Word: phantomed
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Photos of the 20-year-old Lloyd Webber from the time of Superstar show an awkward, long-haired youth blinking uncomfortably in the spotlight of fame -- the phantom of his own opera. Now, in Britain at least, he is the most prominent musical figure since the Beatles, a fixture on TV talk shows who is fussed over and clutched at whenever he walks down a street or sits in a restaurant. During his partnership with Rice, Lloyd Webber was content to let his more outgoing, voluble associate front for the pair. "Tim was a natural performer," remembers Lloyd Webber...
...office appeal. "In the end," he insists, "it comes down to the quality of what you give them in the theater." So it does. And on that basis the canniest show composer of our time has long since confirmed his standing. But the sure-to-be-smash opening of Phantom will doubtless confirm something else too. The awkward London youth has grown up, conquered Broadway and become what he once only envisioned: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Superstar...
When Lloyd Webber's latest show, The Phantom of the Opera, opens on Broadway the week after next, he will have three hits playing simultaneously in both London and New York City. It is only the second time a composer has ever pulled off such a double hat trick. The first was in 1983, and, of course, it was Lloyd Webber who did it. In New York, Evita ran for almost four years; Cats is still selling out five years after its opening...
...comes Phantom. Rarely has a show been so eagerly anticipated, and never has one enjoyed such a box-office buildup. Opening Jan. 26, it has already taken in an unprecedented $16 million in advance sales, $4 million more than the previous record holder, Les Miserables. On the day the Majestic Theater box office opened in November, buyers -- many of whom had queued up in the cold overnight -- snapped up $920,271 worth of tickets, easily breaking the one-day record of $477,275 set by Les Miz. As in London, where Phantom is the theatrical event of the season, seeing...
...keep tabs on his burgeoning realm, Lloyd Webber is a man in almost perpetual motion. During the year between the London and New York openings of Phantom, he has circled the globe in his leased Hawker Siddeley 125 jet, making arrangements for new productions and spot-checking the quality level of old ones. "I have been all over the world until I hardly know what time of day it is," he says. It doesn't matter: the sun never sets on this new British empire...