Navina Heyne will play Christine in a production of Liebe Stirbt Nie (Love Never Dies) at the Theater Lüneburg during their 2024/2025 season.

Schedule:

Saturday, March 1st – 8:00 p.m. (premiere)

Friday, March 7th – 8:00 p.m.

Wednesday, March 19th – 8:00 p.m.

Friday, March 28th – 8:00 p.m.

Friday, May 2nd – 8:00 p.m.

Thursday, May 8th – 8:00 p.m.

Sunday, May 18th – 6:00 p.m.

Sunday, May 25th – 6:00 p.m.

Sunday, June 1st – 6:00 p.m.

Saturday, June 14th – 8:00 p.m.

She will be performing opposite her husband, Thomas Borchert, who will perform the role of the Phantom, reprising the role he previously played in Phantom of the Opera.

Pictures: Navina Heyne’s Facebook and Instagram

The rest of the World Tour company has been announced!

海沼千明 (Chiaki Kainuma) as Christine

Pictures: Akihito Abe, Shiki Theater Company

藤原遥香 (Haruka Fujiwara) as Christine

Pictures: Akihito Abe, Shiki Theater Company

From the cover run in Vienna!

Robert Meyer (Phantom), Lillian Maandag (Christine), Lilly Rottensteiner (Carlotta), Eva Maria Bender (Giry), Timo Verse (Andre), Julia Hubner (Meg).

Robert Meyer, Lilian Maandag, and Julia Hubner have made their Phantom, Christine, and Meg debuts, respectively!

Jessica Hackett as Carlotta! She is normally u/s (for both Carlotta and Christine), but is on for the final week in Riyadh while Lara Martins is away.

Which phantoms could you possibly see as being aro/ace? Like maybe they think marrying Christine is just The Thing To Do, but they really just want a friend and are going about it all wrong.

Honestly as an ace, possibly aroace person, I am really bad at telling if other people or other characters are also aroace lol. What can I say, I'm incredibly unobservant.

That being said, I've heard that Earl Carpenter and Ted Keegan were interpreted, or even confirmed they were definitely playing, the Phantom as aroace. I can certainly see Carpenter, but I also think it's such a subtle, nuanced thing that it can be hard to really get across; the actor would probably have to play their Phantom as someone who mistakes their emotional attachment to Christine as romance, and maybe as someone who acts sensual and writes passionate self-insert fic operas because it's expected of them in a society where the concept of aroace hasn't even really come around yet (e.g. me when writing sex scenes in fanfic; "well I personally don't really care about this part but I guess I'll do it, for the readers"), but you know, conveying all that without saying it and while sticking to the blocking of the show is... hard.

But hey, there's two names for you at least!

Do you think if Phantom ever made the restaged tour an international production it would be as successful as the current world tour production?

I actually feel like they already did something like that, with the Australian tour that ran for a few months over a year ago. Australia's had replica tours there before (and they were even considered part of the World Tour, like a branch of it), so really, we might be able to use it as a microcosm or a case study to answer your question. All you have to do is crunch the numbers on the previous tours - length of time it ran, costs, money made, critical and audience reviews, etc. - and then compare it to the same for the most recent tour, with some adjustments for inflation, different running times, sizes of theaters, and all that stuff.

Unfortunately I don't have most of those numbers, so don't look to my data crunching! Anyone else want to do this?

Hi glass! Could you recommend some Christine’s who have deeper/darker voices. I like to think of Meghan Picerno as one because who voice isn’t as high/childish like if that makes sense.

I'd recommend looking through this list and this list I made of Christines with darker voices, as well as this list and this list of Christines with more operatic voices. Hope that helps!

Hiya GP, do you have any of your favorite/most famous/infamous PoNR gifs? I rly liked how the US Phantoms clutch their robe around their knees and Hugh's grabbing himself (and believe it or not, good ol' Eiji *doge*). It reaaaaaly adds to the tension. Thx!

Hmm...

There's going to be some repeats, but to start off, here's some of my favorite boob caresses.

You can follow this with some analysis of Christine's reaction to the boob caress here and here.

Follow this up with "sexiest Christine moments" gifs.

These are best paired with gifs of my favorite Phantom reactions to Christine being sexy, which you've probably already seen before.

Then to add some angst, here's some Phantoms kneeling during the proposal part at the end of the scene.

Oh, and some favorite non-replica gifs.

And finally, have a few gifsets. Here's one small but beloved scene between two actors and here's one that's really just an excuse for me to make lovely gifs of the Aminta dress.

Do you have some least favorite final lair kisses or least favorite return of the ring scenes?

I don't think I have any least favorites because, for me, I don't think there's many ways to play this scene "wrong". Well, maybe during the kiss Christine could slobber her tongue all over the Phantom's face or something, but even then I wouldn't make it my least favorite, because it's entertaining! Heck, it'd probably be my ultimate favorite for the sheer hilarity.

The same goes for the returning of the ring scene; I'm pretty open to any and all interpretations, so short of Christine, I don't know, hurling the ring back at the Phantom's face whilst singing, "Sayonara, sucker!" I don't have any individual least favorites that I've seen. At worst, they're unmemorable, but that's also the majority of kiss and ring returning scenes.

No, I think my least favorite ring returning scene is from a specific production, and that is the scene from the restaged tours (the kiss scene is fine). If you don't know, in that version, after chasing Raoul and Christine out, the Phantom cries over his torn up music sheets (clearly the most important thing in his life) and sings, "Christine, I love you" to the audience. Unbeknownst to him, Christine has returned to his lair to return the ring, but the Phantom does not see her as his back is to her. Rather than facing him, Christine simply places the ring down on his table and leaves. The Phantom then turns around and sees the ring and cries some more, I guess, before diving under the bed to hide from the incoming mob.

And man, I just don't like this interpretation. First, it deprives us of that emotional, final face-to-face moment between the Phantom and Christine. Second, we lose out on the endpoint of the Phantom's arc from seemingly mystical, manipulative being to a sad, broken man; he's no longer the Angel of Music, no longer the Opera Ghost, no longer trying to force Christine's hand, entrance her into loving him, or manipulate her feelings, he's just a lonely man, telling her that he loves her. (Though the restaged tour overly humanizes the Phantom so much that it probably doesn't even matter much.) And third, Christine loses out on that final moment of choice, of agency. She doesn't get to look at the Phantom and decide, once and for all, "No, I can't stay with him, whatever I feel." Instead she avoids the entire moment, dropping the ring and fleeing. Her arc is all about seeing behind the Phantom's many masks and personas and finding the strength to face him, but then at this moment, maybe the most important moment of all, she's robbed of it. Blargh.

Anyway this turned into yet another "I hate the restaged tour" post so I'm going to stop. I actually do enjoy some aspects of it, I swear! But boy do I not like how they blocked some scenes.

Marina Brisa, u/s Meg Giry in Madrid. She also understudy Christine.

Judith Tobella (alternate Christine) and Manu Pilas (alternate Phantom) in Madrid. And yes, also a real-life couple!

From her Instagram

West End Phantom Audio + Video

Time for another video release, so here is a gift of the corresponding audio!

This video is from Jan '24 and will be available to order in the usual place. Mastered with help from the wonderful @hyperfixatra!

Opinion on chumisa? She’s gorgeous but haven’t heard much of her

So, keeping in mind that I tend to just skim over reviews and I don't really get hyped over actors a lot...

I really liked her. Like, she was very, very good.

And it's pretty incredible considering the video I have of her that she's only barely started the role, but there we are: Chumisa Dornford-May feels like she came into the production already having a good idea of exactly how she wanted to play Christine and how she wanted to act certain scenes and string it all together to show her character's arc, and she went and did it. Now all that's left is for her to refine it.

Some highlights: from the get-go I loved how she played 'Think of Me'; I think it's very tempting to go the happy, joyful route a la Gina Beck, and I like that interpretation! But she acted the song in a way that was more appropriate to the lyrics she was singing, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes wistful, sometimes distant and grieving. It gave me a great sense of Christine as not only a good singer but a good performer too.

In terms of whether she was a Phantom or Raoul girlie, I'd honestly say neither, though if pushed I'd say she maybe leans a little more towards Raoul. Her Christine in the lair scenes was not necessarily afraid or angry at the Phantom, but she did feel rather resistant to him, especially compared to some of the other Christines in the role right now (e.g. Lily Kerhoas and Colleen Rose Curran). There were moment where she would melt a little, seemingly going, "Oh, this is kind of nice", but much of the time, she appeared more wary than anything else, unsure of what the Phantom was up to.

I also say she's not quite a Raoul girlie because she acts similarly in the rooftop scenes. In particular, her 'Why Have You Brought Me Here' was played like she was trying very hard to convince Raoul of what she saw and was angered that he kept trying to calm her down rather than actually attempting to understand her. Her Christine doesn't just want to tell Raoul what's going on, she wants him to believe her. She was also noticeably less giggly than other Christines during 'All I Ask of You', at least in this performance, and I liked how it kind of flips the dynamic between them: whereas earlier it was Christine trying to convince Raoul, now he has to be the one to convince her that all is goodness and light, and I'm not fully sure she bought into it.

What else? Oh, in 'Twisted Every Way', she did something that I first saw Yang Chen Xiuyi do in the Chinese production, which was to turn very hopefully towards Raoul when he says, "Christine, Christine, don't think that I don't care..." It's like she thinks, or wants to think, that Raoul is going to back down and call off his plan, which makes it all the more devastating when he doesn't.

And finally, by 'Point of No Return' and 'Final Lair', her Christine had definitely reached her limit with the Phantom. I really enjoyed how you can see Christine working out that it's the Phantom onstage with her during 'Point of No Return', slowly drawing out her phrases as the wheels in her head spin and then committing to continuing the show to catch him. (Never mind about the stuff after.) She delivered a truly contemptuous, "Please, Raoul, it's useless" in the 'Final Lair', and I think she gave a truly angry kiss to the Phantom. It felt very similar, interestingly, to her dynamic with Raoul on the rooftop; she seemed to be using the kiss to desperately try to convince the Phantom away from his current path (using the power of making out to stop the cycle of abuse and trauma!). Such was the quality of the video that I'm pretty sure I saw tears on her face during the kiss, and Chumisa Dornford-May played it, I feel, like it was due to the overwhelming catharsis of emotions she was experiencing: anger, grief, betrayal, terror, all of it being released into this one grand moment.

The only flaws I really noticed had to do with her singing. Most reviews have pointed out she belts some of the score; I didn't notice it too much, but I definitely heard it during 'Wishing'. It wasn't the worst place to belt - she did it during the last stanza, where Christine is usually singing pretty loudly anyway, likely to add volume to her singing - and I didn't mind it too much, but it was jarring. There were also a few parts where her voice was a little quiet, and small scenes where Christine was not the focal point but she could done a little more in her acting, or just paused and let the scene "breathe" a little (which, in fairness, is something most actors new to a role will do, rush through the show).

But honestly, those were minor nitpicks in what was otherwise a really great performance. And this is her early in her run? I can only imagine what she'll be like with a few more months under her belt!

Short clip of Grace Chapman as Christine from her debut! Also with Nadim Naaman as the Phantom. From boyan_goryanov’s Instagram story.