The Phantom of The Opera
The Phantom of the Opera has gained itself something of a cult following since it’s creation by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. It made its first theatre debut in October 1986 with Sarah Brightman taking the lead role of Christine (which had been specifically written for her as she was Andrew Lloyd Webbers partner at the time.) and actor Michael Crawford playing the role of ‘The Phantom’.
The story centres around young soprano ‘Christine Daae’ as she performs in the Paris Opera House, guided and mesmerised by a mysterious stranger who lives in the dark catacombs below the building, hiding his hideously disfigured face from the light of day and addressing himself only as ‘The Phantom of the Opera’. He soon unleashes a reign of terror onto the Theatre and its performers in a desperate attempt to keep his hold on Christine and stop her from falling in love with her childhood sweetheart ‘Raoul’.
Audiences were instantly enthralled by the shows beautiful and haunting soundtrack, with popular songs such as ‘Music of the night’ and ‘The phantom of the opera’ actually going on to be released into the charts in the UK in the late 80’s its popularity seemed to know no bounds. Her Majesty’s Theatre was full to the brim at every single performance and it is still classed as one of the most popular shows of all time to this very day. So much so that Andrew Lloyd Webber even agreed to director Joel Schumacher transforming the show into a big budget musical movie in 2004 with an all star cast such as Gerard Butler as The Phantom, Emmy Rossum as Christine, Miranda Richardson as Madam Giry, Patrick Wilson as Raoul and Minnie Driver as the Diva of the show ‘Carlotta’. The film was a huge success worldwide and helped to raise the profile of The Phantom of the Opera to a completely new status with movie lovers who had not seen the stage show booking up to attend to see the original for themselves. It managed to create exactly the right balance between remaining true to the stage show version for the die hard fans, whilst developing even further to add new dimensions to both the music and the various different scenes to make it a stand alone film which would leave its audience in awe. Early reviews of the film showed that both critics and viewers loved the way the movie had turned out and that it would almost certainly become a classic for many years to come.
The stage show itself continues to run worldwide in venues all over the UK, US and Europe. You can book tickets both online and from individual box offices. Make sure you catch this truly unique and beautiful show for yourself so that you may truly experience the magic of The Phantom of the Opera in all its glory.