LOVE NEVER DIES
by T.E. Klunzinger
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Love Never Dies” arrived at the Wharton Center last night trailing years of baggage. After an impossibly-hyped buildup touting it as the sequel to his megahit “Phantom” the first version opened in London eight years ago to universally bad reviews. (And a few years before that, the composer’s cat deleted the entire just-completed score from his digital piano.) Later in 2010, the show was famously closed for several days to tweak songs and stage directions. Then it re-opened… and closed. It has never played Broadway, largely because investors have been scared away by the initial mushroom cloud hovering over the show.
Lloyd Webber himself seemed unsure of what the show was meant to be: a sequel to “Phantom”? Well no, not really, just a different story with the same characters. And he said he was battling prostate cancer at the time he wrote it.
The show’s fortunes improved in 2012 when it went to Australia, where it was thoroughly reworked by an Australian creative team (which, with director Simon Phillips, is credited with the current production). The reviews were much better and that version went on the road to Europe. Finally the U.S. touring production – which this is – was launched in 2017.
It’s much better than you may have heard. Set mostly in a Coney Island amusement park in 1907, the circus aspects are an opulent treat for the eye, dazzling with colors and lights galore. As well, it features a nifty rotating stage that moves the action along quite well, and a briefly-seen carriage that’s kind of a matching setpiece to the famous chandelier.
Bronson Norris Murphy sings a fine phantom, stalking the stage and swirling about. Rachel Anne Moore – a real opera singer! – frequently rises to the soprano heights that Christine deserves. It’s also fun to see Karen Mason, the original Tanya in “Mamma Mia,” blossom into full Mrs.-Danvers mode as Madame Giry.
The key new character is young Gustave, played last night by Jake Heston Miller. Not to give away a plot point, but the creepy-tingly moment for me was in the second act with the Phantom calling “Sing for me!” and it was the boy trilling the soprano line.
Some internal problems remain: the original “Phantom” was set in 1881 and this is 1907, yet it’s said to be only ten years later… because it has to be. These are all French people, so how can they just show up in New York and talk to the locals? “Til I Hear You Sing,” the best-known song from the show, jumps right in as a prologue, devoid of context and thus impact. The basic plot, with quarrelling couples in mid-life crisis, unhelpfully echoes Sondheim’s “Follies.”
While the title song used to be known as “Our Kind of Love” and was surgically removed from another Lloyd Webber show (which was a routine thing for composers to do 90 years ago), it has nevertheless been successfully repurposed as a operatic high point which provides a magical peacock moment towards the end of the second act.
OK, so it ain’t perfect. But it’s still Lloyd Webber, and his music and the orchestrations rise to the occasion more often than not. And despite my expectations, the show built to what turned out to be a truly affecting ending. It deserves to be seen – I should hope that you can.
“Love Never Dies” plays at the Wharton Center through Sunday – performance times will vary.
http://www.whartoncenter.com