To be cared for, to be paid attention to, and to be adored, despite our flaws and imperfections, is a goal that many in the world pursue, but fail to do so authentically and lovingly. The desire to be loved is no stranger even to the best of us. “So things like that just remembering that although I do have to stay in the confines of the time period and in dialect, I can be as expressive as myself, Emilie.Captivating music aside, Leroux’s original book fictionalised a Phantom with whom a surprising great number of the world can relate. The temptation might be to inflect up … (but) it’s OK for her to have a more grounded lower voice if that’s true to me. I try and bring myself to her as much as I can even in just the inflection of my voice, something as simple as that. “This Christine feels very much close to me, and I relate a lot to her. He was really adamant about making sure that Christine felt like me, and that I didn’t have to put on any sort of airs that I thought an ingenue character had to be or a Christine had to be,” she said. “It was a big conversation when I was rehearsing first with our production supervisors. Christine - a young soprano - starts the musical with a small role in the show within the show, but becomes the Phantom’s love interest and he uses his influence to get her the lead role by any means possible. The Phantom, a mysterious character who inhabits the rafters, sabotages the ongoing opera to get what he wants from the new owners. In celebration of Black history, Kouatchou sat down with TODAY to discuss disrupting an industry set in its ways and the significance of Black representation on Broadway, especially in predominately white musicals and plays.īased on Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel, “Phantom of the Opera” tells the story of a love triangle that blossoms after two businessmen take ownership of a haunted opera house.

Emilie Kouatchou and Ben Crawford star as Christine and the Phantom in “Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway.

Phantom of the opera christine