The Phantom of the Opera Closing: "He'll Always Be There, Singing Songs in My Head"

Norm Lewis in The Phantom of the Opera in 2014. (Matthew Murphy)

by Aaron Netsky, Guest Editorial

@AaronNetsky on Twitter, @aaron_netsky on Instagram

That a production could open on Broadway on the eve of my first birthday and hang around long enough for me to become obsessed with it as a teenager, dive into the history and characters in college, and see it twice on Broadway after moving to New York City to pursue the career trajectory it started me on, almost makes one tempted to believe in destiny, but if destiny were a thing, surely there would have been a way forward for Christine and the Phantom.

I have long joked that the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera was Andrew Lloyd Webber and Michael Crawford’s birthday present to me, and though I lived in complete ignorance of it for twelve years, finding out that we do, sort of, share a birthday and are, essentially, the same age, years after I first fell in love with the songs has, in its way, haunted me. It’s a mere accident of timing, but so is everything, and that never stops people from making meaning. And yet, the news that it will close next winter, a few weeks after our birthdays (my 36th, its 35th), is not the devastating blow to my identity that it might have been.

In a way, OnStage Blog helped me prepare for this moment back in 2015. One of the first things I wrote for this site was titled “Help Me Remake The Music of the Night.” It was about how, while it’s really cool that a production like Phantom could just keep going and going and going indefinitely, a monumental feat of cultural strength, that kind of accomplishment does stifle it somewhat in terms of its creative life. Other classic musicals are reimagined and revived on Broadway every fifteen years or so (like its 1988 Tony rival, Into the Woods, currently enjoying its own second reimagining/revival right across the street from Phantom).

In my piece, I wondered what kind of pared-down revival Phantom could get if it ever closed. “Ivo van Hove’s Production of The Phantom of the Opera” was not, at the time, one of the possibilities I was considering, but you got goosebumps, right? Speaking of Goosebumps, shortly before I was introduced to the musical in the late-90s, when I was a youthful ten years old, two 90s icons, R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps book series, and PBS’s Wishbone, introduced me to the story. But would either of those children-aimed entertainments have done their versions of Phantom if not for the popularity of the musical? 

Now, it will get that chance, to be reconceived and have new life breathed into it in a way replacement casts can’t quite do. Maybe it will pull a Les Mis and pop up three years after closing, in 2026, just in time for the 40th anniversary of the West End production. Maybe it will take decades, and the person destined to bring it back is too young, at the time of this writing, to even know of its existence. I can wait. I know there have been incremental changes and improvements over the years, as amateur rights have been released and stagecraft technology has improved, and the movie version has… happened, but there’s nothing like a Broadway revival to unlock the potential of a theatrical piece, as fairly recent revivals of Oklahoma!, Spring Awakening, and La Cage Aux Folles have demonstrated (to say nothing of revivals directed by Ivo van Hove). And perhaps, in between Broadway productions, someone can put their stamp on Phantom in some other medium. They’re remaking classic monster movies, with varying degrees of success, in Hollywood. I’ve got a radically new interpretation of the Opera Ghost, completely separate from the musical, if anyone’s interested.

The potential for the revival aside, Phantom really has been part of my DNA since middle school. I haven’t had a significant other who hasn’t traded lines from the musical with me (never in an unhealthy way…). From my earliest attempts to imitate Michael Crawford’s voice while walking around a grocery store to returning to the well of Phantom lore for articles written for this and other websites, it’s been a driving force in my life. I’ve seen it three times, the two performances on Broadway and one on tour. Not one of those memories is perfect. I won’t say what, but each time something went slightly wrong, and I, therefore, do not have an unblemished memory of seeing my single favorite piece of entertainment.

Whether or not I try to see it again before it closes will depend on a lot of factors, but not the pursuit of that elusive perfect memory. There’s no such thing, and among the ways in which this musical has influenced my life is teaching me that important lesson: whatever you expect to happen, life is unpredictable, even when there’s a script and a score, and you just have to accept the bad and cherish the good. I cherish each of those imperfect memories. One more wouldn’t hurt, though.

Michael Crawford as "The Phantom" and Sarah Brightman as "Christine' in Andrew Lloyd Webber's new musical "The Phantom of the Opera," directed by Harold Prince at the Majestic Theatre. (Clive Barda)

Please pardon the self-indulgence of this piece; just because the news didn’t shatter me like the mirror in all those advertisements doesn’t mean it didn’t bring up a whole lot. In my life, I’ve been the Phantom, Raoul, and Christine (hopefully not Carlotta, but past coworkers may have opinions), and yet none of them, because no real person maps perfectly onto any fictional character, though they can be helpful for processing this or that life event. I have four cast recordings, and this year, in an attempt to try something new and give the original London cast a rest, I have heard Phantom in Spanish, German, and even Canadian.

I know the score backward and forwards, and so I definitely learned some foreign words during those listens, though I also manage to find something new every time I listen to the aforementioned original. That’s one of the ways I know it’s worth loving as much as I do. Meanwhile, on the official “Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals” YouTube page, you can listen to recordings of the Japanese, Korean, Mexican, Swedish, Polish, and Hungarian casts. But how to pick? It might be best to go with the Global Edition, which has tracks from each of those and more.

Far from imagining a gaping, half-mask-shaped hole in the world, I’m looking ahead and picturing a midtown Manhattan that hardly notices that the ghost has disappeared. I always look down 44th Street when I’m passing by, sometimes I even go out of my way to pass by, but everything is so big and busy and noisy that I can easily imagine the Majestic Theatre getting a new marquee and all but the most devoted fans forgetting the precise location where Phantom lived for 35 years without looking at whatever plaque is put on the wall of the theatre or the sidewalk in front of the door. Like The Phantom of the Opera itself, the idea of the Majestic playing house to another show has a particular effect on me, because thirty years before the Phantom moved in, my great-uncle’s Ethel Merman musical, Happy Hunting, played there, another coincidence that deepened my connection to the music of the night.

From what I understand, Happy Hunting closing was not nearly as big a deal as Phantom closing and much more desirable for all involved, and of course, many shows have opened and closed at the Majestic since then. It’s not for petty reasons, wanting my favorite show to forever reign supreme, that I hope Wicked, Chicago, Hamilton, and The Lion King fail to break Phantom’s record. I hope they fail to break it so that more new shows can have their shot on Broadway. If every show ran for 35 years, there would be many a Broadway season with nothing new. I understand the value of a long run, but I also love this art form, and being able to say goodbye to a thing you love so that necessary progress can be made is more a part of live performance than of books or albums, or movies. 

Phantom apparently hasn’t been able to make enough money to sustain itself on Broadway in the year since it reopened, but it was doing just fine for the 32 years before a disaster beyond its imagination occurred and shut it (and everything else) down, so it will still take its final bow in triumph, a legend Gaston Leroux could not possibly have predicted when he wrote the original story in 1909. 

“Take the boat, leave me here, go now, don’t wait…”

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Aaron Netsky is a singer, writer, actor, and all-around theatre professional who has worked off and off-off Broadway and has had writing published on AtlasObscura.com, TheHumanist.com, and StageLightMagazine.com, as well as his own blog, Cantonaut. His debut novel, "Cupid Takes a Holiday," is available on Amazon, where you will soon be able to find his collection of Christmas stories, "Mostly Santa."