Am I Doing This Right

Elisabeth das Musical Textposts pt. 4

Máté Kamarás & Fritz Schmid (Wien 2005)

Uwe Kröger (Wien 1992)

Serkan Kaya (Wien 2005)

Mark Seibert & Oliver Arno (Essen 2012)

Markus Pol, Pia Douwes, Uwe Kröger (Berlin 2008)

A word on Benedetto’s father figures

Because I’ve been thinking about it all week. Have some parallels and contrasts, my friends:

Villefort:

Starts off Benedetto’s story extremely strongly by literally burying him alive within minutes of his birth. No one has ever failed their son harder.

Might have been onto something when he said crime spread around him and from him like a disease. Seriously, look at this family! It’s so dysfunctional in so many ways!!! If you’re a nature-over-nurture person, it’s not that far-fetched to suppose Benedetto got the Criminal Gene™ from him.

Literally changed his name to hide his compromising origins (as much as humanly possible in the spheres he frequents).

Burnt Edmond’s denunciation letter. Guess who else likes to burn things?

Is brought down by the literal unearthing of his biggest secret, which in turn concludes Benedetto’s arc.

Bertuccio:

Is, literally, the one who gave Benedetto life, and the emissary of Providence™ who shows up to bestow blessings upon him at semi-regular intervals.

Unfortunately, those gifts are always cursed. Surprise salvation from the grave in the garden? Only happens because Bertuccio tried to murder the kid’s father first, and results in what is functionally a kidnapping. Surprise adoption? Results in Benedetto being raised by a literal criminal, who is #shocked when his protege starts hanging out with ill-intentioned older boys and disciplines him with what we can reasonably assume from the unreliable narration is the good old belt. Surprise life-changing information about his origins that Bertuccio held onto all these years? Only revealed to cement Benedetto’s status as Monte-Cristo’s puppet.

Crumbled the second Benedetto questioned his ascendance, therefore drawing a clear link between authority and paternity and reinforcing the kid’s desire to defy both.

“Major Cavalcanti”:

Is just Some Guy™.

And yet, they have so much in common: both are impostors trapped in Monte-Cristo’s web, both are passionate about scamming rich people. There’s a quasi-instantaneous recognition between the two and, because they share the same goal, they develop a strangely wholesome understanding…? It’s forced coexistence as much as it is respect, but it’s not deprived of a weird sort of warmth, and Monte-Cristo himself comments on how much it looks like actual familial love. The contrast with Caderousse could not be harsher.

In virtue of his fake wealth and fake fatherhood, the Major becomes the Ultimate Authority™ ‘Andrea’ name-drops every time he wants to advance in society.

Caderousse:

Outwardly, he adopts all the attributes of a good father. He taught Benedetto most of his tricks! He feeds him! He talks of all the hardships they’ve been through together, like a family would!

But, of course, what he’s really doing is blackmailing Benedetto. Caderousse wants money, and it’s taken him a while to actually get his hands dirty, but he’s finally graduating to murder! And his silly young friend should help him if he doesn’t want his blood spilled on Place de Grève.

Anyway Benedetto stabs that guy real bad. I thought it was hilarious of him.

Danglars:

As Andrea’s future father-in-law, Danglars is his ticket towards the life of luxury without effort he has always wanted.

Of course, Danglars is using Andrea for the same reason Caderousse uses Benedetto: for money. Both of them lie about what they own, ergo about who they are, to get their hands on what they think the other has. This is especially interesting when put in perspective with the brutal honesty Danglars employs when talking to Eugénie, who he treats like a son and almost business partner rather than like a daughter (Transmasc Eugénie Truthers, rise up!).

… But of course, he still wants people to think of he and Andrea as family to strengthen his own nobility: if his son (in-law) is a prince, a title Danglars repeats ad nauseam, doesn’t that make him a king?

All things considered, despite losing their freedom (temporarily in Danglars’ case), money and status, both of them get a relatively happy ending compared to most of the cast.

Monte-Cristo:

BUCKLE UP THIS IS THE MOST INTERESTING.

Twice Benedetto raises the possibility of Monte-Cristo being his biological father, a perfectly logical conclusion in light of what he has done for him; in turn, Monte-Cristo recognises Benedetto as one of God’s punishers, a title he otherwise only attributes to himself.

Both of them went through a symbolic rebirth after being buried alive.

Both of them were wrongly accused of being evil incarnate, but eventually graduated to Full-On Criminals. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecies.

Escape Artists™

Both had to completely reinvent themselves, down to their names and origins, to achieve their ambitions.

Ruined engagement ceremony!!! This also draws parallels to Villefort and, interestingly, to Valentine and Franz.

THIS:

🇫🇷 « Ce calme, cette parfaite aisance firent comprendre à Andrea qu’il était pour le moment étreint par une main plus musculeuse que la sienne, et que l’étreinte n’en pouvait être facilement brisée. »

🇬🇧 « This calm, this perfect poise told Andrea that he was presently held by a hand far stronger than his, whose grip could not be escaped easily. »

Both Edmond and Benedetto know they are prisoners of people more powerful than they are, of the narrative, of a superior power that wields them like knives; both Monte-Cristo and Andrea accept their role as knives in the hope of eventually slicing through their ties. Whether or not they succeeded in the end is up to the reader’s interpretation.

i like to see men from the 19th century in a situation

merry christmas and happy holidays 🥳

god Raoul just…loves Christine so much. Literally all he wants is for her to be happy and alive. Genuinely tragic that most of his Final Lair lines are hidden underneath the Erik/Christine harmonized argument, because he's out here saying lines like "for pity's sake, Christine say no! Don't throw your life away for my sake!" and "Why make her lie to you to save me?!” and "Christine, forgive me! Please forgive me! I did it all for you and all for nothing!” while being strangled to death.

Like...do you all realize that he was asking her to let him die so she could be free? He was literally willing to be tortured/killed by an obsessive stalker so that Christine could be free and happy. It's the only REAL personal desire he shows in the whole musical besides asking for her love: for Christine to be alive, healthy, and happy.

And his Big Duet with Christine backs this up! In "All I Ask of You," Christine tells Raoul that "all [she wants] is freedom/a world with no more night," implicitly rejecting Mr. "Music of the Night" and the terror he brings. And Raoul, because he loves her, swears to give that to Christine as best as he's able. The only things he asks of her in the entire song is to love him ("love me, that's all I ask of you" // "Then say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime") and let him allow her to feel safe and free ("let me be your shelter" // "let me be your freedom"). The entirety of "All I Ask of You" is just….*chef's kiss* honestly.

But of course words are cheap. All the sweet nothings in the world wouldn't prove his worth as a suitor if he wasn't willing to walk the walk. But he is. Raoul spends the rest of the musical proving what he told Christine in that song: that he really is the genuinely sweet, loyal, and protective man who would go to the ends of the earth for her, including being willing to sacrifice his own life so she can have both her freedom and a life without being trapped by the "night" (Erik).

Kind of crazy that so many people genuinely want Christine to end up with the man who groomed her, stalked her, harrassed and manipulated her, kidnapped her on two separate occasions, killed two of her coworkers, was going to force her to marry him against her will, tried to kill her fiancé while guilt-tripping her into thinking it would be her own fault (“buy his freedom with your love! Refuse me and you send your lover to his death!”), tried to kill her (with the chandelier), and generally made her life a living hell for at least a year instead. Lol. Hard pass.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Kell: Why are you smiling?

Lila: What? Can't I just be happy?

Rhy: Holland tripped and fell in the parking lot.