"Love Never Dies" -- Why I Won't Be Seeing It

As I'm sure most Phantom fans reading this are aware, Andrew Lloyd Webber will soon be debuting a sequel to his musical version of The Phantom of the Opera, called Love Never Dies. The London premiere will be on March 9th, and a Broadway premiere is expected to follow, scheduled to begin on November 11th. While some Phantom Phans seem ambivalent or supportive of this sequel, it looks like the vast majority of die-hards are horrified by the idea. In this case, I stand with the latter group.

This is not to say that I think ALW has no right to do the sequel -- certainly, he wrote his original version and still holds the copyright over it, and he can do with it whatever he wishes. Plus, I'd be a bit of a hypocrite if I claimed he had no right to make a sequel since I've always been a steadfast supporter of the First Amendment right to free speech (not to mention that I myself have had some pretty crazy ideas for creative projects).

But at the same time, we the fans (and Phans) have rights too. We have the right to decide for ourselves whether or not this sequel is something we want to spend our hard-earned money on, and we also have the right to voice our opinions on this show whether we are supportive or opposed to it. Here are some of the major reasons why I don't plan to buy the cast album, let alone trek to London or New York to see it live:


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1) I think LND ruins the character of the Phantom.

Unless the rumors, leaked plot spoilers, and ALW's own publicity clips were all false, this sequel will involve the Phantom (who has miraculously grown about fifteen years younger than he was in the original) continuing to pursue Christine, despite the fact that at the end of the first one, he let her go of his own free will. That original ending says to me that he has finally learned the true meaning of love; that he's willing to sacrifice himself and forego his own desires so that Christine can be free to go with the man she truly loves. This sequel, however, seems to be saying that the Phantom hasn't really changed and that his moment of self-sacrifice was just a fluke, after which he resumed his stalker-ish ways and followed Christine all the way across the Atlantic. (And all this time, I thought she and Raoul were headed up to Norway!)

Another problem I have with the Phantom in this version is that apparently, he raped Christine at some point. Yes, folks, despite the fact that in the original, he said he was denied "the joys of the flesh" (not to mention that in Leroux's novel, Christine says Erik could've done anything he wanted to her but didn't), the sequel features Christine having a son named Gustave who is musically talented and (surprise, surprise) has the Phantom as his biological father. (Or would that be "Phather?") Seriously, WTF? And let's not even get into the question of why the Phantom would start a freak show on Coney Island despite his bad experiences with such fairs as a child.


2) LND doesn't seem to be doing Raoul, Madame Giry, or Meg any favors either.

As far as rumors (and apparent confirmation from the preview tracks that were once available on Amazon.com) seem to let on, Raoul has somehow turned from a sweet, romantic aristocrat who was willing to give his life for Christine into an alcoholic, abusive boor of a husband who can't stand Christine's singing. Okay, I know marriage often does strange things to people, but where the hell did this come from?

As if that's not bad enough, our dear Meg Giry seems to have taken quite a big step down in terms of her career -- though she started out as a promising talent in the corps de ballet of a prestigious opera house, she is now an "Ooh-La-La Girl" at the Phantom's little freak show on Coney Island. And she and her mother apparently become the antagonists of the story, with Madame Giry attempting to set the Phantom up with her daughter. Well, that should put an end to the rather odd rumors that the Phantom was Meg's father, at any rate. Unless . . . *shifty eyes, followed quickly by a horrified shudder*


3) I wasn't impressed by the music I've heard thus far from LND -- in fact, quite the opposite.

"'Til I Hear You Sing" is a pretty tune, certainly . . . but in my view, it doesn't sound remotely Phantom-like. It sounds more like a melody Alan Menken might've considered at one point for a Disney film, before scrapping it in favor of a better tune. Glenn Slater's trite lyrics, though, are the song's biggest weakness; I don't think a first-time listener should be able to figure out every single rhyme before the singer even gets to it! And in the end, the song doesn't really say anything -- the Phantom wants to hear Christine sing again, but so what? The lyrics Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe wrote for the original, while somewhat flawed, still provided much greater insight into the Phantom's tormented soul.

"The Coney Island Waltz" is atmospheric, but to anyone familiar with Andrew Lloyd Webber's other work, it may feel like déjà vu all over again. A casual listen reminded me strongly of the "fairground" scene from the 2004 POTO film, not to mention melodies from Sunset Boulevard, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, and The Woman in White that had all been strung together.

Speaking of recycling melodies . . . well, the title song of the show is completely recycled from a previous tune (which, in turn, was recycled itself)! The tune in question started out as "The Heart is Slow to Learn" (with lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton), and was reportedly intended all along to be used for a sequel to POTO. It was later picked up for use as "Our Kind of Love" in ALW's noted flop The Beautiful Game (lyrics by Ben Elton, who also helped ALW in figuring out the plot of this sequel). Now the song is "Love Never Dies," and you can see Christine actress Sierra Boggess singing it at the South Bank Show Awards. My 2¢? Sierra deserves much better material.

Now, I don't really have a problem with ALW recycling a song -- lots of other composers I admire have done it, including Jim Steinman and Cole Porter (who even kept the lyrics the same when he repurposed a bunch of his songs for Anything Goes). Still, it bugs me when people blast composers like Frank Wildhorn for reusing bits and pieces of melodies in different shows but have no qualms about ALW or other composers repackaging and reusing an entire song.


4) Like most Phans, I despised Frederick Forsyth's novel The Phantom of Manhattan, on which LND will apparently be primarily based.

ALW has insisted that his musical will be very different from Forsyth's (deservedly) much-maligned book which openly insulted Gaston Leroux's original story. All we've heard about the musical's plot, however, seem to indicate that it will be quite similar to POM in most fundamental ways; the Phantom goes to New York and sets up camp on Coney Island to try to win Christine again, Raoul is a jerk, Christine has Erik's son . . . Overall, not a lot of difference to me. In fact, some who heard the clips on Amazon before they were taken down say the changes to the Girys in the musical would, if anything, make this story even worse than Forsyth's novel. If that ends up being true . . . well, I can honestly say I didn't see that coming.


5) Andrew Lloyd Webber seemed to be working on much more interesting fare prior to the news that he was doing LND.

Ever read The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov? I just found myself a copy a few months ago after hearing that ALW was planning to write an opera -- not a musical, an opera -- based on it before focusing his attention on the Phantom sequel once again. After I read the novel, I thought to myself, "This would be so much better than even a relatively good sequel to POTO."

There were also other POTO-related projects ALW mentioned that I think would have turned out better than LND -- among them, a proposed concert version similar to the ones that the producers of Les Misérables and other shows have done. (Despite my opposition to his stated desire to cast Josh Groban as the Phantom in that version, I'd still have been interested in seeing how that would have turned out.) He also talked about premiering POTO in Beijing to coincide with the 2008 Summer Olympics, and even about expanding the show into a full opera and debuting it at La Scala in Milan. Not sure how the opera critics would have taken that, but I think most would agree that even if it had failed, it would have been much less of a slap in the face to the fans (and Phans) than this sequel… which brings me to my final reason for avoiding this show.


6) The higher-ups behind the sequel seem to have been pretty disrespectful to dissenting Phans.

A few weeks ago, Duncan Hook (Deputy Stage Manager of Love Never Dies) posted on his Twitter page that he thinks Phantom fans who oppose the sequel are "twats" who are "pathetic," and that all the self-proclaimed non-fans will surely "pay to see the show anyway."

After some negative backlash regarding that post, Hook tweeted that he was "not even going to bother replying to people giving [him] grief simply because [he's] working on a new (and frankly very exciting) show," and told said fans to "f*ck off." He later deleted both of those tweets, but honestly, this makes Joel Schumacher's comment about his casting in a pre-2004-film interview ("And I know the Michael Crawford fans are going to be hysterical, but maybe they should stay home then…") sound positively diplomatic by comparison.

Now, to be fair, Lord Lloyd Webber himself has also made some rather uncharitable comments about his fans and even his own previous works while trying to drum up publicity for this sequel. One popular recent example is this article from The Times Online, in which ALW calls his own original Phantom musical "the biggest load of hokum that's ever been written" and says he can't understand why it's been so popular and successful. So in other words, ALW apparently thinks that the devoted Phans (some of whom have seen the show literally hundreds of times) are idiots. And one must pose the following question to ALW: If he thinks the original is so bad, why do a sequel? (To say nothing of all the other ways he's recently capitalized on the show's popularity, including the lavish Las Vegas production, the 2004 movie, and the Phantasia album he made with his cellist brother Julian Lloyd Webber and violinist Sarah Chang.) Methinks he's keeping in mind the old saying "there's a sucker born every minute."

Some have said that this uncaring view of the Phans and the show's integrity represents a change in ALW's attitude . . . but as the classic site "The Really Useful Company vs. The Phantom Fans" shows, disregard of the Phan community has been RUG's strategy almost from the start. In all fairness, though, RUG has improved its public relations over the past couple years, most notably reaching out to Phans with the (hopefully annual) Las Vegas Phantom Fans Week, not to mention its embrace of new web-based technologies and the fact that it's no longer so strict about fans using pictures and logos from RUG-produced shows for their personal sites.

But in addition to grand gestures like Fans Week, ALW needs to remember that without the die-hard Phans, he would not be anywhere near as wealthy and famous as he is. The Phans are the reason why POTO is the longest-running show in Broadway history and one of the most successful musicals worldwide, and Webber owes us. As the real-life Christine Daaé blogged about regarding the 2004 film, he and his company need to show respect to the fans in order to earn our respect; in other words, he needs to take a leaf out of Peter Jackson's book and show some gratitude to those who have supported his shows with their time, money, and enthusiasm.

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Anyway, those are the reasons why, judging by what we know so far about Love Never Dies, I won't be flying overseas to see it onstage. I encourage everyone reading this to post their own opinions on the show, and stress that despite my opposition to what's going on, I'm not trying to dissuade people from going to see it -- everyone has the right to make up their own minds. To those of you who are looking forward to the show and plan to see it in London or New York, I hope you have a wonderful time. I mean it; musicals are an expensive hobby, and so when the curtain closes at the end of the performance you see, I hope you will have found it worthwhile.

But the supporters also need to realize that the financial issue is a big part of why many others don't plan to see it -- personally, I'm not willing to put down $100 or more for a theater ticket (not to mention additional funds for airfare, housing, and whatever else) unless I'm sure it'll be worth every penny. In the end, whether you're for or against Love Never Dies (or if you still need some more time to make up your mind), feel free to state your views, and don't let anyone tell you that your opinion is somehow "wrong" or "irrelevant."

If you'd like to know more about the show, you can view the official site or the YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter pages for it. If you believe as I do that this sequel is a horrible idea, you can join the anti-LND group "Love Should Die" on Facebook and Twitter. And again, whatever you think of this sequel (or if you take issue with any of my above points), please do comment -- I love hearing from others in the fan (and Phan) community regardless of whether we agree, and I believe that every voice should be heard.


I remain your obedient servant,
I.A.E.