Lloyd Webber plans historic sequel as Phantom returns
Andrew Lloyd Webber has announced that his 'Phantom of the Opera', which has already spirited away more than e4bn at the box office, is set for a sequel. The original production starred his first wife Sarah Brightman with Michael Crawford.
Monday December 29 2008
His hideous face obscured by that iconic white mask, the Phantom of the Opera has stalked the stage before 80 million theatre-goers in 124 cities around the world -- and spirited away more than €4bn at the box office.
Now, 22 years after Michael Crawford first played the Phantom, the show's composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber, says "the button is pushed" on the sequel to the world's most lucrative musical.
Entitled 'Phantom: Love Never Dies' it will receive its premiere at the end of next year and will make theatrical history if, as Lloyd Webber intends, it opens in three main cities at the same time.
Lloyd Webber hopes that it will show in the West End of London, on Broadway in New York and in one, as yet undecided, Asian city, possibly Shanghai.
He said: "I don't think you could do this if it wasn't the sequel to Phantom . . . We've been into the feasibility of rehearsing three companies at once and opening very fast in the three territories. The one which really interests me (in the Far East) would be China . . . I think to open Love Never Dies in Shanghai would be an enormous thing."
The sequel will be set a decade or so after the first instalment, during which time the Phantom has relocated from the Paris Opera of Gaston Leroux's original novel to Coney Island in Brooklyn, then still a hugely popular beach-side amusement resort for New Yorkers.
"It was the place," said Lloyd Webber. "Even Freud went because it was so extraordinary . . . people who were freaks and oddities were drawn towards it because it was a place where they could be themselves."
The Phantom will be reunited with Christine, the "Swedish soprano", first played by Lloyd Webber's wife at the time, Sarah Brightman. The production has yet to be cast but he said: "We are pretty clear who our Phantom is going to be -- I can't say who."
Candidates
Possible candidates include Gerard Butler, who played the part in Joel Schumacher's 2004 film adaption, and Hugh Jackman, the star of Baz Luhrmann's film 'Australia', whose stage CV includes 'Sunset Boulevard' and 'The Boy from Oz', for which he won Best Actor in a musical Tony Award.
Jack O'Brien, who has had successes with 'The Full Monty' and 'Hairspray', will direct the production. The sets will be designed by Bob Crowley, who has won five Tony awards and whose credits include Sir Cameron Mackintosh's 'Mary Poppins'.
Lloyd Webber said: "Bob and I have more or less constructed the first five minutes . . . I've written a prologue to the piece in which Bob is going to create Coney Island in front of everyone's eyes."
He added: "What everyone has got to understand about theatre is that it will never die because it is live entertainment. Whatever happens with the Net, computers or television, the endgame will always be that people want to go out." (© The Times, London)
- Luke Leitch
