Was it worth it? Holy crap yes! I hadn't seen it before nor the movie, and I only heard the music a bit, so I was in for a treat.
The singers were Anthony Warlow and Ana Marina (pic at bottom). Even though I can't really appreciate the pwnageness of their ability as much as singers can, it was still amazing to listen too. Needless to say the singing was totally flawless. And that super high note sung by the soprano was like jawdropping (although I read in some productions its prerecorded, but I don't know about the one i watched).
The composition itself is insanely good and the music is really really moving on multiple occassions. I was totally captivated through the whole thing and found myself leaning forward heaps but then the woman behind me said I was blocking her so I had to sit back again In fact I was so captivated with the muslcal that I got a massive fright when the dude shot his gun at the phantom which was pretty emberassing lol.
The orchestra was totally awesome too and especially the solo violin player (I play violin so I listened to the violin smostly out of the various instruments) halfway through "journey through the cemetery" when he does this string crossing bit. And the organ as well with the quick notes on the right hand on more than one occassion was really good.
Opening theme from the movie version for those interested/forgot what it sounds like:
The set was insane with like insane insane special effects for a musical like the chandellier falling from the ceiling and the phantom appearing in the mirror (total wtf for my simple mind) and awesome mist in the boat and lake scene.
I torrented the music after coming back from the musical and although I know it's lame to do that when you appreciate the music so much and they were selling cds there, but I didn't feel like spending any more money after paying for the tickets. I got tracks from a performance by Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman. Now I'm looping "past the point of no return" because I like the theme in that one so much. The other bits I really like are of course the opening theme ("overture"), "the phantom of the opera" and some other bits which I listened to over and over.
Probably alot of you guys would've seen it too right? The movie version hasn't got the greatest singing from what I heard in the tracks I torrented but I haven't actually seen the movie version itself. I'd like to hear from you guys who've went to see the musical and what you thought of it.
I heard from my friend that in London and New York they have a theatre dedicated to showing the musical like every night which is like omgwtf. Man there's like hardly anything good in New Zealand to go to T_T
TL;DR: It was really really good. Go watch it if you can!