The show’s crossover impact introduced millions of new fans to the art form, and more than a few musicals that came afterwards owe their sense of scale and spectacle to the international hit. It’s no exaggeration to say that Lloyd Webber and The Phantom of the Opera have changed the trajectory of musical theater. By the time the Phantom finally vacates Box 5 of the Majestic Theatre on 44th Street, the show will have been performed nearly 14,000 times there. The show will draw its last curtain in February 2023, after an unheard of 35 years on the Great White Way. In 2012, the New York production officially became the longest-running show in Broadway history, a title that had been previously held by another of Lloyd Webber’s creations, Cats. ![]() The London production ran until 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic led to an extended hiatus, after which a slightly scaled-down interpretation opened in 2021. In the meantime, the West End and Broadway productions continued filling up with enraptured theatergoers, as hundreds of other shows came and went around them without half of the fanfare. It was beamed to movie theaters all over and got a cast recording of its own. ![]() A year later, the Royal Albert Hall hosted an epic 25th-anniversary performance starring Ramin Karimloo, Sierra Boggess, and Hadley Fraser. After ruminating on it for years, Lloyd Webber finally embarked upon a continuation of the story, the musical Love Never Dies, which premiered in London in 2010 and caught up with the characters 10 years after the events of Phantom – and in much different circumstances. In 2004, a long-awaited feature film adaptation was released, starring Gerald Butler, Emmy Rossum, and Patrick Wilson in the lead roles of the Phantom, Christine, and Raoul. Dozens of productions have been mounted in almost every corner of the world, across six continents. The show has connected with audiences on a global scale. ![]() If it seemed that every home had a copy of the two-disc CD release near their stereo, that’s because a record-breaking number of them did. Yet even as it challenged audiences, it also delivered softer, more sweeping moments in “Think of Me,” “All I Ask of You,” and “The Music of the Night.” The latter two songs charted in the UK, a rare achievement for the genre, and have been covered countless times. “There’s been a real schism between the pop and opera worlds, and this kind of theater really does try to bring them closer,” fellow composer William Bolcolm told The New York Times of The Phantom of the Opera in 1988.įrom the bombastic guitar riffs in the title song to the dissonance of the music the Phantom composes for his “modern” opera, Phantom distances itself from the golden age of musicals, as ruled over by Rodgers and Hammerstein, and even from some of the more adventurous, experimental shows of the 70s and 80s. All one has to do is to close their eyes and imagine masked revelers on a grand staircase during “Masquerade,” a smoky underground layer dotted with candles during “Music of the Night,” and a falling chandelier at the end of “All I Ask of You (Reprise).” The score also reaches out to audiences who may not even consider themselves musical theater fans by incorporating (quite appropriately) elements of opera, as well as electronic flourishes that were not at all out of step with the rest of the late 80s. But while the musical brought droves of theater fans to both its London and New York City homes – and snatched up Olivier and Tony Awards in the process – the cast recording allowed people all over the world to fall under the spell of the rich, textured, and passionate score.Īlmost operatic in nature, Phantom includes little straight dialogue, so listeners of the cast recording get close to the full experience. ![]() The production was helmed by hugely influential American director Harold Prince, and when it came to Broadway in 1988, was immediately a critical hit and a box office smash. Brightman and Crawford, along with the rest of the original West End company, are featured on the 1987 London Cast Recording, which remains the best-selling cast recording of all time and is certified quadruple Platinum in the United States. The part of Christine Daaé, the titular opera ghost’s favored soprano, was written for Lloyd Webber’s then-wife, Sarah Brightman, with the role of the Phantom going to tenor Michael Crawford.
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