STAGE REVIEW : The Mystique of ‘Phantom’ : Theater: The show’s still a feast as Guillaume takes control.

Those who’ve harbored concerns that “The Phantom of the Opera” minus Michael Crawford might be a banquet without a main course can set aside their fears. A glance Sunday at Crawford’s replacement--Robert Guillaume--gave every indication that the feast may have shifted somewhat, but that it does go on.

And a feast it is. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, less than a month away from celebrating its first year in Los Angeles, is in rip-roaring shape: a sumptuous, smooth-as-silk super-spectacle. Graceful leading lady Dale Kristien is now several cuts above her own opening night performance as Christine Daae, object of the Phantom’s obsessions, while Reece Holland, as her suitor Raoul, is in equally emancipated form and voice.

The confidence of this well-practiced cast can only have created a welcoming crucible for the newcomer, Guillaume. The role of the lonely, disfigured man behind the mask can’t be measured in terms of minutes on stage, which are surprisingly few but intensely demanding. Yet at the end of his first week in Los Angeles, Guillaume was clearly in growing control of the part, if just as clearly still in the process of making it his. After all, the Michaelmania that accompanied Crawford’s last weeks in the show had to be a tough act to follow. But Guillaume is doing the only sensible thing: He is becoming his own monster.

This naturally entails a slightly different slant. So far, the body language is less dependent on a limber sexuality and graceful gestures of the hands. This is a gruffer monster. Pitch and tonality are angrier, the hands more stressed. His rage is both more palpable and more concealed. Only in the final scenes, when all is lost, and after the compassionate Christine has shown the Phantom the affection no one had ever before proffered, does Guillaume allow the humanity to finally break through.

This may shift some as the performance grows (and we shall pay another visit at a later date to note the changes). It’s a gestation that is developing almost before our eyes--from a certain bristling severity in the earlier scenes to a full-blown vulnerability and resignation of the soul in the concluding ones. What is never in doubt--and Sunday’s audience seemed instinctively to know this--is that Guillaume is mastering his Phantom.

After all, as a show this is a thumping-good fairy-tale on the grandest scale, a trip through Fantasyland that’s akin to entering a sort of Disneyland for adults. It is furthermore a consummate act of techno-prestidigitation that relies as much on the versatility of Maria Bjornson’s magnificent sets and costumes, Andrew Bridges’ light tricks and Hal Prince’s inventive direction, as it does on the undeniable skill of the players.

The fact that it is all splendidly executed to the soaring strains of Lloyd Webber’s instantly hummable melodies conspires to enhance “The Phantom’s” phenomenal and unprecedented popularity with the public. It floats on a magic all its own that has nothing or little to do with depth or content, which are beside the point.

Notably, no one at Sunday’s packed matinee was overheard bemoaning Crawford’s departure, and the thundering ovation that greeted Guillaume at the curtain call only confirmed that it’s the show and not the actor--masked and buried as he is under an inch of make-up--that the mystique of “Phantom” is about.

Crawford happened to be the first one to create the role--and handsomely. But to Sunday’s crowd, Guillaume was every bit as thrilling as his predecessor. Whatever the differences, they simply didn’t matter.

At the Ahmanson, 135 N. Grand Ave., Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; matinees Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Indefinitely. $32.50-$50; (800) 762-7666.