The musical, mega-composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to his record-breaking smash “Phantom of the Opera,” is showing signs of life on the road in the U.S., where the title is turning heads at the box office after a dispiritingly brief premiere engagement on the West End eight years ago.
5 comments:
I have actually seen this show and loved it! I will admit I felt some musical references to the phantom of the opera, but it also did not bother me. Its was a nice tipping of a hat to the original. I defiantly felt a shift in time period. It felt like everything had a techno or electric infusion to it. Event the titled theme song had a bit of rock and roll to it. I also was in love love love with the set. I thought it was mesmerizing wonder of technical movement, that I truly enjoyed watching and trying to figure out how it all worked. I also just like cirques themes in general so that helped it for me too. Personally knowing the company managers and some of the tech crew, I really hope this so runs for a long time and or makes it to back to broadway.
I read this article because I am amazed to see how successful “The Phantom of the Opera and “Love Never Dies” is because in my experience I’ve never run into theatre people or people in general who enjoy this show. I am also amazed how “Love Never Dies” flopped so horribly the first time it was produced but is doing quite well now. One thing that I wonder is that would “Love Never Dies” actually be successful on Broadway. It most definitely can be seen as successful on tour and in different countries but can Broadway put up with another Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Obviously, I am biased and not a fan of his work but when I think of the New York Community of theatergoers minus tourists, they aren’t the ones going to “The Phantom of the Opera”. I feel that “Love Never Dies” wouldn’t be successful on Broadway, as the New York audiences aren’t craving more Andrew Lloyd Webber. It would do what “Cats did and closed a little after a year. “Love Never Dies” might be extremely successful on tour but I don’t think it’s a show destined for Broadway.
I feel like a bad theatre student having never heard of "Love Never Dies" until reading this article. It was not something that I even had on my radar in terms of the theatre landscape and that's surprising seeing how close "The Phantom of the Opera" is to me personally. It's my mothers favorite show and is one of the first productions I ever saw in New York. The fact that the show had a sequel just seemed to have slipped past me up in to this point. That being said it doesn't seem to come as much of a surprise seeing how horribly it flopped when it first made it to the stage. Although like the others who have read this article and after looking up reviews and some of the music it doesn't quite make sense why another Andrew Lloyd Webber musical would do so poorly, I hope it has a better run in the future though just so that I can see it for myself and make that judgment.
I've seen the West End production, Australian production, and its German version of Love Never Dies. To be honest, as someone who was led into the world of musical theater by Phantom, I was deeply disappointed by LND. The West End production could be seen as a major failure of ALW. Even with a splendid cast and mesmerizing music, the book, lyrics, and visual elements of this production set the doomed fate of LND. The set, which gave me an impression of a second-rate burlesque, was especially upsetting (the story was dry and the lyrics are wierd). However, when I watched the film of Australian production in, I was totally stunned. The new set, lighting, and costume just came together perfectly and enhanced the musical to a whole new level; they were so realistic but refined in a dream-like way, which created a gothic mystic beauty for the show. The visual part thrilled me this time and I comprehended the story in a different way. It was just astonishing that how the design work can impact a production. I pray that the Australian production can go on Broadway one day. I will pay a hundred bucks just to see the design work.
Hi. I am commenting on this article in 2020. To entertain his fans from all over the world, the YouTube channel The Show Must Go On is streaming full-length recordings of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical every weekend. Last week, they streamed ‘Love Never Dies’ and I had a chance to watch it for the first time. As a fan of the original ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’ I was disappointed by the show. The music by Andrew Lloyd Webber that uses reprises effectively was amazing, and the stage set really dragged me into the labyrinth underground. However, I thought the setting in the first place ruined the beautiful ending of ‘The Phantom of the Opera.’ This musical is an example of how hard it is to succeed in sequels, without disappointing existing fans. I can’t think of any other musicals that have sequels, but I wonder what rules there are to succeed in sequels.
Post a Comment