Silken Couch and Hay-Filled Barn (1986)

[Erik Lenoir]

Something was wrong! Christine put her cheek to Erik's left cheek and she had most likely felt the harness of his mask against her face. He felt the pressure of her cheek on the mask. She could not fail to notice. She must have noticed... Through the thin material of the hood, he could see her eyes widen as she moved away from him. He grasped her hands and as they moved across the stage, they performed the next stanza of the song, a duet:

Past the point of no return
The final threshold..
The bridge is crossed, so stand
And watch it burn...

Erik could not hear a faint sound of voices behind the curtain. He could not know that they had found Piangi. And yet, he felt uneasy. Was something happening of which he wasn't aware? He continued to sing with Christine, still holding her hands. Perhaps it was nothing. No one could have discovered what was really happening...could they? No one knew his plan...except Christine. It appeared that Christine knew he was not Piangi and of course she must know that it was Erik. She acted as if she were not under the spell of his voice anymore. But he must continue as if nothing had happened. His words came confidently:

We've passed the point
of no return..

[Christine Svenna Daaé]

It was him! She should have suspected something like this. She knew that he was certain to attend the premier of his own opera—especially when his former student was singing the lead, but this… this was beyond any sort of thing she could have imagined beforehand. A million questions raced through her mind all at once. Where was Signor Piangi? Did anyone else know about this? She had to find a way out of this, a way to escape…

She tried desperately to pull herself away from them as the song continued, but it was of no use. She had to find a way away. She had to let everyone know that something was wrong… She had a terrible feeling that this all would end very poorly…

“Past the point of no return,
The final threshold,
The bridge is crossed,
So stand and watch it burn”

By the time they got to the word ‘crossed,’ she had managed to free herself from his grasp, and looked at him with an expression which was a mix of fear and determination. This ended now. She wasn’t going to let him take her again.

“We’ve passed the point of no return!”

By the second syllable of the word ‘return, she had managed to move her hands close enough to the hood of Don Juan’s cloak, that with one swift movement, she dehooded him, revealing to the entire audience, the masked man beneath. There, standing on the stage before them, was not Signor Piangi as everyone had thought, but instead the masked figure of the Phantom of the Opera.

[Erik Lenoir]

Just as they finished the duet, Christine, with a beautifully executed move, pushed back Passarino's hood from the Phantom's face and revealed to the audience that it was not Piangi singing, but the Phantom. Utterly surprised, the Phantom didn't show it. He must remain calm on stage. He must continue....but .... his mind became flooded with many thoughts. Why had Christine done this? Why had she not continued to the end of the play? Was she betraying him again? How could his plan have gone so wrong?

Erik turned from her slowly and walked to stage right, in silence. He had forgotten the next lines. All he could think over and over, was, Why had she done this? How could Christine have betrayed him? After all he had done for her, she didn't love him? How was it possible? Slowly, he started singing, words inappropriate to the play, but infinitely appropriate for Erik at this moment. He had truly thought Christine was his....and his mind, filled with doubt for a moment, became filled with melancholy and sorrow the next. He forgot the audience, he forgot everything, but the two of them. There was only the Phantom and Christine. Erik began to sing, his back still to Christine, his voice filled with deep emotion:

Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime...
Lead me, save me from my solitude...

The Phantom turned, his voice breaking between the words, his slight sobbing could be heard in his inhaled breath before he sang the next line...

Say you'll want me with you, here beside you...
Anywhere you go, let me go too -

It was a last plea for her love. Reaching Christine again, the Phantom had taken a ring from his finger and was in the process of handing it to Christine as he sang:

Christine, that's all I ask of...