The chandelier fell for the last time on Andrew Lloyd Weber’s long-running show “Phantom of the Opera” Sunday evening.
“Phantom,” the longest-running show in Broadway history, has seemingly been a part of the Theater District landscape forever – it opened in the West End in 1986 and on the Great White Way in 1988 – but no show, even “The Fantasticks” – runs forever.
Phantom” reached its 10,000th Broadway performance on February 11, 2012, the first production to ever do so and it’s been going strong ever since, even despite its forced closure during the coronavirus-pandemic induced hiatus that darkened the Theater District for 18 months.
The show’s producer, Cameron Mackintosh, had originally announced that the show would close in February 2023, shortly after hitting the 35-year mark but the outpouring of support and surge in ticket sales led him to announce an eight-week extension into April.
Indeed, right after the closing was announced, “Phantom” enjoyed its highest-grossing week ever, recording $2.2 million in ticket sales.
For the uninitiated, “Phantom” is based on the 1910 French novel “Le Fantôme de l’Opéra” by Gaston Leroux, a French journalist and author of detective fiction.
The soaring spectacle is a Gothic melodrama about the beautiful soprano who becomes the object of fixation of a mysterious masked musical genius who lives in and haunts the subterranean labyrinth beneath the Palais Garnier, the 1,979-seat opera house at the Place de l’Opéra in Paris.
It features music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart, and a libretto by Lloyd Webber and Richard Stilgo and is known for its 27-person orchestra and its falling chandelier, one of the most famous prop in Broadway history.
When it opened, “Phantom” starred Michael Crawford as the Phantom and Sarah Brightman as Christine Daaé.
The show grossed over $1.3 billion over the course of its run. An estimated 6,500 people have been employed by the production, including over 400 actors. To mount a single show, it takes a cast, orchestra and crew of 125, and, when the cast and crew of 125 wake up Monday morning, it will all be over.
The show’s prologue takes place at the Paris Opéra House where an auction of old theater memorabilia is in progress. The next lot – Lot 666 – is an old chandelier that is connected to “the strange affair of the Phantom of the Opera, a mystery never fully explained.” When the chandelier is turned on, it ascends to the ceiling that restores the opera house to its former grandeur, allowing the orchestra to perform the memorable overture.
“Phantom” will be just shy of the 14,000 mark in performances as of Sunday’s closing performance, and has been seen by approximately 20 million people in the course of its run.
The falling chandelier is based upon a real incident that occurred at Palais Garnier in 1896 when a 1,764-pound (800-kg) counterweight fell, killing a 56-year-old concierge. The ornamental light fixture, which is based on the original, weighs 1,500 pounds (680 kg) and has more than 6,000 crystals, immediately earned praise from critics.
The show won the Outer Critics Circle award for best musical in 1988 as well as seven Tony Awards, including the one for best musical, and the song “The Phantom of the Opera” is perhaps one of the most recognizable pieces in musical theater. It was originally recorded by Sarah Brightman and Steve Harley and became a hit single in the United Kingdom in 1986 before the show debuted.
In the musical, it was sung by Brightman and Michael Crawford in their roles as Christine Daaé and the Phantom.
In sleep, he sang to me
In dreams, he came
That voice which calls to me
And speaks my name
And do I dream again?
For now, I find
The phantom of the, opera is here
Inside my mind
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
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