The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway

The longest-running show in Broadway history, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera debuted in 1988, winning seven Tony Awards® including Best Musical. Based on Gaston Leroux’s horror novel, it tells the enticing story of the Phantom, who haunts the stage of the Paris Opera and subsequently falls in love with a beautiful young soprano. Audiences are in for a thrilling night of spectacle and romance, accompanied by Broadway’s most unforgettable score.

A haunted theater. A masked leading man. An innocent ingenue. What’s not to love? Nothing, obviously, as more than 140 million people have seen Andrew Lloyd Webber’s masterpiece in 45 countries. Get The Phantom of the Opera tickets on TodayTix.

The The Phantom of the Opera musical is the longest running show on Broadway and the most successful production, both in terms of generating profit and creating jobs, in U.S. theatrical history. The show features music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe, and a book by Webber and Stilgoe. (Just try not to leave the theatre singing “Beware, the Phantom of the Opera” or “Think of me, think of me fondly…”)

I saw ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ for the first time, and here’s why you should too

Based on the French novel by Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway won seven Tony Awards in 1988, including Best Musical and Best Director for Harold Prince. As Frank Rich wrote in his review of the musical: “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 lush and lavish sets and costumes (230, to be exact), and allow yourself to be swept away and enchanted by the music of the night at The Phantom of the Opera in New York.

What to Watch For

• The enormous replica of the Paris Opera House chandelier in The Phantom of the Opera has 6,000 beads and weighs one ton. The original version was built by five people in four weeks.
• It takes two hours to apply the Phantom’s makeup (and 30 minutes to take it off). The prosthetics are then covered by a mask, and actor who plays the role has his own custom-molded mask.
• The Phantom of the Opera musical uses 400 pounds of dry ice each performance to create the Phantom’s underground lake.
• Did you know that there are more than 150 trap doors in the production?
• It's not often that a musical receives a sequel, but The Phantom of the Opera has. It's called Love Never Dies and is set on Coney Island, where Christine and Raoul encounter the Phantom again 10 years later.
• The Phantom of the Opera tickets may be appropriate for children aged 4 and above. Children under 4 are not permitted in the theatre.