The world’s most popular musical has closed on Broadway
Lesson summary
Hi there, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English, where we help you upgrade your English with current events and trending topics. By listening here, you’ll get exposure to lots of new words and concepts in English. And we also offer you the support you need to understand the lessons and to upgrade your own communication in your new language.
This is lesson number 571, so that means that JR, our producer, has uploaded the lesson to PlainEnglish.com/571.
Coming up today: “The Phantom of the Opera” was the longest-running Broadway musical, until the curtain came down on the final show last month. In the second half of the lesson, I’ll show you how to use the English expression “set the stage.” And JR has a song of the week. Let’s get going.
’Phantom’ closes after 35-year run on Broadway
When the final curtain comes down after a musical, the drama is usually over. But at the Majestic Theater in New York on Sunday evening, April 16, 2023, it was only just beginning.
The very last Broadway production of “The Phantom of the Opera” had just finished and nobody was ready to go home.
“Phantom” is the most successful live musical of all time, and it just finished its run on Broadway, the world’s biggest destination for live theater. Its run lasted thirty-five years. That’s twelve years longer than the next-longest-running show.
If you’re a fan of musicals, you’ve probably seen “Phantom” either live or recorded. You may have even seen it in your own city or your own language.
“The Phantom of the Opera” first opened in London in 1986. Since then, it has been performed in 182 other cities in 17 languages and more than 70,000 individual performances. Thirteen thousand nine hundred eighty-one of them were at the Majestic Theater on Broadway in New York—an average of just under four hundred performances a year since its debut in January 1988. On Broadway alone, it grossed over $1.3 billion.
The story was based on a novel by Gaston Leroux. It came out in 1910. In the story, a disfigured musical genius lurks in the background of the Paris Opera House. While there, he falls in love with a young soprano, Christine. But then Christine’s childhood sweetheart shows up in her life again, setting the stage for the story’s main conflict.
Leroux was a journalist and he wrote the novel after hearing about mysterious events at the Paris Opera House. A chandelier had fallen during a performance, killing a worker. And rumors circulated there had been other unexplained deaths.
So Leroux went to get the true story of the opera house. He went backstage, he went on the roof, even down below stage in the storage areas. He said the opera house reflected society at large: beautiful and refined on the outside, but with secrecy and horror lurking beneath the surface.
He published his novel in 1910. It was made into a movie in 1925. But the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber made it legendary in 1986.
Webber is perhaps the world’s most well-known, successful musical composers. He collaborated on “Jesus Christ Superstar” from 1970 and “Evita” from 1978. He wrote “Cats” in 1981; that musical was performed for 21 straight years in London and 18 on Broadway. Musicals “School of Rock,” “Sunset Boulevard,” and “The Wizard of Oz” are all his, too.
On the final night of “Phantom” on Broadway, the crowd did not want to go home after the curtain fell. Past performers, stage hands, and other luminaries banded together for a curtain call performance of the show’s hit song, “The Music of the Night.” Champagne was passed around the stage and in the audience. Gold confetti fell from above. A video tribute from past cast members was shown.
Andrew Lloyd Webber himself was in attendance. He took to the stage in a black suit and tie. He dedicated the final performance to his son, who died recently of cancer at age 43. The show’s current producer left the door open to a reprise of the great musical in the future.
The show is as majestic as ever, but, in the end, was another victim of the pandemic. It’s an expensive show to produce with its large orchestra, intricate set, and elaborate costumes. Attendance at Broadway shows has not recovered from pre-pandemic levels and costs are even higher with COVID-related safety protocols.
But if you’re a fan of musicals, you can still probably catch “Phantom” in another city. It’s still playing in London, where it’s currently the third-longest running show. It’s in China, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. In Europe, you can catch it in Greece, Sweden, Italy, and the Czech Republic. New shows will open in Madrid, Bucharest and Vienna in the coming years.
My first live musical
“Phantom of the Opera” was the first musical I ever saw. Even though I grew up close to New York, I saw Phantom in Toronto. It was a class trip—we went in a school bus from my hometown in Connecticut to Toronto. And one of the big things we did in Toronto was see a musical. It was “Phantom of the Opera.”
I don’t really remember much about it—I was twelve—but it was extremely popular at the time. It’s hard to believe one show was playing this whole time. There are only—I don’t know—30 or so Broadway shows at any one time. And they play almost every day. Usually shows are every weeknight and then often twice on weekends. And these are big theaters, so for a show to last a long time, it needs to fill a big theater every single night, and twice on the weekends, over and over.
For a show to last a long time, it needs to be a big deal, and you need lots and lots of tourists in the city to fill those seats. There just haven’t been the tourists, there haven’t been the commuters, to see those shows, at least not like before.
There are still plenty of shows to see on Broadway. The longest-running musicals still open on Broadway are Chicago and The Lion King, which opened in 1996 and 1997 respectively.
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