The Art of 'Masquerade'
Explore the tragic lore of ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ through works by Marina Abramović, Bob Dylan, Kenny Scharf and more.
Behind an unmarked entrance in Midtown Manhattan is an opera house. Guests aren’t to arrive with tickets, but with a secret password, sent just hours before, in appropriate dress: somewhere between cocktail attire and black tie, strictly in black, white or silver. Oh, and a mask. Doors open. A couture-clad crowd disperses and surrender their phones before slipping into the maze of crimson-painted backrooms that lay just beyond.
Enter Masquerade, the Phantom of the Opera experience by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. Directed by Diane Paulus, the production, billed as the “world’s first immersive musical,” serves as a sort of Phantom prequel, steeping theater-goers into the lore of its “OG” (“Opera Ghost”) antihero.
The evening unravels across five stories of the ex-art supply shop, and much like Punchdrunk’s now-shuttered, Sleep No More, takes on a mode closer to a multi-sensory dreamscape than a traditional musical. Action is ever-present, and no two experiences, even if on the same night, are the same. More than just watch the story, the guests inhabit it, and crucially, move through its art.
To paint a picture of the musical misanthrope is to know him as an aesthete. Masquerade‘s creative director Shai Baitel gathered an impressive collection of contemporary works to enhance an understanding of Erik — the phantom’s — tragic backstory and, notably, his exquisite taste. Featuring the likes of Marina Abramović, Barry X Ball, Bob Dylan, Adam Pendleton and more, pieces throughout the space enhance the grandeur of its interiors, while cluing visitors in to key aspects of the character’s psyche .
Photo: Brian Nguyen / Hypebeast
Photo: Brian Nguyen / Hypebeast
Photo: Brian Nguyen / Hypebeast
Photo: Brian Nguyen / Hypebeast
Photo: Brian Nguyen / Hypebeast
Photo: Brian Nguyen / Hypebeast
Photo: Brian Nguyen / Hypebeast
Photo: Brian Nguyen / Hypebeast
Photo: Brian Nguyen / Hypebeast
Before even waltzing into the venue, guests are met with a three-tone cluster of Kenny Sharf’s monstrous, graffiti faces, setting the tone for what awaits. Inside, a pair of Barry X Ball’s veiled marble “Purity” sculptures and Adam Pendleton’s black-and-gold balaclava painting echo the splintered self-image of a life kept shrouded. Elsewhere, Abramović’s quartz-pierced “Communicator” and Jakob Grosse-Ophoff’s wooden forever-headbanger channel pain and endurance through bodily agony.
For longtime Phantom fans, other works make clearer callbacks to the original production: a newly commissioned portrait by Yigal Ozeri figures an elusive phantom, cloaked and masked. Z. Behl contributes a monumental elephant sculpture adorned in ornate, red-and-gold regalia, nodding to the legacy creature in the song “Hannibal Rehearsal.” Meanwhile, an iron gate by Bob Dylan brings the Phantom’s gothic subterranean lair to mind.
Keen eyes are rewarded by roses, a central Phantom motif, which can be spotted throughout the show, most strikingly in Paul Cummin’s rooftop installations of 1,000 faux blooms. Also seen in Ophoff and Dylan’s works, the flower embodies the harrowing tangle of beauty and pain, devotion and loss, at the heart of the story.
Whether you go for novelty or nostalgia, Masquerade has a little something for everyone across the zeitgeist. With faces from the original cast, fashion approved by frequent Lady Gaga collaborator and curation from Baitel, the artistic director of Shanghai’s Modern Art Museum, to name a few, the production promises an opulent night of play and performance — only if you’re willing to submit.
Get your tickets for Masquerade today before the show closes on March 29.
