Up until sixish years ago when the tour came to Dallas, I honest to God had no idea there was a legitimate sequel to Phantom. I felt a bit like a bad fan until reading up on the show and, unfortunately, found it to not hold a candle to the original. Yes, there's some really great musical moments in it (because it's Andrew Lloyd Webber) and yes, the costuming and scenery is visually stunning, but to me the story really and truly reads like a bad fanfic of someone who just couldn't let the story go.
Love Never Dies is a musical with book & music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Lloyd Webber, Ben Elton, Frederick Forsyth, & Glenn Slater. Based on the 1999 Glenn Slater novel The Phantom of Manhattan and characters originally created by Gaston Leroux, the show opened in 2010 at the West End's Adelphi Theatre, where it remained in residence until 2011, just shy of a year and a half. The original West End run was plagued with a myriad of negative reviews, claiming the show lacked the intensity of the original Phantom and tried to make up for it with flashiness on stage. While the show has not yet made its way to Broadway, the show has opened in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Japan, and Germany as well as a US Tour in 2017.
For this post, I will as usual focus on one song for each main cast member from the original West End recording. There will be honorable mentions again because it is a Lloyd Webber show, so let's get started! Warning: potential spoilers ahead.
The Phantom (Tenor)
Spotlight Song: 'Til I Hear You Sing
Honorable Mentions: Beneath a Moonless Sky; Once Upon Another Time; The Beauty Underneath; The Phantom Confronts Christine; Devil Take the Hindmost; Devil Take the Hindmost (Quartet)
Original London Cast (2010): Ramin Karimloo
The Phantom is such an iconic figure, not just in the theatre world but in pop culture as well. While he's still fairly unhinged in Love Never Dies, the character just feels off somehow, which is not the fault of the very talented Rami Karimloo but just bad writing in general. He's more mopey throughout the beginning of the show, and to me doesn't appear as an actual threat until Act II, and even when he's not the "villain" you just always expect him to be a dark, menacing presence. Act I's 'Til I Hear You Sing shows some of that melancholy, as we see ten years after the events in Paris from the original he still can't appear to let Christine go. Karimloo's vocals are stunning, but the song just feels like a less impressive Music of the Night.
Ten long years living a mere facade of life/Ten long years wasting my time on smoke and noise/In my mind, I hear melodies pure and unearthly/But I find I can't give them a voice without you/My Christine, my Christine/Lost and gone, lost and gone/The day starts, the day ends/Time crawls by, night steals in pacing the floor/The moments creep, yet I can't bear to sleep/’Til I hear you sing/And weeks pass and months pass/Seasons fly, still you don't walk through the door/And in a haze, I count the silent days/’Til I hear you sing once more
Christine Daaé (Soprano)
Spotlight Song: Beneath a Moonless Sky
Honorable Mentions: Once Upon Another Time; The Phantom Confronts Christine; Love Never Dies
Original London Cast (2010): Sierra Boggess
Christine is one of the quintessential soprano roles in musical theatre, and for good reason. No, there's no song in Love Never Dies that even comes close to Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again, but she's a part of some really lovely numbers in this show that especially show off Sierra Boggess' incredible range and talent. Christine has somewhat more of a spine in this show since she has a decade more life experience than in Phantom, but I was absolutely shook when an actual "hey remember that time we had sex" duet happened between she and the Phantom. Act I's Beneath a Moonless Sky is one of the best songs in the whole show, and to me it's the one that sounds most Phantom-like. Boggess and Karimloo sound as though their voices were made for each other, and Lloyd Webber's lyrics do a perfect job of painting a picture and setting the scene for the reunion of these two characters.
I should have known that you'd be here/I should have known it all along/This whole arrangement bears your stamp/You're in each measure of that song/How dare you try and claim me now/How dare you come invade my life/Oh, Christine, my Christine, in that time when the world thought me dead/My Christine, on that night just before you were wed/Ah, Christine, you came and found where I hid/Don't you deny that you did that long ago night/That night/Once there was a night beneath a moonless sky/Too dark to see a thing, too dark to even try/I stole to your side to tell you I must go/I couldn't see your face, but sensed you even so/And I touched you, and I felt you/And I heard those ravishing refrains/The music of your pulse, the singing in your veins/And I held you and I touched you/And embraced you and I felt you/And with every breath and every sigh/I felt no longer scared, I felt no longer shy/At last our feelings bared beneath a moonless sky
Raoul, Vicomte de Changy (Tenor)
Spotlight Song: Devil Take the Hindmost
Honorable Mentions: Why Does She Love Me?; Devil Take the Hindmost (Quartet)
Original London Cast (2010): Joseph Millson
Let me just say it real quick, Raoul's a turd. It's not super obvious in Phantom until Act II when he "gently" forces Christine to sing knowing she's terrified and in legitimate danger, but he is a real piece of work in Love Never Dies. Joseph Millson does a great job of showing that in his performance of this arrogant, aggressive man who's hiding a gambling addiction that his wife now has to solve to save their lives. Act II's Devil Take the Hindmost is probably my favorite song in the whole show; a classic Lloyd Webber duet with intense vocals and delicately intertwining lyrics and melodies that both Millson and Karimloo are singing independently of each other. It's another that feels like it would've been right at home in Phantom, with its dark, menacing tone and, to be honest, straight up pissing contest between these two men who've hated each other on sight for ten years.
Look at you, deep in debt/Stinking drunk, pitiful/Shall we two make a bet/Devil take the hindmost/Look at you, foul as sin/Hideous, horrible/Call the stakes, deal me in/Devil take the hindmost/Our Christine shall choose tonight/Is she yours or mine, let her choose/If she sings, you lose tonight, draw the line/I won't lose/You leave from here, fine, disappear, fine/And if she won’t, if I win/All your debts wiped away/Very well, let's begin/Devil take the hindmost
Madame Giry (Mezzo-Soprano/Alto)
Spotlight Song: Devil Take the Hindmost (Quartet)
Honorable Mentions: The Phantom Confronts Christine
Original London Cast (2010): Liz Robertson
If you've seen Phantom, you know Madame Giry's always had a weird mother/son or sister/brother relationship with the Phantom from the very beginning. Love Never Dies sees her patience with him finally begin to wear out as she realizes she and Meg, no matter how they saved his life and got him from Paris to New York, will ever mean as much to him as Christine does. Honestly, though she goes about it in the worst way possible and is honestly the main reason everything falls apart, I get it and (kind of) good for her for telling him off. Act II's Devil Take the Hindmost (Quartet) is another favorite of mine from the show, a reprise of the earlier duet with two more parts (Madame Giry and Gustave) helping to elevate the tension the whole theatre is feeling at this point. Liz Robertson, to me, sounds a bit young to play Madame, but her anger and bitterness are on point for a woman scorned who's on her absolute last nerve with the people she feels have betrayed she and her family.
Perhaps she won’t go on, perhaps she’ll lose her nerve/Perhaps her voice won’t serve and she will fail him now/And then my child and I will get what we deserve/Devil take the hindmost
Meg Giry (Mezzo-Soprano)
Spotlight Song: Bathing Beauty
Honorable Mentions: Why Does She Love Me?; Devil Take the Hindmost (Quartet)
Original London Cast (2010): Summer Strallen
Meg literally cracked my heart in half in this show. Going from Christine's devoted best friend and the only character in the whole cast with more than one brain cell in Phantom to the desperate, manic, deeply sad and jaded young woman broken by her mother and her mentor's negligence is honestly devastating, and the slow burn reveal of it throughout the show is one of the only good things about the plot. Summer Strallen plays this vaudevillian vixen version of her very, very well, switching between despondent to energized exactly on cue. Act II's Bathing Beauty is the most fun song in the show, with gorgeous costumes, exciting choreography, and really impressive quick changes throughout the entire number.
I took a little trip to Coney Island/To get away from all the city sprawl/I couldn't bear to choose which bathing suit to use/So goodness me, I guess I brought 'em all/But when at last, I got to Coney Island/And found myself a spot upon the sand/I noticed something strange, there was no place to change/And so I asked my friends to lend a hand/Girls/Aah-Ah/Oooh-ooh/Bathing Beauty, take a look at you/Bathing beauty, on the beach, bathing beauty, say,"Hello"/What a cutie, what a peach, bathing beauty, watch her go/Posing under her parasol, she is whatcha call a real spectacle/Prim and Proper with class and poise, but she's got the boys at the plaque to call
Miss Fleck, Mr. Squelch, & Dr. Gangle (Soprano, Tenor, & Baritone/Bass)
Spotlight Song: Arrival of the Trio: Are You Ready to Begin...?
Honorable Mentions: Beautiful
Original London Cast (2010): Niamh Perry, Adam Pearce, & Jami Reid-Quarrell
Fleck, Squelch, and Gangle don't have the hugest part in the show other than to serve as the Phantom's henchmen. They're always kind of hovering in the background, being appropriately creepy and being the Phantom's eyes and ears, which does admittedly come in handy when Fleck sees Meg kidnap Gustave and they're able to get to him before she can physically hurt him. Niamh Perry, Adam Pearce, and Jami Reid-Quarrell all three have good, strong voices that are appropriately laced with mystique to cloak these characters in a little bit of extra darkness so you never quite know who's side they're on. Act I's Arrival of the Trio: Are You Ready to Begin would be better without Raoul being an enormous asshole in the background, but it definitely sets the scene as we prepare to dive into the world the Phantom has created on Coney Island.
Are you ready to begin, are you ready to get on/You’re about to start out on the journey of your lives/If you’re ready, then get in, once you’re in, then we’ll get gone/And who knows once it goes where you’ll be when it arrives
Gustave (Treble/Boy Soprano)
Spotlight Song: Beautiful
Honorable Mentions: The Beauty Underneath; Devil Take the Hindmost (Quartet)
Original London Cast (2010): Charlie Manton (recording)
Gustave is introduced as the ten-year-old son of Christine and Raoul, but it doesn't take long for all for the audience to figure out the twist that the Phantom is actually his father. From Raoul's obvious discomfort around Gustave's "differences" (being a creative was often deemed eccentric back then, and still can be even today) to the fact that he has not only Christine's vocal talent but the Phantom's gift of visionary composition as well, the big reveal honestly feels spoiled really early on because it's a big giant duh. There were seven young actors involved in the original London run of Love Never Dies, with Charlie Manton having the honor of recording the cast album. Act I's Beautiful is clearly trying to be this show's Angel of Music, and while it does have a beautiful melody and great vocals from Manton and Karimloo, it still falls somewhat flat of the original inspiration.
I think it’s beautiful/Hear how each note seems to float/Hear how they all die and fall/Just like the night/It’s beautiful/So very beautiful/Music that comes uncontrolled/Haunting and lovely and bold
I think this musical is worth giving a shot if you're a Phantom fan, but just go into listening to it being prepared that it might not be your cup of tea. Happy listening, and see ya'll next week!
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