The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)

• 1. Introduction

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  The Phantom of the Opera has been seen by over 140 million people in 183 cities across 41 countries. That figure belongs to the 1986 Andrew Lloyd Webber musical alone, not the novel, not the films, and not the countless imitations. No other show in Broadway history has run longer. On the 11th of February 2012, it became the first Broadway production ever to reach 10,000 performances, and by April 2019 that number had climbed past 13,000. When the curtain fell for the last time at the Majestic Theatre on the 16th of April 2023, it had played 13,981 performances. How did a musical based on a 1910 French novel about a disfigured recluse become the most financially successful entertainment event of its era? Who shaped it into what it became, and what nearly kept it from existing at all?

• 2. The Troubled Birth

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  In 1984, Lloyd Webber approached Cameron Mackintosh, who had co-produced Cats and Song and Dance, with an idea rooted in Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel. The two screened both the 1925 Lon Chaney film and the 1943 Claude Rains version, and neither saw a viable path from screen to stage. It was only after Lloyd Webber found a second-hand copy of the original novel that the project gained momentum. "I was actually writing something else at the time," he recalled, "and I realised that the reason I was hung up was because I was trying to write a major romantic story, and I had been trying to do that ever since I started my career. Then with the Phantom, it was there!"

  Finding the right lyricist proved nearly as difficult as finding the story's theatrical key. Lloyd Webber first approached Jim Steinman, drawn to his "dark obsessive side," but Steinman declined to fulfill commitments on a Bonnie Tyler album. Alan Jay Lerner, born in 1918, was then recruited, but he became seriously ill and withdrew; none of his contributions, mostly involving "Masquerade," received any credit in the final show. Richard Stilgoe, who had written lyrics for Starlight Express, was hired next and produced most of the early material. Charles Hart, young and largely unknown at the time, later rewrote many of those lyrics, including the original words for "Think of Me."

  A preliminary preview of Act One was staged at Sydmonton Court, Lloyd Webber's home, in 1985. Colm Wilkinson played the Phantom, Sarah Brightman played a character still called Kristin rather than Christine, and the Phantom wore a mask covering his entire face. The mask obscured the actor's vision and muffled his voice. Maria Bjornson, who was designing the sets and costumes, created the now-iconic half-mask to replace it, and the unmasking sequence was added as a direct result. Songs appeared under different names: "Think of Me" was then called "What Has Time Done to Me," and "Notes" was called "Papers."

• 3. Craft Behind the Curtain

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  Maria Bjornson designed over 200 costumes for the production, including the elaborate gowns in the "Masquerade" sequence. Her set designs, among them the chandelier, the subterranean gondola, and the sweeping staircase, earned multiple awards. Hal Prince, who had directed Cabaret, Candide, Follies, and Lloyd Webber's own Evita, took the director's chair. Gillian Lynne, associate director and choreographer of Cats, handled the musical staging and choreography.

  Lloyd Webber's score straddles two worlds. The full operatic passages are reserved mainly for subsidiary characters, including André, Firmin, Carlotta, and Piangi, and for the fictional operas staged within the show itself: Hannibal, Il Muto, and the Phantom's own creation, Don Juan Triumphant. One critic noted that Lloyd Webber "pastiched various styles from the grand operas of Meyerbeer through to Mozart and even Gilbert and Sullivan" in those embedded pieces. The fragments from Don Juan Triumphant, heard late in the show, are dissonant and modern, suggesting, as one scholar put it, that "the Phantom is ahead of his time artistically."

  The title song carried its own controversy. The chromatic five-note descending run in the signature melody closely resembles a riff Pink Floyd created for the track "Echoes" on their 1971 album Meddle. Roger Waters noted this in a 1992 interview, though he chose not to pursue legal action. A separate lawsuit followed in 1987, when the heirs of Giacomo Puccini claimed a recurring two-bar passage in "Music of the Night" resembled a phrase from the aria "Quello che tacete" in La fanciulla del West. That case settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. In 1990, a Baltimore songwriter named Ray Repp sued over the title song, claiming it derived from his 1978 composition "Till You." After eight years, the jury found in Lloyd Webber's favour.

• 4. Opening Nights

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  Previews at Her Majesty's Theatre in London's West End began on the 27th of September 1986, with the official opening on the 9th of October. Michael Crawford played the Phantom, Sarah Brightman played Christine, and Steve Barton played Raoul. Rosemary Ashe was Carlotta; lighting was by Andrew Bridge. The production won the 1986 Olivier Award for Best New Musical, and Crawford won the Olivier for Best Actor.

  When Crawford, Brightman, and Barton left to open the Broadway production, Dave Willetts, Claire Moore, and Michael Ball stepped into their roles. Michael Ball's casting as the replacement Raoul in London was, at the time, an early career milestone for a performer who would later become one of Britain's most prominent musical theatre stars. The West End run celebrated its own 10,000th performance on the 23rd of October 2010, with Lloyd Webber and Crawford both in attendance.

  Broadway previews at the Majestic Theatre began on the 9th of January 1988, with the official opening on the 26th of January. The same three leads reprised their roles. The Broadway cast also included Judy Kaye as Carlotta and Cris Groenendaal as André. When Crawford left the Broadway production in October 1988 to join the first national tour, noted baritone Timothy Nolen replaced him. Nolen was succeeded by Groenendaal six months later. The show won the 1988 Tony Award for Best Musical, and Crawford took the Tony for Best Actor. Frank Rich of the New York Times wrote that "only a terminal prig" would fail to enjoy the show, while a critic from the New York Daily News called it "a spectacular entertainment, visually the most impressive of the British musicals."

• 5. Records and Revenue

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  Total estimated worldwide gross receipts exceeded $6 billion over the show's run. Broadway alone generated over $1 billion. The Phantom held the record as the most financially successful entertainment event until The Lion King surpassed it in 2014. On Broadway, it outran its nearest rival by over 3,500 performances.

  The cast recording released by Polydor Records in 1987, drawn from the 1986 London cast, has sold 4.97 million copies in the United States as of January 2017, and both the highlights disc and the full two-CD set earned 4x Platinum certification in the US. The show also reached 3x Platinum in the UK. The Canadian cast recording went 2x Platinum in Canada. The Hamburg cast recording, produced by Jimmy Bowien, earned triple Platinum certification in Germany. The original album is alleged to have sold 40 million copies worldwide across all pressings and territories.

  The production expanded globally with discipline. Productions in over 40 countries on 6 continents used what the producers called "clone" stagings: original sets, direction, and costume concepts. The Toronto production ran from the 20th of September 1989 through the 31st of October 1999, accumulating 4,226 performances. Germany hosted the show at Hamburg's Neue Flora from the 29th of June 1990 through the 30th of June 2001, followed by runs in Stuttgart and Essen. In 2011, following the show's 25th anniversary, the Really Useful Group released certain rights to schools. Reed-Custer High School in Braidwood, Illinois became the first school anywhere to perform the musical under those new rights in March 2011.

• 6. The Long Farewell

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  On the 16th of March 2020, the Broadway production suspended performances due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It resumed on the 22nd of October 2021, uniquely returning with Harold Prince's original staging and Maria Bjornson's original designs intact. After Prince's death in 2019, his daughter Daisy, herself a theater director, began serving as an informal advisor to the production.

  Attendance never fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels. In September 2022, a closing date of the 18th of February 2023 was announced. The announcement triggered a surge in ticket sales, pushing the final performance back to the 16th of April 2023. During the final two weeks, leading actor Ben Crawford was out sick. Understudy Jeremy Stolle played the Phantom across several performances from the 2nd to the 8th of April and again on the 13th. Ted Keegan covered four performances. Laird Mackintosh played the evening performances of the 14th and the 15th of April and performed the final show on the 16th, becoming the last actor to hold the role in the original Broadway run.

  The London story followed a different arc. After the West End production suspended on the 16th of March 2020, Cameron Mackintosh eventually confirmed on the 4th of December 2020 that the original staging was permanently closed, with investors having received closing notices. A revised production using the 2020 UK tour designs opened at Her Majesty's Theatre on the 27th of July 2021, with an orchestra reduced from 27 players to 14. Killian Donnelly played the Phantom and Lucy St. Louis played Christine in the new staging. The original Broadway production ultimately outlasted its London counterpart by 62 performances.

  After the Broadway closure, Lloyd Webber appeared on the Tonight Show hinting at a likely revival. An immersive, off-Broadway production titled Masquerade was announced for 218 West 57th Street in New York, directed by Diane Paulus, with the cast including at least three former Broadway Phantoms among its performers.