Love Never Dies

Love Never Dies is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Glenn Slater and later Charles Hart, and book by Lloyd Webber, Slater and Ben Elton. It is a sequel to the Lloyd Webber musical The Phantom of the Opera. The plot is not based on the story-line in the original book by Gaston Leroux, and Lloyd Webber stated, "I don't regard this as a sequel – it's a stand-alone piece". Though he later went on say that, "clearly, it is a sequel, but I really do not believe that you have to have seen Phantom of the Opera to understand Love Never Dies". The musical is set in 1907,[3] which Lloyd Webber states is, "ten years roughly after the end of the original Phantom,"[4] although the events of the original actually took place in 1881. Christine Daaé is invited to perform at Phantasma, a new attraction in Coney Island, by an anonymous impresario and, with her husband Raoul and son Gustave in tow, journeys to Brooklyn, unaware that it is the Phantom who has arranged her appearance in the popular beach resort. Although Lloyd Webber began working on Love Never Dies in 1990, it was not until 2007 that he began writing the music. The musical opened at the Adelphi Theatre in the West End on 9 March 2010 with previews from 22 February 2010. It was originally directed by Jack O'Brien and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, however the show closed for four days in November 2010 for substantial re-writes, which were overseen by Lloyd Webber, and opened with new direction from Bill Kenwright. Set and costume designs were by Bob Crowley. The musical received extremely mixed reviews. The planned Broadway production, which was to have opened simultaneously, has been indefinitely postponed, due to the premature closure of the London production.