Lady Gaga - The Phantom of the Monster

Of The Monster Ball, Lady Gaga told Rolling Stone:
"The theatrics and story elements are in the style of an opera."

The style seems more like a cross between The Phantom of the Opera
and Cirque du Soleil – at least in the opening number,
when Gaga dons a mask and sings Dance in the Dark
while mimes dressed in white gyrate around her.
Gaga jumps into a giant white cube with her keytar, sings songs about fame,
money and monsters for the next two hours,
and then departs in a woman-sized gyroscope.

Rather than approaching The Monster Ball as an opera or book musical,
perhaps it makes more sense to imagine it as a song cycle.
Gaga's catchy songs might not form a traditional narrative,
but her lyrics are thematically linked by an exploration and examination
of the Dionysian, the grotesque and, of course, rough oral sex.
To the double entendre of Poker Face, Gaga has now added –
in new song Teeth – an exhortation to "take a bite of my bad-girl meat".


more HQ photos

It's obvious that Lady Gaga was part of the burlesque revival in New York
before she became a big-time pop star. Almost every one of her songs
involves her walking on stage dressed in some bizarre get-up
and then removing bits of it until she's down to a series of well-placed
straps or strategically located bits of scrap metal.



But The Monster Ball ain't Gypsy. During Boys, Boys, Boys, for instance,
Gaga wore an outfit made out of guns and slowly disarmed.
Similarly, during Monster, she arrived dressed as a huge, hairy vagina.
During this song, she removed tufts of her costume
until she was down to a thin landing strip of apparel.

While The Monster Ball has nothing on the great operas or the golden age
of musical theatre, Lady Gaga's "electro-pop opera" is at least twice
as entertaining and infinitely fresher than any stage musical
written over the last decade.

(Guardian.co.uk)