Theater: Music Of The Night THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

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Lloyd Webber gives his wife every help, beginning with her vocal introduction. Although Phantom is garlanded with opera pastiche, it subliminally nudges opera aside in favor of pop by offering the winsome ballad Think of Me first in the overripe, rococo style of a diva (Judy Kaye), then in Brightman's appealingly unadorned rendition. The device hints that the Phantom and his chosen instrument will become the means for remaking musical entertainment. If that claim is to be taken as Lloyd Webber's judgment of his own role in the theater, however, it seems premature. His knack for crafting hit tunes is offset by their interchangeability among characters and situations, plus a tin ear for lyrics and lyricists. Moreover, nothing in Phantom compares with Memory in Cats. The melody that comes closest, The Music of the Night, contains a repeated phrase that seems to quote Come to Me, Bend to Me from Brigadoon, a show that had true magic, fantasy and romance and that embodied a tradition of Broadway quality Lloyd Webber has not come close to matching.