Reviewed by Matt Usher
Final Curtain
Edited by Steve Berman
Lethe Press
Hardback, 300 pages, Nov 2025, ISBN 978-1-59021-686-6
True love never dies. Not so much for Love Never Dies, a not-quite sequel (Webber’s words, not mine) to The Phantom of the Opera. Very few people remember this production, and fewer still recall it with affection. Was it that the story was already told, and dragging its stilled carcass back behind the curtain was doomed to fail? Was it simply the basic elements – music, staging, writing – that let it down? Reviews ranged from five stars to none; controversial would be an understatement. But for all of its posited faults, it has never dimmed the star of the original.
Final Curtain, edited by Steve Berman, seeks more often to retell, reinterpret, or rotate the perspective of the original. Even those who motion to continue the story do not repose their thoughts on Love Never Dies. Dead, indeed. The works vary even more than the musical’s 1919 Paris to Coney Island; here, we have a modern retelling of double phantoms who long for revenge alongside more direct interpolations and extrapolations.
We start with Selections from the Memoirs of the Countess of Chagny, by Nadia Bulkin. It is, in the classical tradition of Tristram Shandy, exactly what the title suggests: a ventriloquized literary fictional memoir of a woman who has the ill fate to encounter an emotionally emaciated Raoul. It does well, period piece that it is, in painting the page in Gothic style. To this end, it contains within it possible allusions to Virginia Woolf in welcoming the waves washing overhead as well as the always influential Frankenstein in voyages to the arctic from which one cannot return unchanged. A worthy start to the collection, hewing close to the original Gothic.
Next comes La Belle de la Mer by Jameson Currier. Here we take a turn for the modern, though not all the way to the present day. It is an exploration of the travails of those who inhabit the stage through the lens of gay culture that so often bestows its talents upon it. It is a sad tale, evoking the AIDS crisis inflicted upon that community by their own governments. Currier’s voice here is a very close first person, matter of fact, economical with its figurative language until the end. A companion in tragedy, but an aesthetic counterpoint to the preceding.
Following La Belle is The Road of Mirrors, penned by James Bennett. This is another period piece, but it takes an angle temporally close but culturally distant from the original: the backdrop of World War I. Here we have the down and out evoked by Orwell in his experiences, the cadging and scrimping to survive in an uncaring city. It is a story of thwarted love and the price of success, here a false Phantom with a much more unwilling Christine. The prose is first person and keenly focused; it takes a turn to the surreal in how it tells twinned stories. The reader can never be quite sure when events transpire. This drives the central mystery of the plot alongside a Chekovian gun just waiting to go off. Its flighty ambitions are let down by a slightly limp ending, but that is a dim shadow upon the journey to reach it.
The Phantom of the Wax Museum, writ by Orrin Grey ensues. Here we have an almost meta-analysis taken from the view of a reporter upon the backing Hollywood elements that undergird plays and, here, movies. Grey explores the Phantom as an emblem of death, counterpointed by the musing of Bela Lugosi himself that there are some things quite worse. Despite the different setting, this story hews closely to the original: a mysterious villain who occupies a lair and singularly focuses upon their subject, and one who hides their identity. Christine is not quite Christine here, but the viewpoint character does explore the Dickensian attraction of repulsion: even in extremis, the protagonist thinks to herself that her counterpoint is hot.
In seriatim is Now We Sing the Killing Song by Josh Rountree. The Phantom becomes an idea, similar to the previous, but rather than an emblem is a very real agent of death. It features a rare second person narration, the animating force through which the Phantom sings the eponymous killing song. The setting is the American west and the framing is that of a somewhat trite rescue-the-sex-worker narrative, twisted by the influence of a malign element. It evokes well the grooming side of the Phantom, the one who sees, more than Christine, his Angel of Music. It is more directly horror than The Phantom, an inevitable descent toward a gruesome end.
What follows is Two for the Show by L. A. Fields. This is another modern tale, another variation upon the theme of The Phantom. The Bonnie and Clyde pair, here loosely the Phantom and Christine, blur their lines and share in the violent mischief of the Phantom. Rather than the fallen pulling at the ascendant, the two encourage the other’s descent. It is a grim third person, representing well the sham reality of the rejection. The notes of vague corporate speech masking what is much more likely personal caprice carries well. In some ways, this shares much more with The Count of Monte Cristo than it does The Phantom of the Opera, a story detailing the revenge of the wronged by elaborate means.
In sequence is Trompe L’oiel by Tim Newton Anderson. This piece paddles in the languorous waters of the French ateliers and those young fauns who inhabit them. The Phantom here is an illusive figure, seeming at times to be the hauteur of the narrator. It speaks well in the voice of vanity, of the artist whose dreams perhaps exceed their means. As much as he seeks the Phantom’s approval, the tragic protagonist is much like a mirror to the Phantom himself, but one whose flown ambitions leave no room for the needy naivety of the stand-in Christine.
After Trompe is The Music We Became by Addison Smith. This is a haunting tale of a shared deliquescence before the altar of music. In having a sinkhole as the understudy for the famous grotto, the story mirrors the self-destructive, monomaniacal pursuit of the Phantom. The ligaments of the story are haunting and chillingly grotesque, with well-established inevitability choking off the wavering candle of hope. The semi-second person, sometimes we, sometimes you, carries well the vertiginous slide toward a tragic end.
Apropos comes Encore by Steve Berman. It shares in the Gothic tones of some of the preceding, establishing well the grim, envious atmosphere of the story to be told. Here, Christine is the ethereal Angel of Music, beside which none can rise. The voice of the story is a rival suaded by the devil down a dark path of envy. She is a thwarted hopeful in the vein of Meg Giry, one whose hopes outface the fruits of their efforts. Though it does not touch on Meg’s travails in Love Never Dies, still it explores the sempiternal pains betwixt inborn talent and competing training. Not that Christine does not practice, yet she still is a young and untried Angel. One feels keenly the agony of the narrator at the sheer demoralization attendant to a musical genius.
Encore flows into Little Rats by Theresa DeLucci. This story takes another angle upon the stage, looking instead at the sisterhood of dancers underpinned by the notes of the tortures of the ballet and the toll it takes upon its disciples. The narrative is haunting and mysterious, told in an almost dissociative dreamlike voice that reflects the state of the dancers. It is a very feminist story, telling of the sisterhood of suffering engendered by the depredations of men in power. So often are those who alight upon the stage seen as property to the wealthy patrons through which the theater survives. Here, it is the little rats who will haunt the Phantom.
Comes The Lake, by Becky Thacker. It is an intense first person that follows the Phantom’s fall into madness as he lurks beneath the opera. The grotto is the stage, with the depths of the lake that bears the Phantom’s boat across a yawning void that is a threat even deeper than the grotto itself. The voice is the voice of mania, of the early stages of becoming the Phantom, where there is an eagerness of prey and a dearth of scruple. It is a tale of horror and the fear of unknown hunger, a terror that surpasses even the Phantom himself with his hangman’s rope.
Then we have Exeunt. Flourish. by Peter Dubé. Again we follow the Phantom; in place of a threat from beneath it is a haunted tale told in periodic prose, comfortably deliberate in its rococo. It is a tale of the decline from heights, of the fall from grace of opera and the fear of being forgotten. The author keeps a delicate interplay between exquisite melancholy and a playful levity, the grim smile in the face of oblivion.
A short interlude, Figaro’s Children penned between Jean-Marc and Randy L’Officier follows. It is brief indeed, a story of two pages, a wilful meditation on the lives of cats. It features a sort of inversion of folklore – of cats who can sense and flee from ephemeral danger – where instead they fawn upon the Phantom. Here he is humanized as Erik, a tragic hero separated just so from redemption. A nice diversion between lengthier narratives.
The Ghost Singer by Cara DiGirolamo we page through next. This is a wrenching tale of the harmful mores against disfigurement in turn of the century society. As well, it features a studied voyage into spiritualism, the earlier predecessor of today’s occult and medium-driven racket. The protagonist is very keen upon hearing one voice in particular, but struggles against the many, many charlatans. It is in glancing Victorian prose, one that troubles not with very deep facsimile. More than Phantom it is a tale reminiscent of Bluebeard, mentioned even in the narrative. The love triangle is two women and one man, an inversion of Phantom, with the added notes of bisexual affection. It is a compelling retelling, blending a similar Gothic to good effect.
Last is Such Broken Souls by John Linwood Grant. This one is an almost Gothic noir, a story of intrigue and doubt. Singular among its companions, here we engage with the Phantom’s time with the Persian in service of the Shah. Accordingly, it also evokes The Count of Monte Cristo in its elaboration on traps and schemes. The narrative flows well in the voice of a skillfully realized character who falls into the orbit of Erik. It runs through myriad emotion, building effectively to its end, closing the collection like the final, repeated chords of a classical symphony.
Final Curtain is a well curated collection featuring a pleasant variety of stories and interesting perspectives and interpretations of the characters and themes of The Phantom of the Opera. The period pieces are heavy and languid, broken up effectively by modern retellings, more experimental works, and the doings of cats. Choosing classical in style pieces at the fore and aft of the anthology was a masterful choice; one prepares you for what follows, the latter closes the loop; the audience at the theater retreat satisfied. The works reflect the contemporary leanings of the audience: Love Never Dies never happened and hardly anyone really cares about Raoul because Erik is a much more compelling character. Where Raoul does feature, one often feels that Christine chose wrongly. Ironically so, as this was the case in Love Never Dies.
Give this one your time, obviously if you’re a disciple of The Phantom, but also if you enjoy early 20th century period pieces and the dark languor of Gothic literature. The stories are written effectively to the end that one does not necessarily need to know the musical in order to appreciate the offerings presented. To the collection’s credit, it is inclusive in its sentiments regarding gender and sexuality and, though one must enter expecting doom and tragedy, there is much to make one feel included in the doings upon the stage. That said, it is culturally narrow and its subjects are distinctly Euro-American. When the struck note is retellings, it wouldn’t go amiss to range further afield for voices to join the chorus. That said, it in no way mars the works here presented, which are excellent without exception.
About the reviewer: Matt Usher is an agender, highly neurodivergent writer and musician who likes poetry, tabletop roleplaying, trading card games (mtg and ygo), and professional wrestling. They are based out of Brooklyn with their two partners in a happy polecule. Most of their works are short stories but it happened that their first credit was in literary criticism. If you want to reach out and/or contact them regarding their reviews or stories (please do), you can find them at https://bsky.app/profile/mattusher.bsky.social