Full House features composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, members of the original 1988 Broadway cast, theater industry moguls, and fans in masks and capes. Sunday’s Majestic Theater for the final performance of “The Phantom of the Opera.”
With its soaring score and gothic drama, this gorgeous musical is the longest-running production in Broadway history.
Hours before the show started, fans began to gather behind barricades across the street, waving and taking pictures, hoping to somehow get a spare ticket. Among them was her 25-year-old Washington resident Lexie Luhrs, who wore full Phantom regalia. She has a black cloak, handmade mask, fedora, vest, bowtie, mask her earrings, mask her necklace. “We’re here to celebrate a show that means a lot to us,” said Luhrs.
The Broadway run was clearly a huge success, playing to an audience of 20 million and grossing $1.36 billion since its January 1988 release. And the show became an international phenomenon, performing in 45 countries in 17 languages and grossing him over $6 billion worldwide.
However, with a large cast and orchestra, elaborate old-fashioned sets, and expensive to operate, it has become heavily dependent on tourists from all over the world. After a long pandemic shutdown, it reopened only thanks to federal support and generous insurance, but then a combination of declining tourism and inflation costs saw the show make more money than it had in a profitable week. It was a week of losing , and that dynamic caused the closure.
Directed by Hal Prince, the show is set in 19th-century Paris and tells the story of a damaged artist genius who lives beneath the Paris Opera and falls in love with a young soprano singer named Christine.
It concludes with an unexpectedly high note, not just the high note that Christine sings on the title track. As soon as the closure was announced last September, sales soared as people who already loved the musical flocked in and those who had never seen the musical realized this might be their last chance. Originally his February deadline date, he was pushed back two months to meet demand. The show was again the top-grossing show on Broadway, played to enthusiastic audiences, and enjoyed a honed reputation, bringing in more than $3 million a week.
Lead producer Cameron McIntosh said, “It’s almost unheard of for a show to go out so triumphantly. It’s beyond anything I’ve ever dreamed of.”
The final day was marked by a combination of nostalgia and celebration. The production held a pre-show red carpet on West 44th Street in front of The Majestic. There, current cast members (including Emily Kwachoe, the first black actor to play the role of Christine on Broadway) and the original surviving members gathered. The cast (including Sarah Brightman, who started the role of Christine) reflected on the show’s run and its ending.
Among those walking the red carpet was Marie Johnson, who first entered the show in 1990 as an understudy in her native Australia. She played Christine in Australia and is now a choreographer for the Opera House. “We all have a very special bond and experience because of the length of the show,” she said.
Also there was John Riddle, who plays Raoul, who is now Christine’s lover. Riddle first saw the show when he was four when he was growing up in Cleveland. When his father heard a radio advertisement for the musical, he decided to take his family to see it in Toronto. “I was completely fascinated and turned to his father and said, ‘Let’s do this,'” he said. “Now, 30 years later, I am closing the show on Broadway.”
After the final performance, the show’s company and its alumni planned to meet for an invitation-only celebration at the Metropolitan Club (“The Phantom’s Lair”).
The show, with music by Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Charles Hurt, is still performed in London today. In London, during the pandemic shutdown, the orchestra’s size was reduced and the set changed to reduce his running costs. It is currently being performed in the Czech Republic as well. , Japan, Korea, Sweden. The new works will be in China next month (with the first Mandarin), in Italy in July (with Ramin Karimloo and the fiery chandelier) and in Spain in October (created in collaboration with Antonio his Banderas with a new translation) will be published.
And will the day ever come back to New York? “At some point, of course,” Mackintosh said. “But it’s time to take a break from the show.”
