Inside the Final Broadway Performance of The Phantom of the Opera

Death and taxes are the only constants in life. For a while, it would not have been foolish to add a third item to that list: the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera. This morning, though, we are waking up to a New York City without the music of the night; Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart, and Richard Stilgoe’s megahit played its final performance, number 13,981, at the Majestic Theatre on Sunday, April 16.

The evening could easily have been funereal, yet the atmosphere was anything but. A red carpet stretched down 44^th Street, with current stars, alumni, and guests including Tommy Tune and Lin-Manuel Miranda lining up to take photos. Invited audience members were dressed to the nines — the suggested attire was “black tie or glamorous.” Inside the building, where commemorative programs were laid on every seat and champagne was provided at intermission, everyone happily mingled, with certain cast members seeing each other for the first time in years, if not decades.

The company, led by Emilie Kouatchou as Christine and guest performer Laird Mackintosh as the Phantom (stepping in for a vocally resting Ben Crawford), performed like their lives depended on it, but there was no air of closing, no major moments of sadness until the Final Lair sequence, when there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. A credit to the professionalism on stage and off, If you had just wandered in off the street, you might not even have known it was such a monumental occasion. Following the performance (and impromptu speeches from producer Cameron Mackintosh and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who dedicated the night to his son Nick, who passed away a few weeks ago), the buzzing crowd hoofed it across town to the Metropolitan Club for the farewell party.

Contrary to certain expectations, there were no announcements of an immediate revival (Mackintosh continued with his party line, saying that great musicals will always return), nor was there news that the theater would be renamed for director Harold Prince, who died in 2019.

Today is the first day in 35 years that there’s no original Harold Prince production running on Broadway (although he did have a creative hand in the creation of Sweeney Todd and Parade), and when the show eventually does return, it’s unlikely that it will be on the scale of the “brilliant original,” with its massive cast, orchestra, and dazzling sets and costumes by Maria Bjornson. Prince’s passing marked the end of an era, and so does the closing of Phantom. Broadway shows don’t last forever, and it’s hard not to wish that Phantom were somehow here again.

All images © Tricia Baron.