Cheat Sheet:
The Phantom
of the Opera

Who is the composer?

Andrew Lloyd Webber has composed the scores of some of the world’s most famous musicals. His shows have run continuously in London’s West End for 50 years and ran for 43 uninterrupted years on Broadway.

When the original Sunset Boulevard joined School of Rock, CATS, and The Phantom of the Opera he equalled Rodgers & Hammerstein’s record of four shows running simultaneously on Broadway. He is one of the select group of artists with EGOT status, having received Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards.

What happens in the story?

“Love, passion and live theatre are what Phantom is all about” – Andrew Lloyd Webber

Inspired by Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel, Le Fantôme de L’Opéra, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera tells the story of a mysterious masked figure who lurks beneath the Paris Opera House, exercising a reign of terror over all who inhabit it. He falls madly in love with a young soprano, Christine Daaé, and devotes himself to nurturing her extraordinary talents, employing all of the devious methods at his command.

The music...

Crashing chords, luscious melodies, soaring high notes – Andrew Lloyd Webber’s score is dizzyingly intoxicating. It’s packed with songs famous the whole world over, including The Phantom’s solo 'The Music of the Night', Christine and Raoul’s 'All I Ask of You', 'Masquerade' and the title song, with its thundering chromatic chords.

This production is...

... entirely new! It brings together two of Australia’s most in-demand theatrical talents –  director Simon Phillips and designer Gabriela Tylesova – who worked with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the Australian premiere of Phantom sequel Love Never Dies.

Together, they promise to elevate the show’s defining moments – the mirror, the journey to the Phantom’s lair, the chandelier – to a whole new level of spectacle that makes the most of the shimmering harbour location and our enormous purpose-built stage over the water.

A little history on the original novel

In the early 1900s, during one of his frequent visits to the Paris Opera House, journalist and novelist Gaston Leroux began to hear rumours of a ghost that haunted the old building. Several unexplainable deaths had been attributed to this spectre, and backstage gossip only fuelled the story. The Opera House had already had its share of mysterious accidents when, on 20 May 1896, a counterweight of the seven-tonne chandelier had fallen into the audience, killing a concierge.

His reporter’s instincts aroused, Leroux studied the Opera House, exploring it from the pinnacles of its rooftops to the slimy underground caverns. Leroux saw in the Opera House a mirror of the Belle Époque society that passed through its halls: beautiful, stately and refined on the outside, with an undercurrent of secrecy and horror lurking just below the surface.

In a feverish three months, often scribbling down images from his nightmares, he completed what would be his most memorable work. The Phantom of the Opera was born.

Leroux’s novel would go on to be adapted many times, including legendary 1925 film starring Lon Chaney, and of course Andrew Lloyd Webber’s iconic musical.