Phantom of the Opera

[lieperjp]

So, a friend and I were getting into a debate over whether Phantom of the Opera uses a real organ in the musicals - talking orignial musical (london) and also the NYC resident musical, and movie. We figured the touring one doesn't. Anyone know? It must be a huge organ - sounds like they would have at least three ranks of 32' pipes (my guess - two horns and a principal), plus at least 35-50 ranks of combined 16', 8', 4', 2', etc with some nice combos of horn, flute, and principals...


To clarify - real organ = pipes. My guess is a combo of real/digital pipes.

 

[Eboy87]

Sorry, I have nothing real constructive to add to this, but my current dream is to design and engineer sound for a production of Phantom at the Fox Theatre St. Louis using a full orchestra (think opera) and the Wurlitzer in there. Unfortunately Stan Kann (the resident organist and all around great guy) passed away in September.

My understanding is that the organ was piped through the PA, if you'll pardon the pun, but I can't confirm it.

 

[gafftaper]

I Don't know about the Broadway or London shows for sure but my guess is it's just a keyboard. The touring show uses about 8 musicians and a keyboard.

 

[avkid]

We used a Clavinova (direct) with generous EQ for "flavor".

 

[JeffClark]

The production generally uses a recorded organ track.

The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



And no, even when we get the new chapel, they still won't let us use the auditorium organ for anything but worship. I've asked....