Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Biggest Musicals
Streaming Free on YouTube
For a Limited Time
As lockdowns continue to keep theaters dark on Broadway and beyond, arts institutions like the National Theatre and the Metropolitan Opera have helped keep the ghost light
burning by providing filmed versions of stage shows to audiences at
home. Now composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, a veritable institution unto
himself, is pitching in as well.
The composer’s Really Useful Group, in partnership with Universal, is offering free broadcasts of the greatest Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, including such megahits as ‘Cats’ and ‘The Phantom of the Opera’.
A different Lloyd Webber musical streams each week on The Shows Must Go On!,
a new YouTube channel devoted to this project.
Each show goes live on
the channel on Friday at 7pm BST (2pm EDT, 4am AEST), and usually
remains viewable for 48 hours afterward.
In addition to full-length videos, the channel streams clips and
behind-the-scenes footage. (Lloyd Webber has already shared several
individual songs, performed by himself at his piano, in sweet videos on
his Instagram and Facebook accounts.) Links to charitable organizations are provided.
Two musicals in the series were announced initially, and the rest are being unveiled gradually.
Here is what's up next:
Friday April 17:
‘The Phantom of the Opera’
This is Andrew Lloyd Webber's greatest hit of them all: a timeless
tale of candlelit romance between a pretty young singer and the
mask-wearing serial killer who has been stalking her from his
subterranean lair beneath a 19th-century Parisian opera house.
The
libretto, adapted from Gaston Leroux's novel, is by Charles Hart,
Richard Stilgoe and Lloyd Webber. If you're like about 130 million other
people on the planet, there's a good chance you have seen 'Phantom' already - it
is by far the longest-running show in Broadway history, and has grossed
more than $6 billion worldwide—but this performance differs from Harold
Prince's classic original staging.
To mark the musical's 25th anniversary in 2011, Laurence Connor
directed a deluxe new staging of the show at London's grand Royal Albert
Hall, produced by Cameron Mackintosh, with some 200 performers in the
cast and orchestra. Footage from all three performances were edited
together to create this film record, which was later shown in cinemas.
The lovely Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess, who had portrayed the
Phantom and Christine in Lloyd Webber's ill-fated 'POTO' sequel 'Love Never Dies'
a year earlier, reunite to play the OG (Opera Ghost) versions in this
production, with good support from Hadley Fraser as the uninteresting
love interest Raoul and Wendy Ferguson as the demanding diva Carlotta.
Be sure to keep watching after the bows: In a lengthy encore, the show's
original West End and Broadway stars, Michael Crawford and Sarah
Brightman, take the stage to sing their signature numbers.
In a departure from The Shows Must Go On!'s usual practice, the
stream will be viewable for only 24 hours in the UK and Ireland, but for
the usual full 48 hours everywhere else.
‘The Phantom of the Opera’ is available on YouTube starting Friday April 17 at 7pm BST (2pm EDT, 4am AEST).
👇 ♪ 📽 ♪ 👇
Watch it here: https://youtu.be/nINQjT7Zr9w
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