Phantom Sequel to Shut Temporarily for Changes

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom Of The Opera sequel is to shut down in London for four performances while the production undergoes a series of changes.

The theatre mogul launched Love Never Dies, the follow-up to his long-running musical hit, in the West End this spring and the show is set to be rolled out internationally next year, with productions planned for Broadway, as well as Australia and Canada.

Lloyd Webber has now decided to shut down the London show for four performances next month while new lyrics and choreography are added.

The musical impresario admits the changes were made for the show's upcoming incarnation in Sydney in May and he decided to incorporate them into the already-running London production.

He says in a statement, "Some changes were written up over the summer and destined for the Australian production and, as they make improvements to the show, we'd be mad not to put them into the (London production)."

The show will be closed between November 22nd to 25th.

Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies, the Phantom of the Opera Sequel, Opens in London

Phantom is the most successful show ever, a production with earnings greater than Star Wars or Titanic, but the critical reaction to the follow-up on its London opening has been distinctly mixed.

The Telegraph’s Charles Spencer gives it four stars, calling it “Lloyd Webber’s finest show since the original Phantom, with a score blessed with superbly haunting melodies and a yearning romanticism that sent shivers racing down my spine.” He points out that, in an era when musical comedies like Hairspray and Legally Blonde reign supreme, a ‘gloomy-doomy’ show like this “seems like a relic of another age.”

Paul Taylor in The Independent goes even further, giving it five stars and acclaiming the “mix of the heart-stopping and the stomach-lurching (a true kinaesthetic experience)” which “characterises some of the best sequences”. He praises the show's “technical excellence” and the fact that “the leading couple sing beautifully together.”

The Times, by contrast, gives the show two stars, taking issue with what it calls a “dismally implausible plot” and a Phantom who has “taken an anger management course since landing in New York.” Benedict Nightingale feels that the show lacks “the menace, the horror, the psychological darkness” of its predecessor.

Michael Billington in The Guardian gives it three stars, finding “much to enjoy” but , like other reviewers finds the plot and lyrics unsatisfying, suggesting that the show’s problems “lie within the book” and that it “lacks… narrative tension”.

Quentin Letts in The Daily Mail also draws attention to disappointing book, what he describes as “the lack of solid story-telling”. His ambivalence shades into criticism when he compares the show to ‘Phantom’, calling it “too much an also-ran to the prequel, and its opening is too stodgy.”

Critics were not particularly taken with Phantom when it first opened either, but it has gone on to be performed in 149 cities, being seen by 100 million people in 14 languages.

'Phantom' Sequel to Bow in London, then Broadway

The phantom finally has a date.

"Love Never Dies," Andrew Lloyd Webber's long-awaited sequel to his blockbuster tuner "The Phantom of the Opera," will premiere March 9th at London's Adelphi Theater before bowing on Broadway November 11th and in Australia in 2011.

Originally skedded for fall 2009, the delayed production was to have opened simultaneously in London, New York and an Asian city rumored to be Shanghai. The London premiere is now set to take place some distance ahead of its international rollout, with previews in the West End beginning Febuary 20th. Lloyd Webber announced the new schedule for the show at a press conference Thursday in London.

The already recorded cast album will be released on March 10th, the morning after the show's world premiere.

Staged by the "Hairspray" team of director Jack O'Brien and choreographer Jerry Mitchell, the production has a book by Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton, with Glenn Slater and Frederick Forsyth, and lyrics by Slater ("The Little Mermaid," "Sister Act").

It will be designed by Bob Crowley with lighting by Paule Constable. Ramin Karimloo will play the Phantom, with Sierra Boggess ("The Little Mermaid") as Christine. Both actors are revisiting roles they have played before -- Karimloo in the London "Phantom" and Boggess in "Phantom -- The Las Vegas Spectacular." No further casting has yet been announced.

Set 10 years after "The Phantom of the Opera," "Love Never Dies" continues the story of the obsessive Phantom, who has moved from the Paris Opera House to haunt the fairgrounds of New York's Coney Island.

The follow-up has its work cut out for it in trying to emulate the success of "Phantom," which is still running in London after more than 9,500 performances since its first preview on September 27, 1986. It is also Broadway's longest-running show (it opened on the Rialto in January 1988) and has been seen by 100 million people worldwide, been translated into 15 languages and appeared in 25 countries including China, Brazil, Poland and Korea. Global album sales are in excess of 40 million copies. The producers describe "The Phantom of the Opera" as the single most successful piece of entertainment of all time, with a total worldwide gross of $5 billion.

Tickets for the musical sequel in London will have a top price of $108, a new high for the West End.

With work on "Love Never Dies" continuing through much of next year in London and New York, that schedule places a question mark over the timeline for "Catch Me if You Can," the tuner adaptation of the 2002 Steven Spielberg film, also directed and choreographed by O'Brien and Mitchell, respectively. The show had a tryout run in Seattle this summer, and while no Broadway plans are firmed, legit insiders have been speculating about a possible spring opening.

"We're weighing all of our options, but we can't comment at this time," said Michael Hartman, a spokesman for the show. However, the timing of "Love Never Dies" in London and New York leaves a window open for "Catch Me" to come into Gotham at some point in between.