He said he’s doing one-third of his business now in Asia, a market that didn’t exist a decade ago. But we’ve been able to reimagine them for a whole new audience.”īut then, said Mackintosh, musical theater is more popular than ever, especially among younger audiences, which was not the case when he was growing up and working as a stage manager in his teens. “I never believed almost 30 years into these shows that they would still have power. Mackintosh is also remounting “Les Miserables” and “Miss Saigon,” which is about to open in London. At this point the show is booked in the United States for at least two or three years, he said. Mackintosh said this new production has been in the works for the past seven years, on and off. His name has been associated with the show ever since. The show, as most everyone knows, concerns a beautiful soprano named Christine Daae, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious, disfigured musical genius who haunts the Paris Opera.Īnd Mackintosh was in on the project from the beginning, starting in 1984, when Lloyd Webber brought to him the idea of creating a musical from Gaston Leroux’s early 20th-century novel. But this new show has gotten the best notices “Phantom” has ever had, said Mackintosh.Īndrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom, which debuted in 1986, is the longest running show in Broadway history, hands down, earning more than $5.6 billion worldwide.
Of course, the original “Phantom” is still going strong, celebrating its 27th birthday in London’s West End, and a quarter-century on Broadway.
And contrary to rumors that the cascading chandelier has been scrapped, it’s still there and is “even more real and far different.”Īnd that has translated into sold-out houses in England, where this new version of “Phantom” was on tour for 15 months.
The second act no longer opens on the staircase, but in the hall of mirrors. “Audiences should say, ‘Wow, that’s not what I expected.’ ” He said he didn’t want to give away secrets, but the walls seem to move. “It’s as grand as the original, with even more of it.”Īlthough the opening of the show has not been changed, the descent into the phantom’s lair in the bowels of the Paris Opera is no longer set in a black box, but more a labyrinth of passageways, said Mackintosh from his home in England’s West Country. “The show is completely reimagined,” said Mackintosh, one of the most successful theatrical producers in the world. But he did say on the phone the other day that it’s a “darker, grittier” staging of the popular musical. Sir Cameron Mackintosh is pretty tight-lipped about his new reimagined “The Phantom of the Opera,” which opens its North American tour Wednesday at the Providence Performing Arts Center.
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