:44:02
Ward's last work, uncredited,
was on Man of a Thousand Faces.
:44:06
He died in 1971, having racked up
nearly 200 feature-film credits.
:44:12
Ward used melodies from the opera
sequences as motifs for the characters.
:44:16
"Porter Song" from Martha was used for
the scenes between the rival boyfriends,
:44:20
"Heaven Protect Thee" from Martha
for scenes with Christine and her beaus,
:44:24
and the Chopin nocturne
as a tentative theme for Christine.
:44:28
"Lullaby of the Bells", Christine's song
and the basis for the phantom's concerto,
:44:32
was employed as Claudin's motif.
:44:34
The song had lyrics
written by producer Waggner.
:44:37
It was issued as sheet music, but there
were no commercial recordings made.
:44:42
The concerto, capitalising on the wartime
vogue for piano concertos in movies,
:44:47
also remained unrecorded until
the time of Phantom's reissue in 1948,
:44:52
when Mantovani prepared a performance
about seven minutes long,
:44:56
covering two sides of a 78rpm disc
for London Records.
:45:00
In 1997 Santiago Rodriguez
and the Fairfax Virginia Symphony
:45:04
made a new digital recording for CD.
:45:06
Rodriguez wrote his own
conjectural ending for the concerto,
:45:10
as it is abruptly terminated in the movie
by the cave-in of the catacombs.
:45:15
Phantom's source music posed problems.
:45:18
Legitimate operas that would appeal
to middlebrow audiences were desired.
:45:22
Universal did not want to pay for them.
:45:25
Existing operas considered
were Borodin's Prince lgor,
:45:28
then, as late as December 23, La Traviata,
still with Gloria Jean in mind.
:45:33
By December 29 the lead actors
still were not set in stone.
:45:37
The terms for La Traviata
came in at $2,250,
:45:41
but publishing clearances were needed
for occupied France and Belgium,
:45:45
where the rights
were controlled by Loew's.
:45:48
Waggner may have steered the
production towards creating new operas
:45:52
so that he could receive ASCAP royalties.
In mid-December the hunt encompassed
:45:56
Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet
Overture", songs by Edvard Grieg,