Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical version of The Phantom of the Opera is one of the most successful pieces of entertainment of all time, produced in any media, and its success is continuing all over the world.

      • Played to over 140 million people in 33 countries in 166 cities around the world with an estimated gross of $6 billion
      • The countries are England, United States of America, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, Eire, Austria, Sweden, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Scotland, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Hungary, Poland, Wales, Estonia, Russia, Singapore, Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Philippines, China, Czech Republic, Thailand, Turkey and Finland
      • The box office revenues are higher than any film or stage play in history, including Titanic, ET, Star Wars and Avatar.
      • Played for almost 30 years and over 12,000 performances at Her Majesty’s Theatre, London
      • Played in 15 different languages: English, French, German, Japanese, Danish, Polish, Swedish, Castilian, Hungarian, Dutch, Korean, Portuguese, Mexican Spanish, Estonian and Russian
      • Won over 70 major theatre awards including 3 Olivier Awards, an Evening Standard Award, 7 Tony Awards including Best Musical, 7 Drama Desk Awards and 5 Outer Critic Circle Awards.
      • The original cast recording was the first in British musical history to enter the charts at number one. Album sales now exceed 40 million
      • On 9 January 2006 the New York production overtook Cats to become the longest-running show in Broadway history with its 7,486th On 7 July 2014 it celebrated its 11,000th performance on Broadway.

Technical Facts about the Original Production

      • The dazzling replica of the Paris Opera House chandelier is made up of 6,000 beads consisting of 35 beads to each string. It is 3 metres wide and weighs one ton. The touring version falls at 2.5 metres per second. The original version was built by 5 people in 4 weeks.
      • The Phantom’s make-up takes 2 hours to put on and 30 minutes to take off. The face is moisturised, closely shaved and the prosthetics are fitted, setting immediately, before 2 wigs, 2 radio microphones and 2 contact lenses (one white and one clouded) are placed.
      • 2,230 metres of fabric are used for the drapes, 900 of them specially dyed. The tasselled fringes measure 226 metres. They are made up of 250 kilos of dyed wool interwoven with 5,000 wooden beads imported from India. Each one is handmade and combed through with an Afro comb.
      • There are 130 cast, crew and orchestra members directly involved in each performance.
      • Each performance has 230 costumes, 14 dressers, 120 automated cues, 22 scene changes, 281 candles and uses 250 kg of dry ice and 10 fog and smoke machines.

 

Her Majesty’s Theatre London