Ben Apfelbaum

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA : MEDIA CALL

Blake Bowden, Amy Manford, Josh Piterman

The Phantom first appeared in 1909 in a French novel by Gaston Leroux. In 1925 a silent version of the Phantom was released starring Lon Chaney in his most acclaimed role. It was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s creative genius to perceive that this story could be made into a great musical. Aided by lyricist Charles Hart with the book by Richard Stilgoe, it  premiered in the West End in 1986. It now holds the record for the longest running Broadway play.

Up until 2019 the Phantom had made an appearance in over 13,000 productions, but never once in the Sydney Opera House. Therefore it is only fitting that it is staged in the debut season of the newly refurbished Joan Sutherland Theatre. Amongst other things this has been advantageous in that a 27 member orchestra, as envisaged by Andrew Lloyd Webber, can be accommodated in the orchestra pit. 

Seth Sklar-Heyn guided this new production through a successful  UK and North America tour. At the Media Call Sklar-Heyn wanted the production to be more visceral with new staging and scenic sets. He also wanted the plight of the Phantom to be more poignant. However he has retained Maria Bjornson’s original costumes from the 1986 production. 

Three scenes from the musical were presented – The Masquerade, All I Ask Of You and the Music Of The Night. 

An all Australian cast is headed by Josh Piterman as the Phantom, Amy Mainford as Christine Daae, and Blake Bowden as Raoul Vicomte de Chagny.

The season runs until 16th October 2022.

http://www.phantomoftheopera.com.au

Text and photography by Ben Apfelbaum

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborlang. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, United States, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication. To celebrate the opening of a permanent Photography Gallery, the State Library of New South Wales selected 400 shots from its archive of over 2,000,000 images to display in the new gallery. An image of mine was plucked out of the multi million photo archive to be part of the inaugural exhibition.