I want to thank you for writing this. I'm in the middle of writing my own story, and I had the outline written, and a few future chapters... Let's just say this is going to help me a lot when I re-write those.
I also checked out "Mary Sue is not an Energizer Bunny" which also helped me.
So, thanks, and stuff. :)

Well, as a girl who has the voice of an Orc and is in chorus for some reason... AHAHAHAHAHA! I'm not laughing at your subject matter, just the way you've written this. Gods, you are hilarious.
Poor Erik. Does he need a hug?

Dear Britomartis,
I have ust read your 'Meg Giry is Not An Alto.'These points are quite obviously made. I thank you for this. Honestly, I will try to make Erik as authentic as possible.

But for the thing on OC's, I must disagree with you. Not all OC's are Mary-Sue's, only the good ones are not. But seeing your information you have gathered, I'll do my best to follow the guidelines.

Plus, the musical gives us another[no matter how badly it's done] view on the story. I really wish that Erik did kill ALW though, have you heard of the Phantom Of Manhattan?

Sincerely submitted,
Girlycard6

THANK YOU! I think this fic needs to be something all phanfic authors read before publishing their first piece of writing to the masses. Very. Worthwhile. Indeed.

About the pregnancy and singing career thing, read these:
/singingthroughpregnancy.html
/voiceandpregnancy.html
http://voicestudio./SingingAndPregnancy.htm

I was curious because I am a singer and might want to have a baby someday. These articles make me feel a lot better, while what you say would make me want to get my tubes tied, if I hadn't done my research. :)

I’ve read this piece before, but this time I’d like to make a few corrective comments on this first chapter. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy this story, I just have some rants to get out.

First, the ALW movie was made in 2004 not 2005. Sadly it has caused a lot of confusion in many areas.

I would not make the blatant statement that Christine could not sing Carlotta’s roles. That is untrue, as she did sing them very well in the book as well as the musical and many other versions. However “Christine” in the movie (i.e. Emmy Rossum) honestly should not be singing opera at all. She does much better as a synthesized pop singer. She is too young for the musical role of Christine, and much too young to sing opera. Just look at Charlotte Church.

Also, nowhere in the novel does Leroux state that Christine is 16-years-old. That would be absurd for two main reasons: her singing and her childhood relationship with Raoul. Leroux does tell us that Raoul is 21; therefore it is reasonable to assume that Christine is near the same age. Childhood sweethearts are rarely more than 2 years apart in age. Can you imagine a 5-years-old and a 10-year-old falling in love? The age of 16 for Christine is yet another movie misconception.

As far as Meg goes, ALW had to give her some voice part. It’s a musical for crying out loud! Sadly, some authors (especially E/M shippers) take this (and her lines during “Angel of Music”) to mean that she wants to be an opera singer too, which she does not.

One further note of complaint. Not all opera singers are Dramatic singers. Several famous Lyric Coloratura opera singers include Lily Pons, Lucia Popp, Beverly Sills, Natalie Dessay, and Sumi Jo. Famous Lyric Sopranos in opera include Angela Gheorghiu, Lisa della Casa, Kiri Te Kanawa, and Victoria de los Angeles. Opera requires a loud voice, but not necessarily a heavy voice. While I do realize that there are many people within specific vocal fachs that should sing opera, that does not mean that no one of the fach should sing opera. Judging from the diverse roles Christine sings in Leroux’s novel (Aida, Juliette, Marguerite, etc.) I would call her either a light and flexible soprano somewhere between lyric and dramatic (since not everyone fits neatly into fachs) or a dramatic coloratura like Joan Southerland. But that is purely speculation.

OK, end of rant. I really do appreciate you effort to clear up musical misconceptions though.

I laughed all through this, mainly because I am not much of an ALW fan and your characterizations were spot on. I'm not sure what made me laugh the most, but I think, "Gerald!" did it. That, and ("Gerald"looking fondly at the torture chamber) "Home sweet home." Brilliant, fun, and thoroughly appreciated. Thank you!

"His inbox gets rather lonely. (pause) My that sounds worse than I meant it." LOL! And again with the LOLing when I read, "He would just like to say that Science is hard and acid burns." If you keep this up, I'll be reading more of your stories. Just thought I should warn ya.

Perhaps this is not as concrete as you'd like feedback to be, but you absolutely knocked me over with "to perve on Christine." I don't think I've ever read "pervert" in a verb form before, and it was a real eye-opener. Thank you for expanding my vocabulary today.

I loved your suggested songs, and am enjoying listening to them as I write. This is not only educational, it's a treat.

Kryss LaBryn pointed me to your story, promising many great things, and I am not disappointed. If Ch. 1 is any indication of how much fun this is going to be, then I am looking forward to reading the rest. Thank you!

Love your Handel! Great line. Voice performance and pedagogy major here. I’ve taken voice lessons for 13 years now and began teaching a year or two ago. Great little story. It’s funny and educational for those writers out there who know nothing about music. I’m not sure if I agree with all of your voice classifications, but then they are 2004 movie based. Leroux, although not a musician, did not make the mistakes Webber did. He left a lot more unspecified. Who cares what classification Raoul and Meg fit into—they don’t sing! Of course in a musical everyone can sing (although the movie makes that point doubtful). One major error in the movie is that Christine could not have been a sixteen-year-old. Besides the fact that she would be too young to sing operatic leads, Raoul was 21 (in the book anyway). If Christine were sixteen they could hardly have been childhood sweethearts, as five-year-olds and ten-year-olds just don’t tend to play together, let alone become sweetheart. I can see Erik writing atonal and polytonal music. Expressionism is a given, although impressionism is fun too, but less emotional as it is only an “impression” of an idea or feeling. By the way, clearing your throat isn’t good for singers; it’s very ** he vocal chords (or more technically correct in today’s pedagogical terms vocal folds). The fun thing about musical terms is that they frequently have several different meanings in different time periods. Not all do, but most. I love rubato, and Romanticism in general. Most of my favorite composers come from that time period (Puccini, Verdi, Gounod, Berlioz, etc). Book Christine could sing Violetta, if you chose to believe that she was a dramatic soprano and not a lyric, but Emmy certainly could not. As I am a lyric-coloratura, I could not, sadly. I love the aria Sempre Librera (although I’m too lazy at the moment to look it up and make sure I spelled it correctly). Incidentally, there is quite a variety in lyric sopranos. The tambre is lighter than that of a dramatic, but there can be some crossover in which roles we sing. My voice teacher and I are both lyrics, but she can project over and orchestra and I cannot. My voice is more suited to Broadway roles that opera, as much as I love opera. I picture Erik’s voice as being more or less the male version of Joan Sutherland. The woman was called La Stupenda for a reason. She had the agility of a coloratura along with the volume of the dramatic soprano. People don’t know how to classify her. Ok, I think I’ve babbled long enough. Nice work.

Long overdue - but I wanted to add something to the replies - I agree somewhat on the "what voice part should sing the Phantom" in ALW's musical... I think its really suited to a Dramatic Tenor... have you ever heard Michael Maguire sing Music of the Night? That or someone like Michael Ball who fits right in between the two (is he a baritone with a high range, or a tenor with a baritone's tone?) Michael Ball sings MOTN amazingly as well... Not to say I don't like Michael Crawford - but his voice really is rather thin compared to these other two Michaels (yes I have a thing for Michaels...)

I take Music Theory and I'm a choir veteran, so I know some of the stuff here you spoke of.
Minor sad, major happy=AH!! nightmare!
Handel! Yay! I loved his Messiah... I remember doing a piece in choir outside of that, though, called, "Music, Spread Thy Voice Around".
Christine pregnant=Erik's progress dead? ...(looks at progressing phic) Hmm... I knew I shouldn't have made her pregnant... can I just pretend that some miracle occurs and nothing happens to her voice? ...I had a feeling you'd be saying 'NO'. (sigh) Well, I'll see what I can do. At least she is not performing while she's pregnant in my phic.
But that sounds really weird...

Dude, this is awesome. I never knew any of this before today. I am going to leave a changed phanphic writer.
I'm adding you to my faves list as a reference.