This evening brought redemption of a sort. A couple of months ago a seemingly benign envelope arrived from Netflix. Inside was one of the worst movies of all time. Sure, I'd heard it was bad. I thought "How bad can a movie be," and little did I know. The movie version of The Phantom of the Opera is amongst the worst ever. The lip-synching cast can neither sing nor act and the staging is embarrassingly bad.

Tonight however I saw The Phantom of the Opera as it was meant to be done. On The Great White Way history's second-longest running musical is a magical experience. Mind you one of, if not the worst, seat in the house sets one back a hefty $150. However, the performance is amazing. Howard McGillin as The Phantom is amazing as are the other leads Sandra Joseph as Christine Daae makes her Broadway debut with Tim Martin Gleason playing Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, a role he previously played on the touring production.

The first show I've seen on Broadway I had high expectations for the cast. However the staging of this production is beyond belief. On a standard proscenium stage the production does what the movie wasn't able to do and stages a believable complex story in an elegant and beautiful way and all without the benefit of "takes" and the chance to edit away the "mistakes".