![]() ![]() He later flies into a rage with Christine, then begs forgiveness. Still, with the tale barely underway, the Phantom not only abducts Christine once again, but her family as well. The storytelling twists itself into knots trying to make the Phantom less icky, most notably by attempting to convince us that Christine was more enamored of him in the first musical than we might have suspected. Soon the family is settled into a room with an armoire containing a full-length mirror, so we know that as soon as Christine is alone, the Phantom will materialize and the two will be reunited. When an impresario brings her to America to sing, the Phantom sends henchmen to the dock to intercept her, along with her husband, Raoul (Sean Thompson), and preteen son, Gustave (Casey Lyons at the reviewed performance). The Phantom remains as obsessed as ever with Christine (Meghan Picerno), his musical muse and protégée, now a celebrated soprano back in Paris. Assisting him are a pair familiar from the original: the ballet mistress Madame Giry (Karen Mason) and her aspiring-star daughter, Meg (Mary Michael Patterson). Still keeping mostly out of sight, the Phantom (Gardar Thor Cortes) is the mastermind behind Phantasma, a beachside show palace. So although 26 years should have passed, everyone remains remarkably youthful. Various characters keep referring to this as “10 long years” after the Phantom disappeared in Paris, but as any fan of the original musical can tell you, that show was set in 1881. The action moves to New York’s Coney Island in 1907. And the songs, though perceptively crafted, don’t vault into the realm of instant classics. Plot developments meant to be shocking are easily guessed beforehand. But the storytelling requires viewers to make leaps of logic and to reassess several beloved characters. The compositions are grandly written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the portrayals thrillingly well sung and the staging terrifically sumptuous. So of course we’d like to see a sequel do more of the same. The famously hypnotic Phantom and his namesake show have thrilled audiences for 30 years on Broadway and 31 1/2 on London’s West End, drawing new people to live theater and becoming embedded in our culture. Yet even if we’ve followed news reports about all of that, our curiosity overpowers our logic and we find ourselves in a seat for this touring production, expectations running high. So what are you waiting for?!?! Love never dies, but the streaming version of this musical isn’t long for this world.You would think that Christine Daaé might have learned by now to avoid rooms with full-length mirrors in them, because a certain masked face is bound to materialize in the looking glass, heralding another emotionally fraught visit by the Phantom of the Opera.īut no, she stumbles into the same situation in “Love Never Dies,” a sequel to “The Phantom of the Opera”at the Hollywood Pantages, then Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Hall.Īfter a painfully protracted gestation, the musical emerged in 2010 to sharply divided reactions and a disappointingly brief London run, never making it to Broadway as intended. “I think it contains some of the music that I’m really most proud of.” Webber also says that a Toronto production of Love Never Dies is scheduled to premiere in December of this year, or, more accurately, whenever theaters actually reopen. ![]() “This production, which I did do some work on, did get it right,” he muses. ![]() In a separate video, the composer recalls the bout of cancer that interfered with his ability to work on the initial production, though he praises the Australian production as vastly superior. This weekend, Webber has made Love Never Dies’ Melbourne production available on The Shows Must Go On! benefit YouTube channel, where it will be available to stream for 48 hours. Spoiler alert: The Phantom’s still got it real bad for Christine. After undergoing rewrites, the musical debuted in 2011 at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre, starring Ben Lewis as the drama-loving Phantom and Anna O’Byrne as the chanteuse Christine. Love Never Dies, set ten years after the events of Phantom and located in 1907 Coney Island, made its West End debut in 2010, where it received, to put it kindly, mixed reviews. In case you were unaware, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s smash-hit musical The Phantom of the Opera has a sequel. ![]()
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