The musical “Phantom of the Opera” in New York will be discontinued in February – after 35 years. No play can be seen on Broadway longer. It will be performed for the last time on February 18, 2023, said the industry website broadway.com. 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, and almost 20 million people visited the musical in New York alone. Also the New York Times reports the end. Accordingly, the box office results of the show had recently decreased. After the end of the pandemic restrictions, “The 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 that ended on September 11th, about 867,000 euros were recorded. This income is not high enough to keep a musical with a large cast and elaborate stage design going. According to the Broadway League, the Broadway musical grossed a total of 1.3 billion dollars, it is a tourist magnet and an integral part of the stage landscape on New York’s Broadway.
Noisy New York Times the musical can continue to be seen elsewhere: the London production was 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 it premiered in London in 1986, the play has reportedly 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.