reed (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} likegrecianart) wrote in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} ohnotheydidnt,@ 2009-07-04 23:22:00 |
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| Entry tags: | broadway / theatre |
Phantom 2 will be fantastic promises Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber has confirmed that soprano Sierra Boggess and baritone Ramin Karimloo will star in the world premiere in London of his Phantom Of The Opera sequel, Love Never Dies.
He told me that the £10million (probably more) show will open at the Adelphi Theatre 'early next year', adding that 'if it's any later, I'll go crazy!'
The show's award-winning designer, Bob Crowley, will test 'magic' scenes involving a life-sized automaton version of Christine Daae, the Phantom's beautiful protegee, at the Adelphi in September or October.
"I don't want to wait till next year and find that we're held up by some illusion,' the composer said. 'We'll set it up and fix any problems in the autumn."
Creating the automaton, and ensuring that it works, has been one of the problems that caused Love Never Dies to delay from an initial, hoped-for opening this year.
Another factor was finding enough sets of performers to play the two main leads on three continents simultaneously. One idea had been for Love Never Dies to open in London, New York and Shangai at the same time. Lloyd Webber conceded that it's unlikely that will now happen.
Lord Lloyd-Webber and his long-time collaborator, music producer Nigel Wright, were playing me excerpts from the Love Never Dies concept album. "She's pretty wonderful," he added. And she is.
"It's the first time that the leads on an album of mine have gone on to open in the actual stage show. When Sierra and Ramin open in London, Broadway will want to see the original stars, so you can't say to London: "OK, listen to them for two weeks and then New York gets them."
"I personally feel that what will now happen is that Sierra and Ramin will open in London early next year and then go to New York in the autumn of 2010. I think once the album comes out, hopefully before Christmas, a lot of singers will come out of the woodwork and we'll find new Christine and Phantom's for the other productions," he explained.
The author's sense of Love Never Dies is that it's the best score Lloyd Webber has produced, and that once he hands it over to director Jack O'Brien it can be molded into the best musical London has seen in years.
The show is set on Coney Island, New York, around 1907 - ten years on from the final actions in Phantom Of The Opera. A mysterious figure, Mr Y, has established a freak show attraction called Phantasma.
He works with former Paris Opera ballet mistress Madame Giry (sung on the album by Sally Dexter) and her daughter Meg (now famous as bathing beauty the Ooh La La girl), sung by Summer Strallen.
Christine, an opera star, is married to Raoul, the Vicomte de Chagny (John Barrowman on the record), and the mother of a ten-year-old son, Gustave. She is invited to perform at the Phantasma amusement resort.
Lloyd Webber explained that in those days, showmen always liked to present "opera totty of the day, like Katherine Jenkins now".
The author won't give any more away, except to say that by the show's dramatically heartbreaking end, there won't be a dry eye in the house.
Essentially, it's a musical about obsession, love and a composer's life work. It may also, the author suspects, be the final original masterpiece of Lloyd Webber's career.
This sounds like it's going to suck so hard.
Source.
