Two news on 'Phantom of the Opera' sequel "Love Never Dies"

'Phantom of the Opera' sequel gets mixed reviews

LONDON (AFP) - – Andrew Lloyd Webber's new musical "Love Never Dies" garnered mixed first reviews Wednesday, after the world premiere of the highly-anticipated sequel to "The Phantom of the Opera."

The musical was given a standing ovation Tuesday night, but some newspaper critics voiced scepticism about Briton Lloyd-Webber's followup to his world-wide blockbuster "Phantom."

"A hit? Not quite. It is too much an also-ran to the prequel, and its opening is too stodgy," wrote the Daily Mail's reviewer, adding that the show "lacks human connection."

The Guardian awarded the show three out of five stars, saying: "What the show lacks, in a nutshell, is a narrative tension," while praising the costumes as "a glorious pastiche of burlesque tackiness."

The new show, which opened at London's Adelphi Theatre, is set in New York a decade after the end of the original musical.

In the Times reviewer Benedict Nightingale said the modern Phantom, played by Ramin Karimloo, lacks emotion, having "clearly taken an anger management course since landing in New York."

"So where's the tension...? That's not helped by a narrative that might have been part-written by Ibsens ghost, theres so much earnest poring over the past," he added.

An online debate also started on social networking site Facebook, where Lloyd-Webber devotees set up a group called "Love Should Die" to voice their disappointment.

Its mission statement called the show a "misguided venture" which fails to do live up to its world-beating predecessor.

The original has been seen by 100 million people worldwide and been performed in 15 languages. The sequel comes almost a quarter of a century after the first Phantom, which also received negative reviews on the opening night.

 

Phantom sequel a "shadow of the original"

By Mike Collett-White and Nickie Omer

LONDON - Comparisons with the original were inevitable when Andrew Lloyd Webber decided to write a sequel to his record-breaking musical "Phantom of the Opera."

After Tuesday night's world premiere at the Adelphi Theater in London's West End, the consensus among critics was that "Love Never Dies" was a mere shadow of the show seen by more than 100 million people around the world since 1986.

The new musical continues the story of The Phantom, who has left his lair at the Paris Opera House and, 10 years later, is haunting the fairgrounds of New York's Coney Island.

Not all reviews were bad, but several prominent critics savaged the sequel, including the New York Times' Ben Brantley who called it a "poor sap of a show feels as eager to be walloped as a clown in a carnival dunking booth."

Brantley was not alone in questioning the storyline, which reviewers said was implausible and confusing.

Four people are credited with the book -- Lloyd Webber himself, theatrical writer Glenn Slater, novelist Frederick Forsyth and comedian Ben Elton.

"If you don't know the first Phantom, you will be very confused; if you do know the first Phantom, you will also be very confused," wrote Brantley.

Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail was less dismissive of Love Never Dies, but concluded:

"So: a hit? Not quite. It is too much an also-ran to the prequel and its opening is too stodgy. But if it is a miss, it is ... a noble miss, noble because Lloyd Webber's increasingly operatic music tries to lift us to a higher plane."

The Times' Benedict Nightingale also said Love Never Dies suffered in comparison to Phantom, which is still playing at Her Majesty's Theater in London 24 years after its opening.

"Where's the menace, the horror, the psychological darkness? For that I recommend a trip to Her Majesty's, not the Adelphi."

"SUPERBY HAUNTING MELODIES"

At the other end of the spectrum, Charles Spencer wrote in the Telegraph that it was Lloyd Webber's best show since Phantom "with a score blessed with superbly haunting melodies and a yearning romanticism that sent shivers racing down my spine."

The mixed reviews followed an internet campaign by a small number of die-hard Phantom "phans" to attack Love Never Dies even before it opened.

Some wrote to critics before the premiere to tell them what they thought, and others who had been to previews over the last two weeks expressed their views in online forums.

Lloyd Webber was dismissive of the comments, although he acknowledged that they made launching a musical in the digital age more difficult than it used to be.

"If everybody worried about those, you'd go back to the days of Cats, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera. If there had been the net then, you'd have almost given up," he told Reuters.

"I don't think one worries about that at all. It's a new phenomenon. There's only about five people writing you know."

Love Never Dies will hit Broadway in November and Australia in 2011.