- Aspects of Love
- Bombay Dreams
- By Jeeves
- Cats
- Evita
- Jesus Christ Superstar
- Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
- Love Never Dies
- Song and Dance
- Starlight Express
- Stephen ward
- Sunset Boulevard
- Tell Me on a Sunday
- The Beautiful Game
- The Likes of Us
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The Phantom of the Opera
- Andrew Lloyd Webber: 40 Musical Years
- Phantom to tour North America
- Andrew at The Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary
- The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall
- Phantom celebrates 10,000 performances in the West End
- 9,000 performances of Phantom on Broadway
- The Phantom of the Opera goes digital!
- The opening of The Phantom of the Opera
- The Sound of Music
- The Wizard of Oz
- The Woman in White
- Whistle Down the Wind
The Phantom of the Opera
Anyone familiar with a large opera house would testify that it is an extraordinary labyrinth of people and passageways, but the Paris Opera House of the last quarter of the 19th century, in which Gaston Leroux set The Phantom of the Opera, was remarkable by any standards. The huge building was constructed to designs by Charles Garnier from 1861 – 1875. It was a hotbed of politics and factions. From prima donna to stage-hand, the Opera House was governed by intrigue and rumour, everyone jostling for position, defending their own territory and scrabbling for new. At the time in which the novel is set, the Opera House boasted over fifteen hundred employees and had its own stables of white horses for the opera troupe. Even today, it employs over a thousand people and contains two permanent ballet schools within the building.
The Paris Opera House rose to pre-eminence in the 18th century. After the Revolution it was restored to its leading position in Paris by Napoleon in the reforms of 1807. Unquestionably among the most performed composers at that time was Salieri, whose music remained in the repertoire at the time of Leroux’s novel. Salieri had his greatest triumphs in Paris with Les Danaides (1787) and Tarare (1784). It is interesting that Mozart began to work with Da Ponte after the latter’s huge success with Salieri in France. Indeed, Mozart was not performed at the Paris Opera until the early 1800s and then only in a severely adapted form. Salieri was hailed as the natural successor to Gluck, the main force at the opera in the third quarter of the 18th century, and was greatly influenced by his music.
But perhaps it was Mayerbeer who reigned supreme. His grad operas were a masterful potpourri of components. His music was accessible, his characterisation brilliantly aided by his command of orchestration and he relished stage spectacle. This writer was chastened to learn that the 1849 production of Le Prophete was the first to feature rollerskating as a key ingredient and also introduced electric light as an effect. Indeed the Paris Opera always prided itself in its innovation. Aladdin (1822) by Isouard introduced gas lighting to the stage.
King of all this was the Opera’s chief designer Ciceri. Spectacle was all. Huge in his preface to Cromwell (1827) wrote “the stage should make as complete as possible the illusion of reality”. The Paris Opera’s eruption of Vesuvius was legendary, employing real stones and the titles of operas alone convey everything: Le Siege de Corinthe (Rossini), Le Muette de Portici (Auber), Robert le Diable (Meyerbeer) (noted for its Phantom of the Nuns effect) and, of course, Gounod’s Faust, the opera which is the backdrop to the Leroux novel.
Key also to Paris formula was the ballet. This was usually at the start of Act III. The gentlemen could dine before arriving at the theatre in time to see their various young ladies in the corps de ballet. Wagner’s Tannhauser caused uproar with the Jockey Club because its ballet was placed too early in the production for their members’ convenience.
The Paris Opera House survives in much the same form described in the novel. It occupies a three-acre site and some idea of the labyrinthian nature of the building can be appreciated if one considers that the auditorium accounts for less than one fifth of the total space. There are over seventeen storeys, seven of which are below the stage level: the stables for the opera horses still exist. There is a monument to La Carlotta. More important, there really is a lake underneath the building: it is an integral part of the design, and the water level acts as a ballast, raised or lowered, depending on the weight of the stage, seven storeys above.
Andrew Lloyd Webber From the Original London Production Programme
Visit the official The Phantom of the Opera website.
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2013
March 14, 2013
Andrew Lloyd Webber: 40 Musical Years
An evening of show-stopping performances, one-off collaborations and insights from Andrew on his extraordinary career.
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2013
February 27, 2013
Phantom US Tour Announcement
RUG and CML announce that the spectacular new touring production of The Phantom of the Opera will launch a North American tour beginning November 2013
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2011
October 4, 2011
Andrew at The Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary
Exclusive video footage backstage at the final 25th Anniversary performance on Sunday 2nd October 2011.
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2011
July 1, 2011
The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall
Series of concerts at The Royal Albert Hall this October announced to celebrate The Phantom of the Opera's 25th anniversary this year.
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2010
October 23, 2010
Phantom celebrates 10,000 performances in the West End
Special guests drop in to enjoy the landmark performance...
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2009
September 16, 2009
9,000 performances of Phantom on Broadway
The Phantom of the Opera, the longest-running show in Broadway history, reaches its 9,000th performance in New York.
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2008
May 8, 2008
The Phantom of the Opera goes digital!
This week The Phantom of The Opera installs a major new sound system.
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1986
October 9, 1986
The opening of The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera is now a musical phenomenon which has playe all over the world, but the show originally opened at Her Majesty's Thetare in London on 9th October 1986.
