Back Liebe stirbt nie German Love Never Dies (musical) Spanish Love Never Dies Finnish האהבה לעולם לא מתה HE Love Never Dies (musical) Italian ラヴ・ネヴァー・ダイズ (ミュージカル) Japanese 러브 네버 다이즈 Korean Love Never Dies (musical) Dutch Love Never Dies Polish Love Never Dies Portuguese

Love Never Dies (musical)

Love Never Dies
The Phantom Returns
MusicAndrew Lloyd Webber
LyricsGlenn Slater
BookAndrew Lloyd Webber
Ben Elton
Frederick Forsyth
Glenn Slater
BasisThe Phantom of Manhattan
by Frederick Forsyth
Characters by Gaston Leroux
Productions2010 West End
2011 Melbourne
2012 Copenhagen
2013 Vienna
2014 Tokyo
2015 Hamburg
2017 US Tour
2019 Tokyo
2023 West End Concert
2023 China Tour

Love Never Dies is a romantic musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Glenn Slater, and a book by Lloyd Webber, Ben Elton, Frederick Forsyth, and Slater. It is a sequel to the long-running 1986 musical The Phantom of the Opera and was loosely adapted from Forsyth's 1999 novel The Phantom of Manhattan.

The plot is not based on the storyline in the original 1910 novel by Gaston Leroux. Lloyd Webber stated, "I don't regard this as a sequel—it's a stand-alone piece."[1] He later clarified, "Clearly, it is a sequel, but I really do not believe that you have to have seen Phantom of the Opera to understand Love Never Dies."[2] Glenn Slater subsequently explained that Lloyd Webber "didn’t view it as a sequel as much as 'a second story with these characters'".[3] The musical is set in 1907,[4] which Lloyd Webber states is "ten years roughly after the end of the original Phantom",[5] although the events of the original actually took place in 1881.[6]

In the show, Christine Daaé is invited by Oscar Hammerstein I for her American debut, until an anonymous impresario contracts her to perform at Phantasma, a new attraction on Coney Island. With her husband Raoul and son Gustave in tow, she journeys to Brooklyn, apparently unaware it is actually the Phantom who has arranged her appearance in the popular beach resort.

Although Lloyd Webber began working on Love Never Dies in 1990, it was not until 2007 that he began writing the music. The show opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London's West End on 9 March 2010, with previews from 22 February 2010. It was originally directed by Jack O'Brien and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, starring Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess. However, the show closed for four days in November 2010 for substantial re-writes, which were overseen by Lloyd Webber, and it re-opened with new direction from Bill Kenwright. Set and costume designs were by Bob Crowley.[7] The original London production received mostly negative reviews.[8][9] A subsequent Australian production starring Ben Lewis and Anna O'Byrne, featuring an entirely new design team and heavy revisions was generally better received, although the show finally closed with heavy discounting to tickets.[10] A planned Broadway production, which was to have opened simultaneously with the West End run, was cancelled,[11] the amount of negative press having deterred potential backers.[12] In 2023, the revised Australian version of the show made its West End premiere in a concert run starring Norm Lewis and Celinde Schoenmaker.[13]

  1. ^ see Lloyd Webber launches Phantom 2, BBC News, 8 October 2009
  2. ^ see Andrew Lloyd Webber responds to critics, talks 'Phantom' at 25, 'Love Never Dies'
  3. ^ "'Phantom' sequel 'Love Never Dies' comes alive at Smith Center". Las Vegas Review-Journal. 16 March 2018.
  4. ^ "Phantom Sequel, Love Never Dies, Now Due in London and on Broadway in March 2010" Archived 18 January 2010 at the Wayback Machine. Playbill.com. 18 May 2009.
  5. ^ Andrew Lloyd Webber on Love Never Dies. YouTube. 8 October 2009. Retrieved 30 August 2015.[dead YouTube link]
  6. ^ Phantom Las Vegas: Synopsis of scenes and musical numbers.
  7. ^ LoveNeverDies.com The Show: Creative Team Archived 12 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ Healy, Patick (31 August 2010). "'Love Never Dies' Looking Less Likely for Broadway This Season". Artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Love Should Die was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ The Sydney Morning Herald: 'Coney Island lights start dimming "Sydney Morning Herald", 10 November 2011.
  11. ^ The Australian: 'Moonshadow – musical testing ground gets tough. "The Australian", 16 June 2012.
  12. ^ Thomas, Kyle A. (2017). "Laying Down the RUG: Andrew Lloyd Webber, the Really Useful Group, and Musical Theatre in a Global Economy". In MacDonald L; Everett W (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Musical Theatre Producers. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 325–332. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-43308-4_32. ISBN 978-1-137-44029-7.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference WestEnd2023 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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