Phantom of the Opera
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:58:01
Lipscomb's script was set
in contemporary Paris.

:58:04
The conductor of the opera
is found murdered,

:58:07
and in his hands is left a manuscript,
"Thine is the Glory".

:58:11
A remark is made
by those reading the music

:58:13
that it appears to have been written
by a soul in torment.

:58:17
Soon we meet
a mysterious music master.

:58:20
He wears a mask and tells Christine,
a young singer,

:58:24
that it is a terrible scar
left by the war, which no one must see.

:58:27
The war, of course, is World War I.
:58:30
Christine tells her music master
:58:32
that her family is Swedish,
and therefore very superstitious.

:58:36
Before his death, her father had told her of
the "angel of music" that he would send,

:58:41
necessary to her becoming
an accomplished singer.

:58:44
Her voice is fairly mediocre,
and the master explains

:58:47
that her voice needs
to come from another world.

:58:50
She's a very modern girl in modern Paris,
:58:52
and of course she has
a modern boyfriend, Raoul.

:58:58
She pursues Raoul through the streets
of Paris, losing him in a store,

:59:02
where she mistakenly approaches
an underwear-clad male mannequin

:59:06
to ask where her beloved has gone.
:59:09
If that's not silly enough, she and Raoul
have a rendezvous at a Parisian café

:59:14
which has a small café orchestra, where
a banter song between the two of them

:59:18
goes back and forth, full of risqué lyrics.
:59:23
The opera being staged
is Gounod's Faust,

:59:26
and the music master explains
to Christine that he had always hoped

:59:30
there would be someone like her,
someone to be the Marguerite to his Faust

:59:34
and save him from himself.
:59:38
The music master explains to her
the horrors of the First World War.

:59:42
"They made a killer of me,
the most sensitive creature in the world,

:59:45
the kindest man, who would
not even kill an insect!"

:59:48
"Yet one day I found myself
in battle on the great attack,

:59:52
killing, killing, killing my fellow men!"
:59:55
"I remember looking
into the face of one man."

:59:57
"He was a boy, very young."

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