NEW YORK, April 17 (Reuters) – Musical “The Phantom of the Opera” ended a record-breaking 35-year Broadway run on Sunday when, amid predictions that the present would in the future return, teary-eyed forged members took a remaining bow alongside its unique stars.
Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber devoted the ultimate Broadway efficiency to his son Nicholas, who died of gastric most cancers final month.
“In the previous few months I do not assume… any of us thought that ‘The Phantom’ would exit fairly with the bang it has. And so perhaps it could come again, you by no means know…,” Lloyd Webber advised a packed viewers from the stage after the present.
“It could not have gone out with a greater efficiency.”
His manufacturing, whose closure date was set final yr following a pointy drop in ticket gross sales, is predicated on a novel by Gaston Leroux.
[1/7] Forged and crew members take a second to applause after their remaining efficiency of the Phantom of the Opera. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
It was initially directed by Harold Prince and Broadway legends together with Michael Crawford, who was the primary to play the Phantom, Sarah Brightman and Judy Kaye have taken lead roles.
Set within the nineteenth century, it tells the story of aspiring opera singer Christine Daae who’s taught by the mysterious Phantom to hone her vocal abilities. Nonetheless, issues take a darkish flip when the Phantom chooses Christine as his muse, and she or he falls in love with arts benefactor Raoul.
A staple of the Broadway world with practically 14,000 performances because it debuted there in 1988, the present has gained over 70 main awards.
Brightman, who joined forged members on stage on Sunday, described the manufacturing as “a really particular piece”.
“Being there at its inception, it was written with an enormous quantity of affection and keenness and understanding of the human soul, truly. So, I believe because of this individuals are so linked to it,” she advised Reuters on the pink carpet.
“I believe that folks will miss it a lot that… it’s going to reopen in some unspecified time in the future. That is my intuition about it.”
Reporting by Alicia Powell; enhancing by John Stonestreet
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