The Phantom of the Opera

A haunted theatre. A masked leading man. An innocent ingenue. The music of the night has entranced more than 140 million people in 45 countries. Discover Andrew Lloyd Webber’s masterpiece, and get The Phantom of the Opera tickets on TodayTix before it closes on April 16.

Don’t miss the longest-running Broadway show in history. This thrilling Gothic romance, featuring iconic Andrew Lloyd Webber songs like “The Music of the Night” and “All I Ask of You,” won seven Tony Awards in 1988, including Best Musical and Best Director for Harold Prince.

Experience musical theatre’s most celebrated love triangle, in which the opera donor Raoul and the mysterious Phantom battle for the affections of the young soprano Christine Daaé. Plus, see iconic onstage moments like the jaw-dropping chandelier crash.

The New York Times raves, “It may be possible to have a terrible time at ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’ but you'll have to work at it.” So why work? Relish the production’s lavish sets and costumes (230, to be exact), and let the music of the night sweep you away at The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway.

If The Phantom of the Opera is there inside your mind, or on your must-see list, get The Phantom of the Opera tickets on TodayTix now.

The Phantom of the Opera features music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe, and a book by Webber and Stilgoe. Songs like the title track and “Masquerade” are now theatrical staples: Just try not to leave the theatre singing “Beware, the Phantom of the Opera” or “Think of me, think of me fondly.” Surprisingly, though, Phantom did not win the Best Book of a Musical or Best Original Score Tonys — they lost both to another musical theatre giant: Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods.

The history of The Phantom of the Opera technically stretches back to 1910, when French author Gaston Leroux published the horror novel the musical is based on. That novel also received two film adaptations, in 1925 and 1943, which also inspired the Phantom musical. Webber conceived the stage show in 1985, and the production premiered in London’s West End in 1986 after an initial reading in Sydmonton, Webber’s English hometown, in 1985.

The Phantom of the Opera opened in New York in 1988 and became Broadway’s longest-running show on January 9, 2006. The musical is also the first Broadway show in history to play 8,000 performances, 9,000 performances, and so on through 13,000.

What to Watch For

• The character of Christine was originally named Kristin. Webber wrote the role for Sarah Brightman, his then-wife and the star of the original London and Broadway productions.
• The enormous replica of the Paris Opera House chandelier in The Phantom of the Opera has 6,000 beads and weighs one ton. Five people built the original version in four weeks.
• It takes two hours to apply the Phantom’s makeup (and 30 minutes to take it off). The prosthetics are covered by a mask, and each actor who plays the role has his own custom-molded mask.
• The Phantom of the Opera uses 400 pounds of dry ice each performance to create the Phantom’s underground lake. (And did you know that the real Palais Garnier, the opera house the Phantom one is based on, actually has an underground lake?)
• There are more than 150 trap doors in the production.
• Musicals don’t receive sequels often, but The Phantom of the Opera has one. It's called Love Never Dies and is set on Coney Island, where Christine and Raoul encounter the Phantom again 10 years later.
• Alan Jay Lerner, of Lerner and Loewe, was originally set to write the lyrics for Phantom, but he dropped out due to illness. Though uncredited now, he wrote much of the song “Masquerade.”