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      Cameron Mackintosh on Closing of ‘Phantom of the Opera’

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      In an interview, the storied British producer said that weakening box office and rising production costs led to the decision to end the longest run in Broadway history.Cameron Mackintosh is one of the most successful producers in musical theater history. His list of credits includes several of the defining hits of the late 20th century: Big budget, lavishly staged spectacles including “Cats,” “Les Misérables” and “Miss Saigon.” But looming over all of them has been the longest-running Broadway show of all time: “The Phantom of the Opera.”On Friday, Mackintosh announced that “Phantom,” a surprisingly enduring gothic melodrama about a masked musician obsessed with a beautiful soprano, plans to end its Broadway run Feb. 18, four weeks after it celebrates its 35th anniversary.The show, directed by Hal Prince and with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, has been an enormous success. On Broadway, it has been seen by 19.8 million people and has grossed $1.3 billion; globally, it has played to 145 million people in 41 countries.But it has been buffeted by a decline in international tourism — “Phantom” was particularly tourist-dependent, given its status as a symbol of Broadway and the fact that the local audience has already had so many years to see it — and by inflation, which has contributed to rising production costs.A Final Curtain Call for ‘The Phantom of the Opera’The longest-running show in Broadway history will close on Feb. 18, 2023.A Damaging Lockdown: “The Phantom of the Opera,” a symbol of musical theater for many, is the latest Broadway show to fall victim to the drop-off in audiences since the pandemic hit.Producer Q&A: In an interview with The Times, the storied British producer Cameron Mackintosh explained the decision to end the show.After ‘Phantom’: What will be the most-enduring-and-still-running shows on Broadway once “Phantom” closes? Here are the four productions that have been playing for more than a decade.From the Archives: “It may be possible to have a terrible time at ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’ but you’ll have to work at it,” our critic wrote after the show’s Broadway opening in 1988.The show will continue to run in London, and in productions elsewhere around the world, and it could return to Broadway at some point, but the closing of the current production is nonetheless the end of an era, and the news brought an outpouring of shock and sadness from fans of many ages. (It also prompted a rush of ticket sales — nearly $2 million worth in the first 24 hours.)In a telephone interview Saturday, Mackintosh, who is 75 years old and is based in London, explained the decision. “You don’t want to run a great show into the ground,” he said. “It’s always been one of my mantras throughout my long career: There’s an art to closing a show, as well as opening one.”These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Tell me how this decision came about.Once we got through the first few months (after the reopening), we were getting to a situation where we were having regular running losses. We watched it through the spring and summer, and it became obvious that a show of this expense — because you know “Phantom” is more expensive than virtually any other show around, particularly the long-running shows — we were going to continue losing. And, as a veteran of long-running shows, I’ve found there comes a point with the greatest show where the only thing you can do is to tell people it isn’t going to be there indefinitely, which people always assume, with a long-runner, it is.What are the weekly running costs?Just under about $950,000 net now, which is about $100,000 more than it was pre-Covid. Costs on both sides of the Atlantic have gone up, whereas the box office hasn’t. And generally, I would say, across my group of theaters, there’s much less international tourism. Box office is down 10 to 15 percent on average. The truth is that “Phantom” was having a number of losing weeks pre-Covid, but the good weeks were much, much higher. And there comes a point, with any show, where there is a tipping point, where the number of good weeks has declined sufficiently that actually it’s outweighed by the number of losing weeks, and at that point there’s only one sensible decision to make.How do you know whether what’s happening on Broadway is a temporary dip or is going to last?Don’t be silly — how could anybody in this day and age make that kind of prediction? One can only see so far ahead. But we’re all going into uncharted waters, all over the world, with interest rates going up, the problems being caused internationally with Russia and Ukraine, and the cost of living shooting up in ways that no one’s even had to think about for 30 or 40 years.Do you think that “Phantom” would have closed if there had been no pandemic?I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s just the pandemic — I think it would be wrong to say that. The world has changed. The pandemic was a catalyst, but now suddenly the West is realizing that the whole situation which everyone let drift with Russia, and to a point with China, has changed the whole order, and we’re in the middle of discovering where it’s going to go. And the theater isn’t immune from that.In October, Senator Chuck Schumer, left, joined Mackintosh, center, and Andrew Lloyd Webber to celebrate the post-shutdown return of “Phantom.”OK McCausland for The New York TimesHow did you decide to reopen after the shutdown?In America, we would not have come back from the pandemic with “Phantom” if we had not had the gigantic amount of money from the federal fund, plus extremely healthy insurance. Having that allowed us to make a plan and bring the show back in the best possible way that we could.Why is “Phantom” so expensive to run?Many of the long-runners — “Cats,” “Chicago,” “Chorus Line,” even “Hamilton,” which will be a long-runner — they’re all single-set shows with mostly limited costumes. We’ve got 27 musicians. It’s a different world that Andrew and I created the show in. Most of my great shows were created during the ’80s, and that world has disappeared. We are in different times.How are you feeling about this? It’s not just a business decision.I’m both sad and celebrating. It’s an extraordinary achievement, one of the greatest successes of all time. What is there not to celebrate about that? When I started, a year to two years was considered a good run.What is your theory about why ‘Phantom’ has run so long?It is simply an amazing, beautiful musical. It is a wonderful, mythic story. We were by no means sure, when we were rehearsing it, that the thing was going to work at all, but miraculously it came together and there’s something quite extraordinary about it.Will you do another show on Broadway?I hope so. I’m not dead yet. Whether it will be a new show is another matter. But I’ve had a show on in New York since 1981, when I did “Tomfoolery” at the Village Gate. For me it’s been extraordinary run. More

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      ‘Phantom of the Opera,’ Broadway’s Longest-Running Show, to Close

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      The theatergoing audience has been slow to return after the pandemic lockdown, and the show hasn’t been selling well enough to defray its running costs.“The Phantom of the Opera,” the longest-running show in Broadway history and, for many, a symbol of musical theater, will drop its famous chandelier for the last time in February, becoming the latest show to fall victim to the drop-off in audiences since the pandemic hit.The closing is at once long-expected — no show runs forever, and this one’s grosses have been softening — but also startling, because “Phantom” had come to seem like a permanent part of the Broadway landscape, a period piece and a tourist magnet that stood apart from the vicissitudes of the commercial theater marketplace.But in the year since Broadway returned from its damaging pandemic lockdown, the theatergoing audience has not fully rebounded, and “Phantom,” which came back strong last fall, has not been selling well enough to defray its high weekly running costs.The show will commemorate its 35th anniversary in January, and then will play its final performance on Broadway on Feb. 18, according to a spokesman. The cast, crew and orchestra were informed of the decision on Friday.The show will continue to run elsewhere: The London production, which is even older than the one in New York, closed in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, but then returned, with a smaller orchestra and other cost-lowering reconfigurations, a year later. A new production opened last month in Australia, and the first Mandarin-language production is scheduled to open in China next year. Also: Antonio Banderas is working on a new Spanish-language production.“Phantom” is an icon of 1980s Broadway, created by three of the most legendary figures in musical theater history: the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, the director Hal Prince and the producer Cameron Mackintosh. All were long devoted to the show — in 2018, when it turned 30, they celebrated with a light show projected onto the Empire State Building in sync with parts of the score; last year, when the show resumed performances after the lockdown, Webber D.J.’d a block party outside the theater. (Yes, there was a remix of the “Phantom” theme.)The show, about a mask-wearing opera lover who haunts the Paris Opera House and becomes obsessed with a young soprano, is famous for that chandelier, which crashes onto the stage each night, and is characterized by over-the-top spectacle and melodrama.When the Broadway production opened on Jan. 26, 1988, the New York Times critic Frank Rich criticized many elements of the show, but began his review by acknowledging, “It may be possible to have a terrible time at ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’ but you’ll have to work at it.”By 2014, when Times critic Charles Isherwood revisited, the show had won over many of its skeptics. “Soon after the orchestra struck up those thundering, ominous organ chords, I found my expectations upended, my jaded armor melting away,” Isherwood wrote. “With the distance of more than a decade — and a couple hundred new musicals — since my last visit, I found myself with a new appreciation for this beloved show’s gothic theatricality.”Over the years “Phantom” has become a fixture that has drawn enormous audiences around the world. Since the first production opened in London in 1986, the show has been seen by more than 145 million people in 183 cities around the world; it has been performed in 17 languages, and next year that number is expected to rise to 18, when the Mandarin production opens.On Broadway, the show has been seen by 19.8 million people, and has grossed $1.3 billion, since opening, according to figures compiled by the Broadway League. It grossed $867,997 during the week ending Sept. 11, which is decent but not good enough to sustain a run of a musical of this scale (with a large cast and large orchestra and elaborate set, all of which drive up running costs).The production’s intention to close the show was reported on Friday by The New York Post. More

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      This ‘Cats’ Adaptation Has the Kids Singing

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      Heather Biddle, the theater director at J.J. Pearce High School in Richardson, Texas, wanted to put on a production of “Cats” for so long it became something of a comedy bit.Back in August 2020, following months of the pandemic shutdown and facing a year of remote learning, her students made commemorative T-shirts that read “At least we didn’t do ‘Cats.’”That all changed this month, when Biddle finally got her wish.J.J. Pearce High School students during a rehearsal. Many of them mostly knew the show in the context of its ill-fated 2019 cinematic adaptation.Eli Durst for The New York TimesShe staged one of the country’s first productions of “Cats: Young Actors Edition,” a one-hour version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hit 1981 musical, adapted by iTheatrics for Concord Theatricals, and released to schools across North America last fall. And as Biddle had expected, her students — many of whom mostly knew the show in the context of its ill-fated 2019 cinematic adaptation — came around to it.“I text Biddle all the time, ‘I’m no longer a ‘Cats’ hater!’” Ainsley Ross, a senior and the production’s musical director, said during a break from rehearsals on May 10. “Now that I’m working on it, I love it so much.”Ginger Johnson, as Munkustrap, during a break from the dress rehearsal.Eli Durst for The New York TimesAt a dress rehearsal inside the school’s auditorium three days before the show opened, the nervous energy was palpable. Dozens of teenagers ran about in scruffy bodysuits that had been hand painted by fellow students and Biddle.Spencer Van Goor, a sophomore who played Rum Tum Tugger, purred “Hello, gorgeous” to a teased out wig as he picked it up off the stage and put it on his head. “I’ve wanted to do this show for nine years now,” the 15-year-old said. “I really like the dance and the music; it’s exotic and weird.”Sophie Pong, a Dallas high school senior who was interning with Heather Biddle, applying makeup to Isabella Denissen, a junior who played Demeter.Eli Durst for The New York TimesAmelia Pinney, a junior who not only took on the dance-heavy role of Bombalurina but also choreographed the entire show, moved in tandem with Isabella Denissen, a junior who played Demeter. They were as attached at the hip as their two characters would be throughout the show.“It’s mesmerizing. It’s so different from any other show that’s been done,” Pinney said wistfully.Zoe Lehman was cast as Mr. Mistoffelees.Eli Durst for The New York TimesPinney, as Bombalurina, choreographed the show.Eli Durst for The New York TimesIn the greenroom, students paced excitedly as they waited to get made up as cats. “You look like a sleep paralysis demon,” one actor told another, which got a laugh from the larger group. The students practiced their dance moves, twirling their hands, spinning their bodies, and kicking up pointed toes. They manically discussed their other favorite musicals. They all agreed that Hailey Gibson, a sophomore cast as Grizabella, was going to blow everyone away with her rendition of “Memory.”Concord Theatricals, the licensing house that represents the stage licensing rights to the Andrew Lloyd Webber catalog in North America, has long made 60-minute, kid-friendly versions of other stage works in its collection, such as Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music” and Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes,” which J.J. Pearce students performed last fall.“I think people were shocked at how much they loved the show,” said Biddle, the theater director at J.J. Pearce High School in Richardson, Texas.Eli Durst for The New York Times“These editions do hundreds of performances a year; they are a gateway to theater,” said Imogen Lloyd Webber, a daughter of Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Concord’s senior vice president of communications.When the company decided to adapt Lloyd Webber’s work for younger performers and audiences, “Cats” was an obvious first choice. “It’s an ensemble show,” Imogen Lloyd Webber said. “Everybody’s got a part. Everybody can do a number. You can go mad with the costumes and the sets and the choreography.”The students meditated before the dress rehearsal.Eli Durst for The New York Times“And if you think about it, T.S. Eliot’s ‘Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats’ was originally a children’s poem,” she said, referring to the playful collection of poetry that makes up most of the musical’s book. “It made sense. Obviously, internally we’ve been calling it ‘Kittens’.”Final adjustments: Ava Johnson, as Victoria the White Cat, helping Uzo Bender, as Admetus, with his wig.Eli Durst for The New York TimesVan Goor, who was one of 32 students to perform in the production (five others contributed technical support), also appreciated that “Cats” is a true ensemble. “Technically everyone gets their own little feature,” he said. Though largely a plotless extravaganza, the musical is set in a junkyard where a group of so-called Jellicle cats have gathered for an annual celebration.“Cats: Young Actors Edition,” which is transposed in higher keys that are better suited for younger voices, was made with middle-school performers in mind. But Biddle really wanted it for her high schoolers. Most of them have worked with Biddle since they were 12 or 13, participating in her popular all-ages school summer program.The students’ parents were allowed to watch the final dress rehearsal on May 12.Eli Durst for The New York TimesThe show was J.J. Pearce’s first production without any pandemic precautions, like limited seating, masked performers or a masked audience. Three days after the rehearsal, there was still a vibrant energy among the students at their 2 p.m. show on Friday, which had been arranged not only for the performers’ high school classmates but also for local middle schoolers who were bused over after taking their annual standardized tests. Preteens and teenagers may have a reputation for not paying close attention at school-sponsored events, but the auditorium was silent when the descending riff of the musical’s opening number, “Prologue: Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats,” began.As the show went on, Biddle’s performers were not the only ones coming around to the idea of “Cats.” The audience seemed just as entranced by the musical, which is equal parts spooky, silly and sentimental. Though some momentary loud shuffling occurred when the period bell rang, dozens of students remained rapt in their seats, cheering along to Van Goor’s provocative performance of “The Rum Tum Tugger” and when Pinney and others did back flips and handsprings onstage.Biddle said she was thrilled to have converted “a whole new group of ‘Cats’ lovers.”Eli Durst for The New York TimesWhen the house lights rose after the performance, the high school students who had been in the audience ran backstage to congratulate their friends.And the performers? They were basking in the moment, thrilled that they had pulled off the show. They’d done “Cats”! And they would do it again that evening and the next day.When asked if this production was everything she hoped it would be, Biddle replied, without a moment’s hesitation: “I think people were shocked at how much they loved the show. It was worth the wait and I love that we converted a whole new group of ‘Cats’ lovers. ‘Cats’ now and forever!” More

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      U.K. Theatergoers Cover Up Again, After Months Without Masks

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      Since England’s theaters reopened without restrictions in July, one thing has been as notable as the action onstage: the lack of masks in the audience.Unlike in Broadway theaters, patrons here have not been required to wear face coverings, and many attendees have chosen to ignore preshow announcements encouraging them to mask up.Several visiting theater critics have been left aghast. Laura Collins-Hughes, writing in The New York Times in September, said that at “nearly every production I saw, there were loads — sometimes a majority — of barefaced people in the crowd, which felt reckless and delusional.”Peter Marks, writing in The Washington Post in November, called London’s theaters “consistently shocking these days.” That had nothing to do with the action onstage, he added; it was entirely down to the absence of masks.Now, that image may be about to change. On Saturday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson made masks mandatory in stores and on public transportation in England, responding to the newly discovered Omicron variant of the coronavirus.He did not make them mandatory in theaters, but several venues have now done so voluntarily. On Monday, the Royal Shakespeare Company said face coverings would be required at its theaters in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, unless an attendee is under age 12 or has a medical exemption.“We want to do all we can to ensure that we do not have to cancel performances and disappoint our audiences,” the company’s executive director, Catherine Mallyon, said in a news release.Other theaters quickly followed. On Monday, Andrew Lloyd Webber, the composer and theater impresario, quietly strengthened rules for the six theaters he owns in the West End. His company website was updated to say, “All audience members must wear a face covering throughout their visit, except when eating and drinking, or if they are medically exempt.” Previously, those theaters requested masks, but did not require them.On Tuesday, the National Theater, the Royal Opera House, the English National Opera and the Old Vic also said they would make masks mandatory.The rules might only last a few weeks. The National Theater’s website says the measure will be in place until Dec. 19, “when the next government review of Covid measures is due.”So far, there appears to be little resistance to the changes. Kate Evans, a spokeswoman for the Royal Shakespeare Company, said 45 people had asked for refunds or to exchange their tickets for vouchers to see a future show since the mandate was announced, out of 6,000 who had booked to see its current show, “The Magician’s Elephant.”“The majority of feedback we’ve received around the decision has been very positive,” she said. More

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      What You Remember About ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’

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      Listening to the album. Singing along at the show. And wearing a loincloth to play the title role. All fresh in our readers’ minds in the 50 years since.Fifty year ago, “Jesus Christ Superstar” landed on Broadway at the Mark Hellinger Theater, and the careers of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice and Ben Vereen would never be the same. Responding to a recent article celebrating the anniversary, nearly 400 readers shared their own memories of hearing, seeing or acting in the show, then and since. Here is an edited selection.Setting: A dinner party at our house in Toledo, Ohio. Time: Fall 1970. Dramatis Personae: My parents (Mom, probably in a Halston Ultrasuede dress, Dad with au courant sideburns) and 10 of their groovy friends. Music: The “Jesus Christ Superstar” cast album is on the stereo. What is that incredible music? Everyone thought it was the most modern, creative and innovative thing they’d ever heard. I was 8 years old. I went on to memorize the whole album and can still, to this day, pretty much sing any song. LISA W. ALPERT, New YorkI played Jesus in my Connecticut boarding school production in November 1982. Me, a Pakistani Zoroastrian with a decent baritone — yes, “Gethsemane” was near impossible. Women played Simon and Judas; a mix of the school’s nerd and jock squads Caiaphas and his cabal; and the son of a French expat aristocrat sang Pilate. As I dragged the cross to Calvary, from stage through audience to exit, my loincloth snagged on I still don’t know what, and unbeknown to me unraveled slowly as I performed trudging up that imaginary hill. I’m certain Christ flashing a healthy mop bordered on blasphemy. FRAMJI MINWALLA, Karachi, PakistanI was asked to play Herod in the 2003 tour with Carl Anderson, Sebastian Bach and Natalie Toro. Carl blew me away every night as Judas. At 58 years old — still singing, wrapping each note with deep, rich, emotional life. He was a marvel! He is missed! Natalie Toro brought an exotic beauty to her performance and should be remembered as one of the best Marys ever. And then we come to Sebastian Bach of the ’80s rock band Skid Row [as Jesus.] It was an interpretation like no other. That’s the best way to remember it! PETER KEVOIAN, Dingmans Ferry, Pa.I appeared as Pilate in a dance recital production where my first wife went to see her sister perform and saw me as well. A week later she seduced me and then her ex-husband insisted we marry. He didn’t want his kids exposed to a “sinful” relationship. So I owe that part of my life and the rest as well to “Jesus Christ Superstar”! PAUL JANES-BROWN, Pukalani, Hawaii“Jesus Christ Superstar” was my first Broadway show. I had been listening to the double album for months when the time finally came for us to go: Me, my best friend, Stacy, and her magical Aunt Joanne. Stacy’s aunt took us — two 10-year-old kids — from Long Island to Times Square. I was breathless watching the cast sing all the songs I knew by heart, and had to keep myself from singing with them. And when King Herod appeared in heels higher than any platform shoes I’d yet seen in the early 1970s, I laughed with the best of them and felt oddly at home. RUSSELL KALTSCHMIDTMy husband Stephen Altman was the assistant electrician at the Mark Hellinger. Toward the beginning of the run, he remembers that one of the Apostles was supposed to put a safety clip on Judas’s harness, when they “hang” him at the end of the show. He missed the clip, and Nicky Knox, one of the flymen, grabbed Ben Vereen and saved him! Fortunately, Ben’s neck was very strong! Stephen is a proud 53-year retired member of IATSE Local #1. DOREEN ALTMAN, Morrisville, N.C.Age 21, and I took the girl of my dreams, who to this day remains one of my favorite people, to the final preview. When Yvonne Elliman sang “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” and reached the extremely high note, I felt, for the first time in my life, an actual physical electrical stimulation going up and down my spine. JOSEPH R. REM Jr., Hackensack, N.J.I played King Herod in a production in Auckland, New Zealand, in the late ’80s. Of course every director was trying to find a new “take” on Herod’s song. I just happened to be cast by someone who thought it would be a brilliant idea to have me pop out of a giant Easter egg which then became an ornate bath, covered in pink balloons (and only balloons), with a pink shower cap and brandishing a golden loofah. My dancing troupe were dressed like Playboy Bunnies. Well, it was the ’80s, I suppose. CHRIS BALDOCK, Canberra, Australia More

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      Andrew Lloyd Webber Brings the Music of the Night Back to ‘Phantom’

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      After a long pandemic pause, “The Phantom of the Opera” is returning to Broadway with some help from its creator.“The Phantom of the Opera,” the longest-running show in Broadway history, resumes performances Friday.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesAndrew Lloyd Webber looked pleased.He was standing over the large orchestra pit of his musical “The Phantom of the Opera” at the Majestic Theater on Broadway, hearing the instrumental “Entr’Acte” from the top after a half-hour of detail work — more emphatic delivery here, more passionate lyricism there. He held his hands at his hips, a contented smile on his face.“That’s great, much better,” he said after the ensemble finished. “It just needs to be played like it’s on the edge, all the time.”Lloyd Webber, the composer of some of the most famous musicals of the past five decades — in a wide stylistic range from the radio-ready rock of “Jesus Christ Superstar” to the maddening tunefulness of “Cats” and the lush Romanticism of “Phantom” — was in town from Britain to prepare for the reopening on Friday of the longest-running show in Broadway history.Andrew Lloyd Webber visited the musical to rehearse the pit orchestra with its conductor, Kristen Blodgette.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesVisits from composers are rarely afforded to musicals as settled in as “Phantom,” which opened at the Majestic in 1988. But because the pandemic kept it shuttered for over a year and a half, its return is more like a revival; the production’s tech has been spruced up during the pause, and the cast and orchestra were rehearsing the material as if it were new.And that’s exactly how Lloyd Webber wanted it to sound, he told the musicians during rehearsal on Thursday, by way of some personal history.“I remember when I was a boy I managed to get a ticket to the Zeffirelli production of ‘Tosca’ at the Royal Opera House,” Lloyd Webber said, recalling how he had always heard that Puccini’s melodrama was a potboiler not worth the price of admission. Yet Franco Zeffirelli, the Italian director with an extravagantly cinematic sensibility, “decided that he would shake up the cobwebs.”On Thursday, Lloyd Webber also worked on the duet “All I Ask of You” with Meghan Picerno and John Riddle, the show’s current Christine and Raoul.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York Times“What I just remember is, Tito Gobbi and Maria Callas that night, in the second act, made an impression on me that I’ll never forget,” he continued. “It was just extraordinary, because the critics were saying, ‘Oh my gosh, this is actually the greatest score.’ I’m not trying to say this is the same thing, but it’s just that we have to approach everything now as if it’s the very, very, very first time.”“Phantom” may not be Puccini, but its score — thick and lavishly orchestrated — shares more with opera than most Broadway musicals. It calls for an unusually large ensemble of nearly 30 players, about a third of whom have been with the show since 1988. “Today I don’t think we would be able to do that,” Lloyd Webber said during an interview between rehearsals. “I think everybody’s forgotten what a real orchestra can sound like.”During the pandemic shutdown, Lloyd Webber was one of theater’s fiercest and most outspoken advocates.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesGiven that size, Lloyd Webber was particular about amplification on Thursday, preferring to let the instruments sound as acoustic as possible. But the orchestra needed to give more to make it work; virtually all of his notes to the conductor, the associate musical supervisor Kristen Blodgette, were about adding emphasis to a score that is already brazenly emphatic.“You can make a little more of that phrase,” he said at one point; at others: “We want the audience in our grip,” “It’s just a little undernourished” and “I think that can really come up a bit, I would treat it as appassionata.”He was joined by David Caddick, the production musical supervisor, who wanted for more of the same, asking the strings to “play into the shape of the melody” during a section of the “Entr’Acte” based on the soaring duet “All I Ask of You,” and reminding them to “make every melody sing out.”The “Phantom” orchestra is unusually large, consisting of nearly 30 players.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesWhen some of the cast later came onstage — to rehearse the operatic set piece “Prima Donna” and “All I Ask of You” — Lloyd Webber at times seemed to be channeling Hal Prince, the show’s legendary director, who died in 2019, guiding the singers in their understanding and delivery of lyrics on a level as small as single words. “I’m one of the only ones left who was here on the ground floor,” Lloyd Webber later said. (The choreographer, Gillian Lynne, died in 2018.) “But I was very close to Hal on this.”In the scene leading up to “Prima Donna,” for example, he welcomed more joy and comedy. He told Craig Bennett, who plays Monsieur Firmin: “It’s great fun if you can say ‘To hell with Gluck and Handel, have a scandal’ — it’s the inner rhyme, isn’t it? That’s the game, savoring every moment because there are some good lines there.”And to Meghan Picerno and John Riddle, the show’s current Christine and Raoul, he said while running through “All I Ask of You”: “I think that what we’re perhaps not getting is that they’re like teenagers in love. It needs to be more earnest. Say ‘One love, one lifetime’ as if you really mean it. Just run with it. The more of that there is here, the more of an antidote it will be to what comes in the second act.”A poster for the show outside the theater. “I do always love to hear it,” Lloyd Webber said of the “Phantom” score.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesAgain, this is uncommon; such attention from a composer is more likely to be given to a new show, such as Lloyd Webber’s latest, “Cinderella,” which opened in London this summer after a series of pandemic delays. During that time — and throughout the shutdown — he was one of theater’s fiercest and most outspokenly frustrated advocates. And when “Cinderella” at last debuted in the West End, its opening night was also a milestone for being that musical’s first performance for a full-capacity audience.It’s an ordeal that could make for a chapter of the awaited sequel to his memoir, “Unmasked,” which follows his life and work only until “Phantom.” “Oh, I’m not writing that,” he said in the interview between rehearsals, adding with a puckish grin: “There’s too much I know. I’d rather write another show, and get ‘Cinderella’ here.”But first, he had “Phantom” to open the next day. And a rehearsal to return to. As he stood up from a lobby chair to walk back into the house, he said, “I do always love to hear it.” More

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      Why ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ the Album Has Always Rocked

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      When I discovered the record, it felt like the bizarre offspring of my deepest, dorkiest passions: theater and dad rock.I’m here to spread the good word of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” the album.It’s a little odd that a record so rapturously received, at least in the United States in the early ’70s, is now mostly left off best album lists, and didn’t secure a lasting place in the rock music canon.Then again, perhaps it was inevitable that “Superstar” the album would end up eclipsed by “Superstar” the stage show, which followed a year later. It’s natural to think of the album as an artifact of the theatrical experience, rather than as a singular artistic vision in its own right, because that’s the way it usually works. It can be tough, for new listeners, to hear the music for the theater.Maybe it’s just that no serious rock connoisseur wants to admit to digging the guys who did “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”Excuse me, for a moment, if I come off as weirdly defensive about the work of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. The night my parents met, my mother, a former singer, was performing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” onstage. She has still never seen “Evita.”Revisiting the 1970 album via the recent release of the 50th anniversary edition, I’m as excited by it as I was when I was 15 and listened to it for the first time. My high school classmates were wallowing in their teenage angst listening to Limp Bizkit and Korn — this was around the turn of the millennium — and here I was, immersed in the bizarre offspring of my deepest, dorkiest passions: theater and dad rock.But for me, tuning into a Judas-centered retelling of the Passion of the Christ felt like a kind of rebellion too. I was obsessed with the song “Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say),” which epitomized emo before that musical term existed, and the electric-shock scream of Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan, in the role of Jesus, railing at an unresponsive God. (“Show me just a little of your omnipresent brain!”) While “Superstar” isn’t overtly anti-religious, the impertinence of it gave a young, questioning Catholic a lot to think about.Like a lot of music I loved, and still love from that era, it was kind of preposterous. The “Superstar” overture alone — surely one of the most unsettling rock record openers, let alone musical overtures — features harrowing electric guitar, synth, strings, boisterous brass, and a choir dropped in from a horror movie. The whole thing is more Roger Waters than Rodgers and Hammerstein. Indeed, those musical ingredients can be heard in Pink Floyd’s “Atom Heart Mother,” released in the United Kingdom the same month as “Superstar.”The musical tracks for “Superstar,” Rice explained during a podcast, were laid down in a haze of marijuana smoke — at the same London studios where the Rolling Stones recorded “Sympathy for the Devil” — with each day’s session beginning with a half-hour jam session. Most of the musicians had played Woodstock behind Joe Cocker. Gillan recorded his vocals in three hours and played a gig with Deep Purple that night.It’s no wonder “Superstar” rocks.From the get-go, there’s “Heaven on Their Minds,” whose guitar riff has an evocative directness right up there with Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” It also has Murray Head as Judas screaming “Jesuuuus!” and sounding kind of blasphemous doing it. How often do you want to blast a showtune — the term seems inadequate here — as loudly as possible? How many classic musicals kick off with a sound and atmosphere worthy of heavy metal? (Not counting “Les Misérables,” whose opening number features the chain-gang clink of actual heavy metal.)On the other end of the spectrum is “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” a moment of tuneful introspection not miles away from Carole King’s “Tapestry,” which was the second-highest-selling album of 1971 behind “Superstar.”If one thinks of “Superstar” as a concept album, it’s that rare one that tells a compelling, coherent story, more narrative driven than Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” or The Who’s “Tommy,” with none of the vaporous verbiage of a lot of rock music at the time. The whole thing is built, as Lloyd Webber is fond of saying, “like a cast iron boat” — a rock radio play, or a stage show for the proscenium of the imagination. In music industry parlance, it’s all killer, no filler.Rice, the former aspiring pop star that he was, has always excelled in down-to-earth lyrics that make outsize characters thoroughly relatable. It’s partly why the lead vocal performances here hit you in the gut. When Yvonne Elliman’s Magdalene cries “He scares me so,” you believe her. When Murray Head’s Judas chokes out the same line, in his own anguished version of that song — Lloyd Webber, ever the skillful deployer of the poignant reprise — you believe him, too.When it comes to Lloyd Webber’s musical audacity, it can sometimes feel as if it’s not just rock snobs that underrate “Superstar,” but also self-professed musical theater lovers.Rice, left, and Lloyd Webber are now musical theater royalty. Yet some of their work remains underrated by musical fans.Again, it may seem strange to suggest that the composer of “The Phantom of the Opera,” sometimes considered to be one of the most successful pieces of entertainment, is underrated by musical fans. But it’s precisely because of that kind of commercial success that Lloyd Webber is taken for granted, dismissed as a populist composer of the kinds of hummable melodies that might, say, pacify a temperamental president.This is unfair to the composer who, on “Superstar,” was having his way with the kinds of time signatures that were dazzling fans of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Just listen to “The Temple,” its feverish 7/4 time signature is a nod to Prokofiev’s equally tumultuous seventh piano sonata, with nary a beat to take a breath. Even more impressive is “Everything’s Alright,” probably the catchiest tune ever written in 5/4. And I include Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” in that.That’s not to mention Lloyd Webber’s essential, monumental achievement here, of creating 90 minutes of music deftly combining orchestra, rock band and a small army of vocalists. Let’s just say that Stephen Sondheim, who happens to share a birthday with Lloyd Webber, doesn’t have a monopoly on musical complexity, psychological depth and conceptual ambition.Lloyd Webber and Rice became musical theater royalty. But before that, they were a couple of shaggy-haired youths who captured the disparate music of the era like few other musicals until “Hamilton.” There was nothing like it in 1970, and there’s not been a lot like it since. More

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      ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ at 50: What Was the Buzz?

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      It was the spring of 1970, and Yvonne Elliman, an 18-year-old singer and guitarist from Hawaii, had just finished performing at a London nightclub when a breathless young man rushed the stage.“You’re my Mary Magdalene!” a wide-eyed, 22-year-old Andrew Lloyd Webber announced.“I thought he meant the mother of God,” Elliman, now 69, said in a recent phone conversation, explaining that she had been unfamiliar with the biblical story. “He was like, ‘No, no, no, no, it’s not the mother, it’s the whore.’”They had a laugh, and she went on to sing the part in “Jesus Christ Superstar,” the seminal rock opera by Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, for the concept album, the first arena tour, the original Broadway production and the feature film.The musical, which opened 50 years ago on Oct. 12, 1971, turned the story of one of history’s most notorious executions into a splashy spectacle. In doing so, it married rock and musical theater, ushering in Broadway’s British invasion of the 1970s and 1980s and paving the way for shows like “Les Misérables” and “The Phantom of the Opera.”But the nearly 90-minute concept album came first in 1970, because, as Lloyd Webber recalled recently to The Telegraph, no producer wanted to put “the worst idea in history” onstage.“We never knew how it was ever going to get staged,” Lloyd Webber, 73, said in a recent phone conversation. “So it wasn’t a collection of rock tracks or something put together. It had to be read to you and you could understand — the dramatic context of the whole thing had to be the recording.”Jeff Fenholt in the Broadway production. The rock opera portrays Jesus as simply a man, who loses his temper, doubts God and gets caught up in his own celebrity.Bettmann, via Getty ImagesThough the album fizzled in England, the rock opera with a full orchestra and gospel choir took off in America, climbing to No. 1 on the Billboard charts by February 1971. A year after its release, the initial album had sold 2.5 million copies in the United States.“We were staggered by the success,” Rice, 76, the show’s lyricist, said in a video call from his home in Buckinghamshire, England. “MCA let us make a single — two unknown guys — with a huge orchestra and a rock section. And with rather a controversial title. And it worked.”A national concert tour followed in 1971, and audiences packed stadiums to hear Elliman (Mary Magdalene), Carl Anderson (Judas) and Jeff Fenholt (Jesus) belt out hits like “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” “Heaven on Their Minds” and “Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say).”“It was crazy,” Elliman said. “I was asked to go to a hospital and put my hands on a girl who’d been in a car accident. I didn’t know what to say — I held her hand and sat with her. But a few weeks later, her parents wrote to me that she got better immediately after me seeing her.”Broadway OpeningAndrew Lloyd Webber was 23 and Tim Rice was 26 when their show opened on Broadway on Oct. 12, 1971, at the Mark Hellinger Theater on 51st Street.Bettmann, via Getty ImagesAt last, they got the green light: Broadway.Tom O’Horgan (“Hair”) was tapped to direct after Lloyd Webber missed a telegram from the director Hal Prince, who had expressed interest. “The one person I’d have loved to have seen do it would have been Hal Prince,” Lloyd Webber said in the interview. “Would it have turned out differently? Would it have been good? I don’t know.”The show, which narrates the last seven days of Jesus’s life through the eyes of one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, opened at the Mark Hellinger Theater on 51st Street to an audience that included Lloyd Webber, 23, and Rice, 26. But in a joint interview with The New York Times later that month, both men practically disowned their director.“Let’s just say that we don’t think this production is the definitive one,” said Lloyd Webber, who in later years would call O’Horgan’s $700,000 staging a “brash and vulgar interpretation” and opening night “probably the worst night of my life.”Reviews were mixed. Dick Brukenfield of The Village Voice praised Lloyd Webber’s “energetic music” but noted that the ocular dazzle — the sets included a large special-effects “chrysalis,” a bridge of bones, and a giant set of dentures — distracted from the story. “It looks like a record that’s been reproduced onstage with visual filler by Tom O’Horgan,” he wrote.The New York Times critic Clive Barnes panned the production, writing that it “rather resembled one’s first sight of the Empire State Building. Not at all uninteresting, but somewhat unsurprising and of minimal artistic value.”Cries of “Blasphemy!”Opening night attracted crowds of leaflet-bearing Christian and Jewish protesters, who regarded what The New York Times writer Guy Flatley called “the strutting, mincing, twitching, grinding, souped‐up ‘Superstar’” as theatrical sacrilege.“Going into the theater it’d be ‘Blasphemy! Blasphemy!’” said Ben Vereen, now 75, who played Judas.Lloyd Webber added: “I’m not convinced that Robert Stigwood, our producer, might not have actually orchestrated one or two of them. I think it might have had a much rougher ride today than it did then.”Rice and Lloyd Webber were accused of denying the divinity of Christ and making a hero of Judas, who is the unambiguous villain in the New Testament. Jewish leaders were alarmed that the musical made it appear as if Jews were responsible for Jesus’s crucifixion, which they feared would fan antisemitism.“We were criticized for leaving out the Resurrection,” Rice said. “But that was not part of our story because, by then, Judas was dead. And his story was over.”Conservative Christians were also startled by the sexual overtones between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, the prostitute who finds herself falling in love with him.“I’d get evil letters from people who said they wanted to kill Mary so Yvonne could come out again,” Elliman said.But Rice is clear: There was never an affair in the “Superstar” story line.“I would imagine he would have been a very attractive man and yet not somebody who was out looking for a girlfriend,” he said. “He was somebody who was charismatic and powerful. And, and this woman is slightly afraid of that, maybe afraid of what her own feelings are.”Jesus and JudasBen Vereen, center, played Judas. The character was inspired by the Bob Dylan lyric “Did Judas Iscariot have God on his side?” from the song “With God on Our Side.”Bettmann, via Getty ImagesJesus Christ, played by Jeff Fenholt, loses his temper, doubts God and gets a bit caught up in his own celebrity. He’s simply Jesus, the man, with all the attendant problems and failings.“He could feel pain,” Rice said. “If he was only a god, then things like a crucifixion, which is a horrible, horrible torture and death, wouldn’t really be a problem. If he’s a man, whether or not he’s a god, he has to suffer. He has to have doubts.”Those doubts are most on display in the “Gethsemane” rock scream, in which Jesus pleads — with a wailing G above high C — for God to let this cup pass from him.“We wanted to have a rock tenor who contrasted with the voice of Judas,” Lloyd Webber said.Vereen, who was cast as Judas, was nominated for a Tony Award for the role. He said the biblical account of the relationship between Jesus and Judas left him room for interpretation.“Jesus never wrote the book, and Judas never wrote the book,” he said. “All we hear is the hearsay of these men from the disciples in the Gospels.”Inspired by the Bob Dylan lyric “Did Judas Iscariot have God on his side?” from the 1964 song “With God on Our Side,” Rice set out to humanize the New Testament’s unambiguous villain.“I thought, well, ‘This is a very good character, which I can expand from what’s in the Bible, because there isn’t very much in the Bible,’” Rice said. “He was a human being. He had good points and bad points. He had strengths and weaknesses.”At first, Vereen said, he struggled to understand his character’s motivation. Then, after combing through the Bible, he came up with a theory.“Hypothetically speaking, maybe Judas really loved Jesus more than any of the other disciples and wanted him to be the hero that ruled the country,” Vereen said. “And he felt that if he betrayed him, the Israelites would rebel and put Jesus in the role.”A Musical Radio PlayYvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene. She was one of the few actors to not only perform on the concept album, but also to appear in the Broadway show and the movie.Rolls Press/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesBecause the show began as what Lloyd Webber calls a musical radio play, meant to be listened to straight through for 90 minutes without any visuals “on a turntable, in those days,” he said, he had to come up with strategies to keep the listener’s attention.“A lot of that has to do with how you plant themes and how you deal with them,” he said. “My idea for the overture was to introduce every ingredient that I could think of within the musical palette we were going to hear through the rest of the recording.”And then those themes recur, one by one, as when the whole of the overture is mirrored in the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate, or when a song reappears with a twist, like “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.” To Mary Magdalene it’s a love song about Jesus; when it returns as a motif sung by Judas as a lament, the lyrics change: “He’s not a king, he’s just the same/As anyone I know/He scares me so.”“Judas understood Jesus, and he obviously was clearly obsessed and loved him,” Lloyd Webber said. “And then at the same time, you’ve got this woman, who was also, if you follow the Bible, clearly very, very much in love with him.”And then, of course, there’s the musical’s oddball track.Herod, Paul Ainsley’s glitter-flecked, platform-sandaled drag queen, commands the son of God to “Prove to me that you’re no fool/walk across my swimming pool” in “King Herod’s Song (Try It and See).” The bouncy ragtime number serves as comic relief after Jesus’s gut-wrenching “Gethsemane” aria.“It’s taking a conventional showbiz number and making it something really very, very nasty,” Lloyd Webber said. “When Herod turns around and says, ‘Get out of my life!,’ that’s a number that’s gone wrong.”Rice said: “Musically, I think it’s a brilliant stroke on Andrew’s part. Just as everything’s getting heavier and heavier and heavier, and suddenly you have a very catchy melody. We wanted people to almost be misled into thinking, ‘Oh, well, you know, maybe it’s going to be a happy ending.’”The Show’s LegacyWith $1.2 million in advance sales, the Broadway show sold out almost every performance for the first six weeks. But the hype quickly dimmed. It ran for 711 performances in all and failed to win a Tony Award despite five nominations, including one for best score.But the musical’s legacy has endured, spawning three Broadway revivals (in 1977, 2000 and 2012), a 2012 Lloyd Webber-produced televised competition series to cast the titular role for a British arena tour, a 2018 televised NBC production that starred John Legend as Jesus and resulted in Emmy wins for Rice and Lloyd Webber — and now the 50th anniversary American tour, interrupted by the pandemic, that resumed performances in Seattle late last month.“51 years since the album came out … blimey!” Rice said.Lloyd Webber, looking back, said, “Everything I was doing was all instinct.” He added, “Yes, I’d had some amateur productions, but we’d never had anything in the professional theater — and I don’t know whether that would have influenced us for good or bad.”He thought for a second.“Without sounding immodest” — he chuckled — “it’s actually rather good.” More