Hi! This is Ruby, She/her, I speak Mandarin and English.
Undergraduate student in Massachusetts.
I ship Erik/Christine and will post some art on my account. Some of them are commissions.
And this is my AO3 page:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
I write E/C fics. Currently only in Mandarin, may translate into English someday.
My favorite musical E/C casts include:
1.Michael Crawford & Rebecca Caine. They are always my top of top list. Actually Sarah Brightman is in my top Christines list too. You know, The original casts are always amazing.
2.John Owen-Jones & Gina Beck, Hugh Panaro & Sandra Joseph. Actually John maybe not my favorite Erik, but his chemistry with Gina is perfect. The scene of Hugh hugging Sandra at his final show in 2005 will stay in my head forever and ever.
3.Masquerade E/C Clay Singer & Riley Noland. They are my favorite current EC casts now. How can anyone not fall in love with these two after watching their final lair?
Wait new masquerade Phantom, Deven Kolluri, just casually dropped on Francesca Mehrotra’s instagram?? (and new Christine in the back if I’m not mistaken) 👀
Saturday, July 18, 2026 • 9 p.m. EST: Cortes/Boggess/Jacquemart (Paris 2016)
and
Mills/Roberts, Finnie, Marven/McCollum (World Tour 2025/2026)
This week's stream is very special, featuring two productions with clips never before shown on Saturday Streams!
PARIS 2016
First up is something rare and unusual--clips from the sitzprobe for the never realized Paris production. The following summary of the history of the Paris production--as well as the clips themselves--are provided by @glassprism:
The Paris production was set to open in October 2016 at the Mogador Theatre and to play until sometime in 2017, coinciding with Phantom's 30th anniversary, Unfortunately a fire broke out about a week before the production was going to open and burned away the floor and some of the sets and equipment. Rebuilding everything would have pushed Phantom's opening into the next year, and as the theater already had a number of shows lined up already, it was decided to cancel Phantom rather than move all the other productions back.
Our Paris cast is Garðar Thór Cortes as the Phantom, Sierra Boggess as Christine and Bastien Jacquemart as Raoul. The production libretto is in French--so a first chance to hear a stage Phantom sing and speak in his native language!
The sitzprobe footage we will see is predominantly composed of the cast standing in front of microphones and performing in street clothes (sadly no costumes…)
The picture below is from Sierra Boggess' Instagram circa 2016, and shows a dress rehearsal of the Paris production, taken the day before the fire.
WORLD TOUR 2025/2026
The second act of the stream will be Hi-Def Harry Mills clips from the current World Tour. The clips are from three different shows, and feature three different Christines.
The first clip is MOTN from 2025, with Grace Roberts as Christine.
The second clip is Final Lair from 2025, with Caitlin Finnie as Christine and Rory McCollum as Raoul.
The third clip is Final Lair from 2025, with Grace Roberts as Christine and Rory McCollum as Raoul.
The fourth and final clip is a complete Act Two from 2026, with Kayleigh Marven as Christine and Rory McCollum as Raoul.
So a bountiful beneath a moonless sky amount of Final Lairs (again and then again...) featuring fan favorite Harry Mills as the Phantom and three lovely Christines!
The clips vary in quality; some close-ups get a bit blurry and some clips feature static or moving watermarks.
Thank you so much to Celina/GlassPrism for sourcing these clips which make their premiere on Saturday Streams, and for the screencaps below.
As always, the stream will be on cy.tube and shy anons are welcome!
⭐Link and password will be posted here at 8:45 the day of the stream.
⭐For more info, please see the Saturday Streams FAQ
⭐Remember to follow @from-aldebaran for stream posts going forward.
⭐PFPs featured on the Saturday Streams banner are left to right Streams Founder @operaofthephantom, 300 Club Streams Host @wheel-of-fish, new host @from-aldebaran, and our Phantom Founder, Gaston Leroux. Massive thanks to @opera-ghost for the PFP additions to Fish's original banner design.
I really, really love the emotional arc Riley Noland brings to the Final Lair of Masquerade (Spoil Alert here!)
Her delivery of 'Angel of music... you deceived me' is just perfection. I understand why performers often sing that line with intense rage to emphasize the character's agency, but sometimes it’s overdone, making the transition into 'you deceived me' and the subsequent shift to 'pitiful creature' feel too abrupt. If Christine goes from pure fury to sudden tenderness too quickly, it can feel jarring.
But Riley handles this so beautifully. After singing 'blindly,' you get the sense that she’s said everything there is to say—she is completely heartbroken. Yet, she realizes she still can't bring herself to hate him; she still loves, pities, and empathizes with him. After that line, she takes a breath and lets out a tearful laugh before moving into 'Pitiful creature of darkness.'
I’ve always felt that the moment first unmasking happened(during 'I remember/Stranger than you dreamt'), when the Phantom takes Christine’s hand and says, 'If only you knew what they did to me,' acts as the perfect early lead-in to that 'pitiful creature' line. Even at the end, Christine doesn't truly know the life he’s led, but her love compels her to feel that sympathy and compassion. God, what a complex kiss, and what a profoundly moving performance.
For their opening in Nagoya, Christine has received some new costumes.
These costumes are based on the London production.
Costumes that have been updated for Nagoya are the Hannibal Slave Girl (1), Elissa Skirt (2-3), Star Princess (7-8) & Aminta (9) & Wedding dress (10).
The Dressing gown (4) updated during the previous stop in Fukuoka.
Of the costumes featured I believe the Rooftop/Countess dress (5-6) is the only costume that has not changed - although the pictures are not the best for confirming.
There are currently no pictures of the il Muto costume or blue dress - although I believe the il Muto costume may have received minor changes in Fukuoka.
Pictures: 劇団四季, Nagoya tv News & Tokai Tv News ONE - all pictures are of Sae Yamamoto
Basically, in the video game Arknights, there's a character codenamed Phantom, whose real name is Lucian. He has a cat named Miss Christine who basically acts as his guardian/mom. And just a fun little side note: the stages themed around his story are called All I Ask of You, The Point of No Return, and Twisted Every Way.
The “original Christine Masquerade costume” masterpost
When “Phantom of the Opera” opened in West End in 1986, Christine Daaé didn’t wear the pink/blue “Star Princess” costume in Masquerade. Instead she wore the white creation seen overneath. It was worn until 1988, when the “Star Princess” was introduced both in the just-opened Broadway production (January) and in the original West End production (spring/summer?). It’s the “Star Princess” Christines all over the world has used - when talking replica productions, anyway. Both designs were by Maria Bjørnson.
So why was it changed? I’ve never read anything official about it. But there’s lots of good and bad theories, including:
*Sarah Brightman felt the stiff cage skirt was hard to dance in, so they changed it to a more ballet tutu like creation,
*Christine already wears two white dresses in the show,
*Christine’s white creation looked bleak in “Masquerade” compared to the sea of colours seen on all others,
*The costume wasn’t particularly symbolic or easy to understand.
And that brings me to question two: what’s she supposed to BE?
*A Shepherdess? I’ve heard it nicknamed “Bo Peep”, which is a shepherdess from an English nursery rhyme song. It CAN be seen as a 19th century interpretation of the popular 18th century shepherdess costumes, I guess. But she lacks the crook.
*A Saloon Girl? I don’t really think so, but there are elements reminding of it, and it’s my preferred nickname.
*Maybe a faint nod to Gaston Leroux’s novel, where he describes Raoul and Christine dressed in white and black dominos. Since Raoul wears a black uniform, Christine was given a white dress. Opposite of Leroux, and not generic domino costumes, but kept within the same colour scheme.
*It’s also lovingly nicknamed “Hershey’s Kiss”. Because… well.
So who wore this original costume?
The original West End Christines, including Sarah Brightman, Claire Moore (alt/principal), Maria Kesselman (u/s) and Rebecca Caine (alt.). There might be other covers I don’t know about, but these four were at least photographed in the costume, and they all played the role before/until 1988, when it was changed. Three of them also got to wear the Star Princess costume; Sarah Brightman on Broadway, Claire Moore in West End and Rebecca Caine in Toronto. I don’t think Maria Kesselman got to.
Photos:
1. The original costume design, in a semi good coloured version printed on a fabric. Ignore the colours, the actual design shows a b/w dress. Now, the costume was in large recreated as drawn, with two major changes: 1. the design shows a bodice with sleeves, the stage costume was sleeveless with only tiny ruffled puffs, and 2. The pompons was only done on the bodice, not on the skirt.
2. Claire Moore photographed by Marcus Tylor. Note that the bodice is fairly similar in construction to the Star Princess one, and she also had a mask on stick. They aren’t too unsimilar, really, but the colours, the construction of the skirt and the glittering decorations separate them.
3. The wearers: Sarah Brightman, Claire Moore, Rebecca Caine and Maria Kesselman, all in West End.
4. A backstage photo of Maria Kesselman in her wardrobe. It shows the actual colours of the costume (far left) better. We’re talking white lace and white shiny silk with a silver shine to it, with black piping and decorations. The skirt with a viewable crinoline construction is also a chid of the 1980s, seen in high end fashion like Vivienne Westwood. It has since become a standard repertoire for haute couture designers, like Alexander McQueen and Jean Paul Gaultier, but back in the 1980s it was quite new.
Designer Maria Bjørnson also got to add her signature POTO detail: the apron.
