http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1198756160967049266&ei=piIsSs-eE5HiqgLB28WrCg
The original London cast is the best....
(You can download an mp4 file from a link in the page. The sound quality is better.)
---------------------------
A classmate of mine back in college introduced me to it. Not the musical itself but a CD album. It wasn't a full score but "Highlights from", and still I was drawn to it immediately and bought the CD.
Years later, during a visit to San Fransisco, I was able to see the real thing at a theater. ($60 it cost me, if I remember correctly.)
Well.
I was disappointed.
Before watching the show, I had been listening to the "Highlights from" for years and I was so accustomed to the voices of the original cast that anything performed even marginally less would seem like a disaster to me. One example would be in the beginning when the character Christine Daaé was singing "Think of Me" and she had to hit the high note at the end of the song. Sarah B., from the original London cast, could hit it effortlessly, but the actress I was watching, gawd..., before she was about to hit the note, I could visually see her trying to take in as much air as possible, expanding her chest to the max, and forcing the voice out. Gawd... it was a painful sight to watch.
In 2004, the movie version was out. I didn't go to the movie theater to see it(I don't remember why I didn't), but I bought the DVD when it was released. After watching the movie, I then understood the whole story, and it really helped when I listened to the full version of the recording after I found it online last night.
It was really some'm.
