Certain phenomena - like the Super Bowl or a John Grisham mystery - seem to grow bigger and more important than they really are.

Phantom of the Opera can fit into this category - Broadway musical whose success and notoriety stretch beyond its artistic merit.

Yet there is something undeniably appealing about Phantom, something so gothic and melodramatic that the show pulls in thousands of first-time and repeat viewers who thrill to its oft-repeated melodies, extravagant pyrotechnics, gaudily staged productions and shadowy recesses of the Paris Opera House and grisly-yet-pathetic face of its title character.

One of Andrew Lloyd Webber's most successful musicals - it's moving up on Cats in terms of top musical moneymakers and currently has two regular companies and two touring companies in the United States - returned for its second Columbus appearance, settling in yesterday for a  four-week run at the Ohio Theater.

Indeed, what is most ironic about this venue is that Phantom's elaborate, false proscenium of gilt angels and demons and the 1,000 pound chandelier that swings out into the audience in one of the show's most dramatic scenes, are redundant.  The splendors of the Ohio, including its own colorful chandelier, are far more grand.

That aside, Phantom's lavish special effects are among its most attractive qualities.  The operas staged within this "opera" involve a life-size mechanical elephant, staged ballets, huge Egyptian statues and a tenor almost equally gargantuan.

When Christine and the Phantom descend to his murky lair in the catacombs of the opera house, the stage becomes a steaming lake lit with hundreds of candles. A victim drops to his death in  a hangman's noose, guns are shot bodies disappear and, of course, there's that plummeting chandelier.

Phantom leaves one little time to ponder any depth to its story - a potboiler about a deformed genius who both terrorizes the Paris Opera and engineers some of its greatest successes with a winsome young singer.

Brad Little's Phantom is just right for this effusive theater.  Little brings unabashed intensity to the role - no introspective genius for him.  He crooks his fingers with pent-up rage and frustration, pops up with astonishing rapidity on various elevated parts of the stage, and often injects a sibilant hiss to such songs as Music of the Night.  His very presence, as it should, boost the energy of the production.

Kimilee Bryant's sweet-voiced Christine provides excellent counterpoint; she is a girl troubled by the demons of her father's death and her ambitious musical desires.  Bryant brings sensuality to the role, especially in the Don Juan Triumphant opera scene in which, as she is seduced, she gradually realizes who her seducer is.

Jason Pebworth grows into the role of Raoul, Christine's savior.  His voice doesn't  match in strength  that of Bryant or Little, but his acting - in a rather thankless part - is solid.  Julie Schmidt is perfectly temperamental as the diva Carlotta, and Mary Setrakian makes sense out of Madame Giry, the ballet mistress who sheds light on the Phantom's history.

The biggest problem with Phantom is the very trait that has made it so successful.  This is an overblown musical with several good melodies repeated far too often.  It's enormous fan, perhaps guilty pleasure, to settle into the plush, red Ohio Theater seats for those eerie blast of organ music, the candlelight terror, the unrequited love in Think of Me and the rest of the regularly circulating Music of the Night.

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