Carl Davis is back, with the Philharmonia Orchestra, at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, to perform his score for The Phantom of the Opera (1925). You’ll be pleased to know that this film, which stars Lon Chaney, and the score, have nothing at all to do with Andrew Lloyd Webber.
More than 80 years after its première, Lon Chaney’s extraordinary performance as the Phantom – a crazed escapee from Devil’s Island, formerly imprisoned in a torture chamber on the site of the Paris opera – still has the power to shock; and the film is also notable for its sumptuous set-piece scenes, including a masked Ball in which the Phantom appears as the Red Death on the Grand Stairway.
The Phantom of the Opera screens at 3pm on 27 March 2011. Tickets range from £8-£38 and are available here.
