The longest-running show in Broadway history and for many an icon of musical theater, “The Phantom of the Opera” fell victim to the drop, dropping its famous chandelier for the last time in February. It will be the latest show to become – the audience has been turned off since the pandemic hit.
The closing has been long anticipated soon — the show won’t last forever, and gross revenues for this show are softening — but ‘Phantom’ is a permanent part of the Broadway landscape, period drama, It’s also surprising, because it’s become something of a tourist magnet.
But in the year since Broadway returned from a devastating pandemic lockdown, theater-going audiences haven’t fully recovered, and last fall’s strong resurgence of “Phantoms” has resulted in high weekly running costs. not sold enough to cover
The show will celebrate its 35th anniversary in January and will make its final run on Broadway on February 18, according to a spokesperson. The cast, crew and orchestra were informed of the decision on Friday.
The show continues to run elsewhere. The London performance, even older than the New York one, closed in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, but was later revived with a smaller orchestra and other cost-saving restructurings. Did. years later.new production opened in Australia last month, and the first Mandarin production is expected to start in China next year. Also, Antonio Banderas is working on a new Spanish piece.
The Phantom was a 1980s Broadway icon, created by three of the most legendary figures in musical theater history: composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, director Hal Prince and producer Cameron Mackintosh. In 2018, when he turned 30, they devoted themselves to the show for a long time. Light show projected onto the Empire State Building Sync some of the scores. Last year, when the show resumed after lockdown, Webber blocked the party outside the theater. (Yes, there was a “Phantom” theme remix.)
A show about a masked opera lover who haunts the Paris Opera House and becomes enamored with a young soprano, famous for the chandeliers that crash onto the stage each night, it features supreme spectacle and melodrama.
When it opened on Broadway on January 26, 1988, New York Times critic Frank Rich criticized many elements of the show, but began his review by admitting: , ”But you have to work on it.
By 2014, when Times critic Charles Isherwood revisited it, the show had convinced many skeptics. “My hopes were disappointed and my well-worn armor melted away shortly after the orchestra struck the ominous thunderous chords of the organ,” writes Isherwood. “It’s been more than a decade since his last visit, and with hundreds of new musicals, he’s had a renewed appreciation for the gothic theatricality of this beloved show.”
Over the years, “Phantom” has attracted huge audiences around the world. Since its first premiere in London in 1986, the show has been viewed by more than 145 million people in 183 cities around the world. Presented in 17 languages, that number is expected to increase to 18 when Mandarin shows begin next year.
On Broadway, the show was watched by 19.8 million people and has grossed $1.3 billion since its opening, according to figures compiled by the Broadway League. That’s ok, but not enough to sustain a musical of this magnitude (large cast, large orchestra, elaborate sets, all of which drive up running costs).
The production’s intention to close the show The New York Post reported on Friday.