Soon the family is settled into a room with an armoire containing a full-length mirror, so we know that as soon as Christine is alone, the Phantom will materialize and the two will be reunited. When an impresario brings her to America to sing, the Phantom sends henchmen to the dock to intercept her, along with her husband, Raoul (Sean Thompson), and preteen son, Gustave (Casey Lyons at the reviewed performance). The Phantom remains as obsessed as ever with Christine (Meghan Picerno), his musical muse and protégée, now a celebrated soprano back in Paris. Assisting him are a pair familiar from the original: the ballet mistress Madame Giry (Karen Mason) and her aspiring-star daughter, Meg (Mary Michael Patterson). Still keeping mostly out of sight, the Phantom (Gardar Thor Cortes) is the mastermind behind Phantasma, a beachside show palace.
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So although 26 years should have passed, everyone remains remarkably youthful. Various characters keep referring to this as “10 long years” after the Phantom disappeared in Paris, but as any fan of the original musical can tell you, that show was set in 1881.
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The action moves to New York’s Coney Island in 1907. And the songs, though perceptively crafted, don’t vault into the realm of instant classics. Plot developments meant to be shocking are easily guessed beforehand. But the storytelling requires viewers to make leaps of logic and to reassess several beloved characters.
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The compositions are grandly written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the portrayals thrillingly well sung and the staging terrifically sumptuous. So of course we’d like to see a sequel do more of the same. The famously hypnotic Phantom and his namesake show have thrilled audiences for 30 years on Broadway and 31 1/2 on London’s West End, drawing new people to live theater and becoming embedded in our culture. Yet even if we’ve followed news reports about all of that, our curiosity overpowers our logic and we find ourselves in a seat for this touring production, expectations running high. You would think that Christine Daaé might have learned by now to avoid rooms with full-length mirrors in them, because a certain masked face is bound to materialize in the looking glass, heralding another emotionally fraught visit by the Phantom of the Opera.īut no, she stumbles into the same situation in “Love Never Dies,” a sequel to “The Phantom of the Opera”at the Hollywood Pantages, then Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Hall.Īfter a painfully protracted gestation, the musical emerged in 2010 to sharply divided reactions and a disappointingly brief London run, never making it to Broadway as intended.