‘Phantom’ sequel to debut in ’10
LONDON — The Phantom of the Opera is coming back — but this time, he will haunt the amusement park at New York’s Coney Island.
Star composer Andrew Lloyd Webber announced Thursday a long-awaited sequel to his massively successful “The Phantom of the Opera,” one of the world’s best-loved and longest- running musicals.
“There’s unfinished business,” Lloyd Webber told journalists assembled for a teaser— a new song featuring the titular Phantom, played by Iranianborn Canadian Ramin Karimloo, and his love interest, Christine, played by American actress Sierra Boggess.
“I don’t regard this as a sequel; it’s a stand-alone piece,” Lloyd Webber said.
The new musical, called “Love Never Dies,” is due to open in March in London. It will be staged in New York, beginning in November 2010, and will open in Australia in 2011.
In the musical, which picks up a decade after the original’s conclusion, the Phantom trades his customary hideout beneath the Paris opera house for Coney Island, the iconic Brooklyn amusement park known for its roller coasters and “Nathan’s Famous” hot dogs.
Lloyd Webber said he wanted to produce a sequel because the original’s ending — Christine leave the brooding Phantom for his rival, Raoul — was unsatisfactory.
“Christine goes off with this boring guy; the Phantom disappears,” Lloyd Webber said. He said he wanted to set the piece at Coney Island because, at its turn-of-the-century heyday, it was “the eighth wonder of the world.”
“Think of Vegas and then triple it,” he said.
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