguin book I bought is 270 pages, so why didn't we study out of that version directly? It would be kind of sad if a 15 year old 'modern' Malaysian cannot read a simple story book 1/2 an inch thick.

As a side note, the language used in the translation wasn't very difficult, it's similar to modern usage of English. Weren't we forced to learn classical and royal Malay in highschool too? Why the double standards? In my mom's time, they studied Romeo and Juliet,probably the complete version too.With classical English.

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The rest is waxing lyrical. If you don't like broadway or are just tired of my Lloyd Webber free promotions, you need not read on.

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But that aside, I found the other tracks from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera on youtube. I'm so happy to finally hear the complete story from Webber's point of view. I mean it's genius (Yeah, I know I've been going on about this for the past few months, I'm not over it yet) And Michael Crawford is Genius. Capital G. Those who liked whatshisname from the recent movie don't know what they're missing. I think I never felt what was so great about the phantom's character from studying English literature in form 3, and I downright hated the phantom from the movie. But with Michael Crawford's interpretation, you really understand the depth and emotion of the character. The wierd thing is that when I first heard Crawford singing Phantom, I thought he wasn't suitable because his type of voice is not 'angelic'. But the more I listen to it the more the music grows on me. I think the idea was to portray a character that was neither the Angel of Music nor a demon(so Rock Opera and Nightwish's version fails too), but just a human. I guess it's something you have to listen to for yourself, the contrast of the taunting phantom at the beginning of the musical to the heartfelt ending portrayed by Crawford and Webber's musical mastery.The ending ties everything up nicely and hits. Hard.

Also, I read online that Webber's original plan for his Phantom was to make it a Rock Opera style musical(like Jesus Christ Superstar. Which hasn't grown on me. Or not yet at least). Luckily Michael Crawford convinced him to do something operatic, and all that is left of the rock style is in the title song. And that new Webber musical, Love Never Dies(came out in March this year), is also sort of based on Phantom. But I'm not so sure about whether that will be good, I don't really support sequels.My motto:" If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. If at first you do succeed, congratulations, now go and do something else."