"Phantom of the Opera" Hits 30th Anniversary with Gala Performance

A gala performance on Wednesday, Jan. 24, will celebrate Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart’s “The Phantom of the Opera,” hitting 30 years (technically on Jan. 26) and 12,500 performances (including 16 previews) and continuing as Broadway’s longest-running show.
Sixteen years ago, “Phantom” became the longest-running show in Broadway history, surpassing the 7,485 performances of the composer’s “now-and-forever” classic, “Cats.” The Tony-winning Best Musical, with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe and his book with Lloyd Webber, has played to 18 million at the Majestic Theatre, where it opened in 1988 with a then-record advance of $18 million. Four years earlier, the show, based on Gaston Leroux’s “Le Fantôme de L’Opéra,” premiered on London’s West End.
There have been 15 actors in the title role. Returning to the cast for the 30^th Anniversary performances (through March 31) is platinum-selling Swedish recording artist Peter Jöback, who also donned the mask on the West End. Co-starring are Ali Ewoldt as Christine Daaé (the first Asian-American actress in the role) and Rodney Ingram as Vicomte de Chagny Raoul.
“Phantom’s” opening night on London’s West End wasn’t the most comfortable for Lloyd Webber. The composer, in spite of a blockbuster pre-sale due to massive hype, felt his musical was doomed. Even after blockbuster hits like “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Cats” and “Evita,” he was used to critical snipes. And the first review, in the prestigious Times, simply read: “Masked Balls.”
“That was it, “ Lloyd Webber said, still perplexed after all these years. “Here we are, putting up a musical that cost millions of pounds, and the entire review is two words.”
“Phantom” certainly hasn’t been without its own crisis moments. The reviews were, as Lloyd Webber puts it, “wildly polarized between those who really did or really wouldn’t surrender to the music of the night.”
Lloyd Webber’s great dream was to work with his old friend and “master book and lyric writer” Alan Jay Lerner (“My Fair Lady,” among many others), who accepted the challenge. As plans for the musical proceeded, it became obvious that Lerner wasn’t well. His condition worsened. On the day he was to start working on the lyrics, he rang Lloyd Webber to say he had to bow out. He had been diagnosed with cancer; now it had spread rapidly through his body. Sadly, he never recovered.
“Now we had to find a replacement,” said Lloyd Webber. “This led to bringing aboard Charles Hart, a talented young lyricist I observed at a musical writers competition and who was recommended highly.” Hart was sent a melody to set lyrics to, and the result convinced Lloyd Webber he’d made a good choice.
What was most upsetting was ruinous gossip that Sarah Brightman, an alumna of the West End “Cats” who’d been onstage since her teens and was playing the coveted role of Christine—was cast in the role because she was Lloyd Webber’s wife.
When the move to Broadway was imminent, “the only Achilles heel we had was Sarah,” recounted Lloyd Webber. “American Equity refused to allow the girl without whom there would have been no ‘Phantom’ to play Christine. In their eyes, she wasn’t indispensable; [they thought] that anyone in the U.S. could play the role. I felt Sarah’s slight as if it were directed at me.” But with millions of dollars in ticket sales at stake, it didn’t take long for a deal to be brokered. Brightman made her Broadway debut and won a Tony for her performance.
“The fine line between success and failure is perilously small,” the composer said. “I’m struck 30 years hence with the phenomenon ‘Phantom’ has become. Much credit goes to the late Maria Björnson for her dazzling design and costumes. And would another choreographer have understood the period as well as beloved and celebrated former prima ballerina Dame Gillian Lynne (‘Cats’)?”
(Miss Lynne assisted legendary and multiple Tony-winning director and producer Hal Prince in the musical staging of “Phantom.” In 2014, Miss Lynne, now 90, was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth in her New Year Honours List.)
An estimated 140 million people in 35 countries (and 15 languages) have surrendered to “Phantom,” which boasts what many feel is Lloyd Webber’s best score. The two-disk original-cast album spent five years on Billboard’s charts, and a single-disc highlights recording spent over six years on the magazine’s Pop Album chart.
There are six current productions of “Phantom” around the world—London, New York, Sapporo (Japan), Budapest, Prague, and Stockholm—with an engagement to begin in August in Sweden with Jöback in the starring role.
Since 2010, beyond Broadway, the national tours and a special production for Las Vegas, thousands of high school and university productions have been licensed through R&H Theatricals.
In addition to “Phantom,” Lloyd Webber has “School of Rock,” written with Glen Slater and with the book adapted from the film by Julian Fellowes (“Downton Abbey”). A new production of Tony-winning Best Musical “Cats” returned this season for its first revival since closing in September 2000 after 7, 485 performances over 18 years. It closed December 30.
For more information on the 30^th Anniversary of “The Phantom of the Opera,” visit www.PhantomBroadway.com.

Ellis Nassour is an Ole Miss alum and noted arts journalist and author who recently donated an ever-growing exhibition of performing arts history to the University of Mississippi. He is the author of the best-selling Patsy Cline biography, Honky Tonk Angel, as well as the hit musical revue, Always, Patsy Cline. He can be reached at ENassour@aol.com.