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The Story Behind Phantom Of The Opera

The Phantom of the Opera is the stage musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber based on the novel by Gaston Leroux. All music was composed by Webber and the lyrics were written by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe. The story focuses on Christine Daae, a beautiful singer who becomes the obsession of "The Phantom of the Opera", a mysterious, disfigured musical genius who terrorizes the Paris Opera. The show was inspired by an earlier musical version of the story by Ken Hill. Opening on October 9, 1986 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, Phantom still plays as of 2007.

Original cast members included Michael Crawford as the Phantom, Sarah Brightman as Christine, and Steve Barton as Raoul. All of these have reprised their roles in the Broadway production at the Majestic Theatre and is now the longest-running Broadway musical of all time. The show even broke the record held by Lloyd Webber's Cats on January 9, 2006 after its 7,486th performance. Phantom has shared a worldwide gross of $3.3 billion, with an attendance of 80 million, being the highest-profiting entertainment event of all time. With its gross sales of $600 million in New York alone, the show is the most financially successful Broadway production in its history.

Phantom features a large orchestra, which consists of 26 musicians. The majority is stringed instruments with multiple percussion in the mix, using classical styles and also synthesizers. The first half of the title song, "The Phantom of the Opera" is pre-recorded in stage productions because of the doubles that are needed to create the illusion of the Phantom and Christine traveling down to his lair. Once the lead actors appear, the recording ceases.

On February 16, 2007, Andrew Lloyd Webber announced his work on the musical's sequel, The Phantom of Manhattan, an adaptation from the novel of the same name published in 1999 by Frederick Forsyth. The consensus of this novel is non-acceptance by fans of the Leroux Phantom, who say this story destroys the work of the original. Critics say it is a poorly written piece of fiction with no respect for the original story. Unfortunately for Webber, the sequel was extremely delayed when his cat, Otto, clambered onto the digital Clavinova piano and deleted the entire score for Phantom of Manhattan, which was unrecoverable.

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