Phantom Of The Opera Australia

Lloyd Webber's musical 'Love Never Dies' to close

"Love Never Dies" opened in March last year to mixed reviews at the Adelphi Theatre as the first musical sequel to open in London's West End. The show relaunched with changes months later and recently nominated for seven Laurence Olivier theater awards, but won nothing.

Lloyd Webber had told reporters that he could not properly oversee the opening of the show because he was diagnosed with cancer before the debut.

The musical opened in Melbourne, Australia, in May to more positive reviews.

"Phantom," now in its 25th year, continues to be popular in the West End.

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An angel of music in Melbourne | north_face_blogs

The Regent Theatre accommodates to a large-scale production of Love Never Dies which features lavish costumes. Photo / Jeff Busby

Phantom fans rejoice – the music of the night has returned to Australasia.

The biggest star in theatre has stopped haunting the Paris Opera House and is now brooding in Coney Island, overseeing the freaks of the circus.

I stopped in to see him on the opening night of Love Never Dies at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre and still found him darkly seductive. His creator, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, was so excited after the show – the first time in 20 years Australia has not seen the British version of one of his works – that he declared there had better be an immigration lawyer in the house, as he wanted to move to Australia.

He wasn’t completely happy with the London production of this Phantom of the Opera sequel, but he said the Australian production was “everything I had hoped for”.

Lloyd Webber arrived about a week before the official opening and was so inspired by what the Aussies were doing, under the direction of Kiwi Simon Phillips – who was given “carte blanche” to create a new production – that he started writing a bit more music to squeeze into the already substantial score.

This sent the Phantom, played by Ben Lewis, into a tail spin and at one point he had scrawled some extra lyrics on the back of his mask.

“He gave me new lyrics. I went to dinner and couldn’t remember them and there is a part where I took off the mask and read the lines off the back. I was glad I hadn’t sweated them off,” said Lewis, who has the chops to carry these emotionally demanding songs.

For those of you who thought the Phantom was dead – wake up and smell the Melbourne coffee. He faked his death and fled Paris, leaving his fantasy woman, soprano Christine Daae, to marry rival Raoul. Madame Giry and her daughter Meg helped him escape France and settle in Coney Island, New York, where he has become the owner of a pleasure ground.

Roll on 10 years to 1907 and his love for “my Christine” is still strong. Her marriage to Raoul, who has transformed from a respectable vicomte to a drunken gambler, is rocky and when the mysterious Mr Y invites her to New York to sing for lots of filthy American money she jumps at the opportunity.

Frommer's Australia 2011

Frommer's Australia from $60 a Day

New York Magazine

Australia '92-'93

Phantom of the opera (musical), programs and related material collected by the National Library of Australia].