#phantom age

[operafantomet]

Hey Anea. I was looking at Wikipedia and realized that the Mexican/Brazilian phantom Saulo Vasconcelos (the “fish hand phantom”) was born in 1973/74 ish. Does that mean when he first played the title role in Mexico around 1999, he was only 24/25? Damn! That certainly qualifies as one of the youngest phantom, doesn’t it? I’m not sure if my info is correct but, I figured I’d let the phantom expert like you to notice this detail. Thank you for reading. Cheers!

Yeah, he was big on the “big fish acting”… :D

…but wow, he was also fairly young when first playing the Phantom. He was born on December 3, 1973, and first played the Phantom in Mexico City in 1999 (they opened in December, but possibly with previews in November), which means he was 25 or 26 years old.

There’s been younger Phantoms - Nicholas Nkuna was 23, Jonathan Roxmouth was 24, ditto for Thomas Cunningham and Christian Müller - but it certainly earns him a spot amongst young Phantoms. Thanks for the heads up!

[operafantomet]

When an actor is 15/16/17 and cast in Phantom, do they still go to school? Does the theatre have to hire a tutor?

That’s a good question. For the really young ones (say, boys playing Gustave in “Love Never Dies”) they had a rotating schedule and some 3-6 Gustaves to alternate between. They would have gone to school as usual.

But with for example Paloma Garcia Lee (17 when cast as principal Meg in the US Tour), Neve Campbell (15 when cast as ballerina in Toronto) and Amy Nuttall (17 when cast as u/s Christine in the UK tour), they were there full-time, with no substitutes. I know all of them studied performing art in some way, so it might be their respective schools saw the value of getting performing experience? But whether or not they were provided with a tutor… I don’t know.

[operafantomet]

Hi! Someone wrote Christian Alexander Müller was the youngest Phantom ever. I thought i read somewhere, maybe in your blog, that there were younger Phantoms?

AFAIK he wasn’t the youngest Phantom ever. But maybe in Germany?

Nicholas Nkuna: 23 when cast in 2011

Jonathan Roxmouth: 24 when cast in 2011

Thomas E. Cunningham: 24 when cast in 1994

Christian Müller: 24 when cast in 2005

Saulo Vasconcelos: 25 when cast in 1999

David Gaschen: 26 when cast in 1995

Ramin Karimloo: 28 when cast in 2006

(there’s probably a lot more to add to the list, of Phantoms who’s been under 30 years of age. This is just to show that Christian Müller was very young when first cast, but not the youngest)

[operafantomet]

So, we know the age of the oldest and youngest stage Phantom: Robert Guillaume (63?), Flemming Enevold/Sandor Sasvari (57), + Jonathan Roxmouth/Christian Müller (24) and Nicholas Nkuna (23).

Same for oldest and youngest stage Christine: Lisa Vroman (47?), Jill Washington (46?), + Amy Nuttall/Katie Hall (17). 

So who’s the oldest and youngest stage Raoul? I’m rather blank here. 

To throw out some ages, Jonathan Roxmouth was 24 when cast as Raoul, but he only got to do the preview. Christian Müller was 24 when he understudies the role. Steve Barton was 37 or thereabout when he last played Raoul in Los Angeles. Tomas Ambt Kofod was 40 when reprising the role in 2009.

But I have a feeling there’s younger and elder Raouls out there? 

ETA 1: rjdaae replied to your post: So, we know the age of the oldest and youngest... Storm Lineberger was 22 when he joined the revised tour, if you’re counting non-replicas

ETA 2: finnishphantom replied to your post: So, we know the age of the oldest and youngest... If you count non-replicas, Tero Harjunniemi will be 45 when the Finnish production premieres in fall.

ETA 3: wieeinschwarzervogel replied to your post: So, we know the age of the oldest and youngest... If you’re interested in the Polish non-replica Raouls: Marcin Mroziński was around 23 when the production had its premiere and I think Łukasz Talik was just a year older.

[operafantomet]

i'm a bit confused about the phantom (ALW) timeline. how old is the phantom? i think madame giry mentioned seeing the phantom in the traveling circus when she was pretty young, which means that the phantom is about her age or maybe a little bit older. but madame giry is not exactly young, so that should make the phantom at least old enough to be christine's father.

I think you nailed it there :)

(Gaston Leroux doesn’t give exact dates. But through info given it’s likely that Christine is between 19 and 21, Raoul just a tad older, and the Phantom probably in his 50s.

Madame Giry in the book is much different from the stage version, but role age according to the casting sheet is late 30s/early 40s. I might place her in mid/late 40s, if we’re to believe she has a daughter in her late teens)

[operafantomet]

Though David Gaschen isn't the youngest ALW Phantom ever these days, he should still be added to the list of young Phantoms:  "In May of 1995, he was cast as the alternate for The Phantom in the original Swiss production of "The Phantom of the Opera" in Basel, Switzerland. As an alternate, Gaschen averaged 3 to 4 performances per week as the Phantom. At age 26, Gaschen had become history's youngest performer cast as the Phantom in a professional production, and has performed the role of the Phantom in professional productions worldwide more than 1,300 times." (X)

[operafantomet]

Who is the youngest person to have played the Phantom?

In the replica version, the youngest principal was Jonathan Roxmouth in South Africa (24 when he donned the mask). The youngest understudy was Nicholas Nkuna, also in South Africa, age 23. Both performed in the 2011/12 South African production, and Jonathan Roxmouth also followed into the World Tour in Manila. Another youngster was alternate/understudy Christian Müller in Essen. He was 24 when the production opened (when he was u/s), and 25 when he became an alternate. Yoon Young-seok has been mentioned a couple of times as the youngest Phantom, age 21. But it turns out he was 31, not 21. Still young, though. 

[operafantomet]

Who is the oldest actor who was playing the Phantom?

I would think somewhere between Robert Guillaume (63?), Flemming Enevold (57), Preben Kristensen (56) and Howard McGillin (55)? Also a lot who performed the role in their early 50s, here’s some: Anthony Crivello (55)Peter Karrie (54) Brent Barrett (51) Hugh Panaro (50)