In February, after more than three decades, it should be over: "Phantom of the Opera" will be removed from the program on New York's Broadway. The well-known musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber will continue to be shown elsewhere.
The musical "Phantom of the Opera" on New York's Broadway will be discontinued in February 2023 after 35 years. The longest-running show on Broadway will end on February 18, industry site broadway.org said. Experts blamed the loss of viewers caused by the corona pandemic for the decision.
The musical with the music of the British Andrew Lloyd Webber premiered on January 26, 1988. As a rule, eight performances a week were shown on Broadway. Around 19.8 million people saw the musical in New York alone. According to the "New York Times", the show's box office results had recently declined. After the end of the pandemic restrictions, "Das Phantom" initially got off to a strong start in autumn last year, but the high operating costs could not have been covered.
In the week ending September 11th, approximately $868,000 (€867,000) was grossed. This income is not high enough to keep a musical with a large cast and elaborate stage design going. Overall, the Broadway musical grossed $1.3 billion, according to the Broadway League. The decision to end it was still surprising, since the musical is a tourist magnet and an integral part of the Broadway landscape.
According to the newspaper, the musical can continue to be seen elsewhere: the London production closed in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, but resumed a year later with a smaller orchestra. The first production in Mandarin is scheduled to be staged in China next year. Antonio Banderas is also working on a Spanish language production.
Since its premiere in London in 1986, the play has been seen by more than 145 million people in 183 cities around the world. It has been performed in 17 languages. The model for the "Phantom of the Opera" is the novel by the French Gaston Leroux from 1911 about a musical genius with a disfigured face who lives in the catacombs of the Paris Opera around 1870 and falls in love with a young singer. The murderous phantom hides his face behind a mask.
