The 19th century was fascinated with freaks. Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," Bram Stoker's "Dracula" and Victor Hugo's "Hunchback of Notre Dame" were some of the popular stories that dealt with the physically deformed, creatures living in the shadow of society. But thanks to composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, surely the best-known of them all in this 21st century is Gaston Laroux's "Phantom of the Opera," which Lloyd Webber crafted into one of the most popular musicals to hit the stage. 
 
The award-winning musical, set basically to pop music with a nod to Romantic-era opera composers, has had more than 50,000 performances globally since its 1986 London opening, and has been seen by an estimated 63 million people in 15 countries and 93 cities.

The national touring company, in Portland through most of July, is a stunner, pure 19th-century opulence. Renaissance revival architecture heavy with swags and angels decorate the proscenium. Rich red velvet curtains open to reveal yet more lush, fringed curtains backstage at Garnier's Paris opera house, circa 1881. For the opera within this opera, "Hannibal," a mechanical elephant and a Byzantine backdrop with giant statues of animal gods fills the stage. The famous "Phantom" giant chandelier swings down from the ceiling ominously. The elaborate costumes glow and glitter with all the excess of the era. The Phantom's underground lair, complete with lake, is lighted with candles, and in his room, curvy female statues hold candelabra aloft.

But the real jewel set amid all these riches is Brad Little, who plays the Phantom with grace and power. The story follows a deformed fellow who falls in love with young opera performer Christine Daae (Rebecca Pitcher, who shares the role with Julie Hanson). He serves as her brilliant vocal coach in the dungeony depths of the opera house and makes her a star. But the story is not as interesting as the characters who tell the story. Little has a commanding voice, one that shifts from sheer tenderness in such numbers as "The Music of the Night" to ominous unrest in "The Point of No Return."

You can feel Little working from the inside out as an actor, so nothing is surface or false about his performance. He's climbed into the character and made himself at home, whether looking down from the opera-house parapet or lurking in the darkness.

As Christine, Pitcher reveals a wonderful soprano range, plenty of stamina and a delicate charm that fits the romantic novel's heroine. The entire supporting cast is simply wonderful, including Tim Martin Gleason as Christine's suitor Raoul, the dazzling Julie Schmidt as spoiled opera diva Carlotta and Patty Davidson-Gorbe as dance mistress Madame Giry, whose discipline of a gaggle of ballerinas is right out of a Degas painting. I'm not a fan of Lloyd Webber's music, but in terms of production, this show is perfect. The singers don't even sound like they're miked, and the pit orchestra, directed by Glenn Langdon, is in top form.

If the Phantom is a freak, he's certainly the most glamorous one in history.
 

Andrew Lloyd Webber dipped deep into his dream world Wednesday night, and a packed house at Civic Auditorium responded with ripples of laughter and deep sighs of applause.

The occasion was the return of "The Phantom of the Opera" to the Portland stage where it killed 'em nightly in 1993 and is primed to repeat the marvelous mayhem through Aug. 16.  Wednesday's show and two Thursday performances were previews; official opening night is tonight.

Portland's newest Phantom, Brad Little, swooped like a demon and sang like a tortured angel.  His Christine, Kimilee Bryant, mirrored him brilliantly, singing with the sweetness of temptation itself.

This newest national touring company is a sharp, supple, highly talented unit, and the giddy sets and costumes that accompany it on the road are a scales as money and logistics can come to the Broadway originals. Small sacrifices are made any time a show like this goes into a multipurpose theater for a short run, but in this case "small" carries more weight than "sacrifices."

By now, just about everybody knows Lloyd Webber's lavish version of "Phantom," whether or not they've seen it.  Its songs are as familiar and reassuring as a mug of morning coffee, and its beauty and the beast tale tingles like a shot of brandy before bed.

For years critics have been arguing pretty much to zero effect on a public that adores the show that "'Phantom" is nothing but expensive, empty spectacle.  In a sense, maybe so.  Its music is easy ; its theme of the tension between sex and love is obvious; its special effects are calculated to please the little engineer inside us all.

But let's give the public - and Lloyd Webber -  a little credit. This show may be clattery, but it's great fun.  And it's  the kind of fun that critics ought to applaud because it's all about the seduction of the stage.

The not-so-phantom spirit of "Phantom" is Lloyd Webber's deep affection for the theater itself - for its history, its excesses, its raffishness, its illusion.  The musical's true theme is the glory of the dream world, and how that world can be created with a little smoke a mirror, a tumble of curtain and a crashing chandelier.

Everything in "Phantom" is nostalgic about the theater.  Lloyd Webber throws the script at us: Mozart, Moliere, melodrama, boulevard, comedy, silent movie pipe organs.  His songs are filled with sweeping glissandos - overstated, florid and funny.

Director Harold Prince and designer Maria Bjornson support illusion with a  glorious, gaudy frame for the stage.  Golden creatures loom above the stage like gilded nightmares - angels, gargoyles, twisted creatures that should not be.  Like the show itself, they are all very Victorian, and twisted and fun.

Jason Pebworth gives a fine, dashing performance as Raoul, the wealthy las who wants to take Christine away from all this.  And special kudos to Julie Schmidt as company diva Carlotta - she plays, superbly,  a slightly bad soprano - and it takes a very good one to pull that off.

Theater isn't life, Lloyd Webber reminds us.  It's bigger than life.  It sweeps us away from the everyday. And that makes it grandly fun.