Broadway has a new long-run champion: "The Phantom of the Opera."
&to=http://english.pravda.ru/culture/2002/05/22/29094.html' target=_blank>Andrew Lloyd Webber's lushly romantic musical about a haunted, disfigured composer pining for a beautiful young soprano in the Paris Opera House, was set to surpass "Cats" Monday as the longest-running show in Broadway history.
With performance number 7,486 Monday night, the show was to top Lloyd Webber's feline extravaganza, which closed in September 2000. "Phantom" has lasted nearly 18 years at the Majestic Theatre, where it opened Jan. 26, 1988 _ and the end is nowhere in sight.
Ask Lloyd Webber, whose other megahits include "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Evita," to explain the phenomenal success of "Phantom," and he says with a laugh, "If I really knew, I would do it again.
"I think there isn't another &to=http://english.pravda.ru/culture/2002/05/22/29094.html' target=_blank>musical that has been written in the last two decades or so, which has a plot that is so escapist, that allows high romance to happen."
Cameron Mackintosh, the show's savvy producer, agrees.
"The musical is a kind of beauty-and-the-beast story. It appeals to everyone because it is about an impossible love, which I think many of us have had," Mackintosh says.
"The whole framework or design of the show is that you are sucked into this mythical world below the opera house and yet shown something where we can feel the same emotions as one can feel in normal life."
Mackintosh is now in the enviable position of having the three longest-running shows in Broadway history: "Cats," which closed after 7,485 performances, in second place, and "Les Miserables," which shut in May 2003 after, 6,680 performances, in third.
All have been enormously profitable, but the money made by "Phantom" has been staggering. Its worldwide box-office gross _ the show is still running in London, too _ has gone past $3.2 billion (Ђ2.65 billion). More than 80 million people around the world have seen the musical, which has been presented in two dozen countries.
New York grosses have been nearly $600 million (Ђ497 million), with the show seen by nearly 11 million theatergoers at the Majestic. New York has had 11 different Phantoms, starting with Michael Crawford, who originated the role in the London production in October 1986.
Both Lloyd Webber and Mackintosh are wary about predicting how long the musical will run, reports AP.
O.Ch.
Speak the truth and shame the devil on Pravda.ru forum
Iran to Enrich Uranium Despite Global Opposition
Forum
STATISTICS
Source: 
