# The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
**The Phantom of the Opera** is a musical by [Andrew Lloyd Webber](https://www.edgepedia.org/andrew-lloyd-webber) with lyrics by Charles Hart and additional lyrics by [Richard Stilgoe](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-stilgoe), based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel *Le Fantôme de l'Opéra*, which premiered at Her Majesty's Theatre in London on 9 October 1986. It tells of a masked, disfigured musical genius who haunts the Paris Opera House and tutors the young soprano [Christine Daaé](https://www.edgepedia.org/christine-daae), drawing her into a triangle with her childhood sweetheart Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny.[1](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/london/about) • [2](https://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/phantom-rev.pdf) • [3](https://www.andrewlloydwebber.com/news/the-origins-of-phantom)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| London premiere | Her Majesty's Theatre (now His Majesty's Theatre), 9 October 1986, after previews from 27 September[1](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/london/about) • [4](https://seatplan.com/london/news/timeline-phantom-of-the-opera-london/) |
| Broadway premiere | Majestic Theatre, 26 January 1988, with the same leads as London[5](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/history) • [6](https://daily.jstor.org/the-culture-wars-of-the-phantom-of-the-opera/) |
| Original principals | Michael Crawford (the Phantom), Sarah Brightman (Christine Daaé), Steve Barton (Raoul)[1](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/london/about) |
| Creative team | Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber; lyrics Charles Hart, additional lyrics Richard Stilgoe; book by Stilgoe and Lloyd Webber; director Harold Prince; design Maria Björnson; musical staging Gillian Lynne[2](https://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/phantom-rev.pdf) • [7](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/us-tour?aid=ADV000000803) |
| Awards | Two Olivier Awards from three nominations (Best New Musical; Crawford Best Actor), and the 1988 Tony Award for Best Musical[8](https://www.andrewlloydwebber.com/show/the-phantom-of-the-opera?tab=timeline) • [9](https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/44825/the-phantom-of-the-opera-lloyd-webber) |
| Global reach | By the show's own current figures, since 1986 productions have played to 160 million people in 217 cities, 52 territories, and 23 languages[7](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/us-tour?aid=ADV000000803) |
| Run records | Longest-running musical in Broadway history; second-longest in the West End, after *Les Misérables*[10](https://www.teatrroma.pl/en/spektaklarch/the-phantom-of-the-opera/description/) • [11](https://officiallondontheatre.com/news/two-christines-for-the-phantom-71915/) |
## Origins
Lloyd Webber encountered the source material by chance. In early 1985, while his *Requiem* was in rehearsal, he bought a copy of the English translation of Leroux's novel; an account on his own site places the discovery at a second-hand book stall in New York, where he read the book in a single afternoon and, in his words, "had an epiphany".[5](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/history) • [3](https://www.andrewlloydwebber.com/news/the-origins-of-phantom) [The Phantom](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-phantom) story had already reached the stage: the English playwright and director Ken Hill had produced a musical version at The Duke's Playhouse in [Lancaster](https://www.edgepedia.org/lancaster) on 26 July 1976, and Lloyd Webber and [Cameron Mackintosh](https://www.edgepedia.org/cameron-mackintosh) had earlier approached Hill about adapting his version into a camp-style show.[5](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/history) • [3](https://www.andrewlloydwebber.com/news/the-origins-of-phantom)
**Adaptation choices.** Leroux's novel is closer to a mystery than a romance, and Lloyd Webber changed it accordingly: he removed the unnamed detective narrator and centered the story on Christine and her love triangle with the Phantom and Raoul.[3](https://www.andrewlloydwebber.com/news/the-origins-of-phantom) The lyricist role passed through several hands; [Jim Steinman](https://www.edgepedia.org/jim-steinman) was considered first, and [Alan Jay Lerner](https://www.edgepedia.org/alan-jay-lerner) worked briefly on the project before his terminal illness and death.[3](https://www.andrewlloydwebber.com/news/the-origins-of-phantom) The finished credits are lyrics by Charles Hart with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe, and a book by Stilgoe and Lloyd Webber.[2](https://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/phantom-rev.pdf)
## The score and staging
The score mixes operatic pastiche with the Phantom's own music. Individual numbers reference earlier traditions: Carlotta's "Prima Donna" recalls a Straussian waltz, the in-universe opera *Don Juan Triumphant* nods to Mozart while adopting a modernist sound, and other tracks draw on [Benjamin Britten](https://www.edgepedia.org/benjamin-britten) and Meyerbeer.[6](https://daily.jstor.org/the-culture-wars-of-the-phantom-of-the-opera/) The best-known numbers are the title song, "The Music of the Night," "All I Ask of You," "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again," and the Act Two ensemble piece "Masquerade," in which nearly the whole company fills the stage.[1](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/london/about) • [7](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/us-tour?aid=ADV000000803)
Spectacle was engineered to serve the drama. A radio-controlled boat ferried the Phantom and Christine across a candlelit lake beneath the Opera, and a chandelier that rises in the opening scene crashes down at the end of Act One.[12](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/lord-of-the-west-end-1168202.html) The Guardian's 1986 reviewer found that the show "puts spectacle to the service of an exciting story," with music used "in a Pucciniesque way to intensify a dramatic situation".[13](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/1986/oct/11/theatre.artsfeatures)
## Premiere and reception
The London opening became a cultural event. Critical notices included Irving Wardle's "God's gift to musical theatre" and John Blake's "If you only see one show this year, make sure it is this one!"; at the December 1986 Olivier Awards the production won two of its three nominations, Best New Musical and Best Actor in a Musical for Michael Crawford.[3](https://www.andrewlloydwebber.com/news/the-origins-of-phantom) • [8](https://www.andrewlloydwebber.com/show/the-phantom-of-the-opera?tab=timeline) The original cast recording was the first soundtrack in the history of the British musical to enter the charts at number one.[14](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2010/mar/10/phantom-of-the-opera) [In New York](https://www.edgepedia.org/in-new-york), where it opened on 26 January 1988, it won the 1988 [Tony Award for Best Musical](https://www.edgepedia.org/tony-award-for-best-musical), with Crawford again taking Best Actor in a Musical.[9](https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/44825/the-phantom-of-the-opera-lloyd-webber)
Reception was also political. A scholar of the show's reception, Amanda Eubanks Winkler of the [University of California, Riverside](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-california-riverside), writes that politics, economics, taste, and class shaped criticism on both sides of the Atlantic: Lloyd Webber was a vocal advocate for Thatcher-era tax reform and even provided music for [Margaret Thatcher](https://www.edgepedia.org/margaret-thatcher)'s 1987 Party Election Broadcast, while some American reviewers saw the ornate, maximalist production as a manifestation of Reagan-era consumer culture, and outlets such as [The Village Voice](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-village-voice) attributed its popularity to middlebrow taste.[6](https://daily.jstor.org/the-culture-wars-of-the-phantom-of-the-opera/) Its Broadway opening also joined a wave of British productions, alongside *Starlight Express*, *Cats*, *Me and My Girl*, and *Les Misérables*, that dominated the Broadway lineup of the late 1980s.[6](https://daily.jstor.org/the-culture-wars-of-the-phantom-of-the-opera/)
## Global expansion
Lloyd Webber and producer Cameron Mackintosh decided to open many productions at once and required each to replicate the original staging, so that the same *Phantom of the Opera* could play in ten different cities simultaneously, differing only in language and time zone.[15](https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9780199703036_A23607739/preview-9780199703036_A23607739.pdf) [Mackintosh](https://www.edgepedia.org/mackintosh) applied the same replica strategy he had used for *Les Misérables* (1985) and would later use for *Miss Saigon* (1989), building a portfolio of shows that could sell worldwide.[16](https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10188046/1/Developing-Theatre-in-the-Global-South.pdf) By the show's own current figures it has played to 160 million people in 217 cities, 52 territories, and 23 languages.[7](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/us-tour?aid=ADV000000803) In Broadway history it stands as the longest-running musical, and in the West End it remains second in longevity only to *Les Misérables*.[10](https://www.teatrroma.pl/en/spektaklarch/the-phantom-of-the-opera/description/) • [11](https://officiallondontheatre.com/news/two-christines-for-the-phantom-71915/)
**Later productions.** The original London production continues to play at His Majesty's Theatre, where it reopened in 2021 to a rapturous critical reception with Maria Björnson's original design and was subsequently mounted on a multi-year North American tour.[1](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/london/about) • [7](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/us-tour?aid=ADV000000803) A sequel, *Love Never Plays* — properly titled *Love Never Dies* — opened in 2010 and is treated in scholarship as Lloyd Webber's badly misjudged continuation of the story.[17](https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/41361/chapter-abstract/352567385) In 2025 an immersive Off-Broadway adaptation, *Masquerade*, with six performances nightly in a midtown Manhattan building, was described by The Washington Post as having transformed what was regarded as a tourist attraction into one of the hottest tickets in New York.[18](https://theweek.com/culture-life/theatre/masquerade-phantom-of-the-opera)
## By the numbers
- 9 October 1986: London opening night; 26 January 1988: Broadway opening at the Majestic Theatre[1](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/london/about) • [5](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/history)
- 160 million spectators across 217 cities, 52 territories, and 23 languages since 1986[7](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/us-tour?aid=ADV000000803)
- 500 people worked on one full production of the show, per the Roma Musical Theatre account of its Polish staging[10](https://www.teatrroma.pl/en/spektaklarch/the-phantom-of-the-opera/description/)
- A 572-performance Polish-language run at the Roma Theatre in Warsaw (2008 to 6 June 2010) illustrates the show's replica-model reach[10](https://www.teatrroma.pl/en/spektaklarch/the-phantom-of-the-opera/description/)
## References
1. [London Origins, The Phantom of the Opera official site](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/london/about)
2. [The Phantom of the Opera (Lloyd Webber), British Theatre Guide production details](https://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/phantom-rev.pdf)
3. [The Origins of Phantom, Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals](https://www.andrewlloydwebber.com/news/the-origins-of-phantom)
4. [Timeline History of Phantom of the Opera in London, Seatplan](https://seatplan.com/london/news/timeline-phantom-of-the-opera-london/)
5. [History, The Phantom of the Opera official site](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/history)
6. [The Culture Wars of The Phantom of the Opera, JSTOR Daily](https://daily.jstor.org/the-culture-wars-of-the-phantom-of-the-opera/)
7. [Phantom of the Opera North American Tour site](https://www.phantomoftheopera.com/us-tour?aid=ADV000000803)
8. [The Phantom of the Opera timeline, Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals](https://www.andrewlloydwebber.com/show/the-phantom-of-the-opera?tab=timeline)
9. [The Phantom of the Opera (Lloyd Webber), Concord Theatricals](https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/44825/the-phantom-of-the-opera-lloyd-webber)
10. [Description, Teatr Muzyczny Roma](https://www.teatrroma.pl/en/spektaklarch/the-phantom-of-the-opera/description/)
11. [Two Christines for the Phantom, Official London Theatre](https://officiallondontheatre.com/news/two-christines-for-the-phantom-71915/)
12. [Lord of the West End, The Independent](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/lord-of-the-west-end-1168202.html)
13. [The Phantom of the Opera, The Guardian, 10 October 1986](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/1986/oct/11/theatre.artsfeatures)
14. [High notes: The rise and rise of the Phantom, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2010/mar/10/phantom-of-the-opera)
15. [The Oxford Handbook of the American Musical preview](https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9780199703036_A23607739/preview-9780199703036_A23607739.pdf)
16. [Developing Theatre in the Global South, UCL Discovery](https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10188046/1/Developing-Theatre-in-the-Global-South.pdf)
17. [Andrew Lloyd Webber: Haunted by the Phantom, Oxford Academic](https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/41361/chapter-abstract/352567385)
18. [Theater review: Masquerade, The Week](https://theweek.com/culture-life/theatre/masquerade-phantom-of-the-opera)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Musical works and recordings › Compositions and songs › Musical theater works › Contemporary book musicals › 1970s and 1980s musicals*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license