The Belltower Theaters offered yet another program in the Fathom Events series (Goat Rodeo Sessions, LA Phil in Venezuela, Leonardo da Vinci LIVE) - Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies.
The Phantom of the Opera has been seen by more than 100 million people around the world and has become the most commercially successful theater show in history. So the hype for this sequel has been intense. Lloyd Webber decided to transpose the phantom character to Coney Island, 10 years after the original, where he has (somehow) established a thriving theatrical business.
Lloyd Webber has stated both that "I don't regard this as a sequel" and "clearly this is a sequel." He began working on Love Never Dies in 1990 although he did not start writing the music until 2007. The musical received extremely mixed reviews and the planned Broadway production had been indefinitely postponed due to the premature closure of the London production. However, a reworked version, the one I saw at the theater, opened in Melbourne, Australia, last year, to acclaim.
Andrew Lloyed Webber is best known as composer of Cats, Evita, and Jesus Christ Superstar.
