Love Never Dies [Cast Recording]

Andrew Lloyd Webber | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 9, 2010)
• Original Release Date: 2010
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Cast Recording
• Label: Decca
• ASIN: B002S0OBMS
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #3,772 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

From the Artist

"Love Never Dies" Question and Answer with Andrew Lloyd Webber

Tell us about the story of "Love Never Dies" I have to be careful about what I say about this story because it has so many twists and I don‟t want to give it away. But, what I can say is it‟s set in America 10 years roughly after the original "Phantom" and is set in Coney Island. Coney Island is a fantastic place - Sigmund Freud once described it as the "only reason to go to the United States.‟ It was beyond anything that anybody had ever seen - the great eighth wonder of the world and it was the place where all the freaks and oddities went and of course the "Phantom‟ could be absorbed in there. Now, our story finds him 10 years afterwards and he‟s gone to Coney Island. He‟s gone with Madame Gieru, his old friend, he‟s gone with Meg, her daughter, and he‟s now the big mogul of Coney and is now running the whole place and that‟s where our story starts.

Why did you decide to follow "The Phantom of the Opera" and why now? I‟ve often thought that we left the original "Phantom" with a little bit of a cliff hanger and I thought, well, why not to do a sequel to it at one point. It took a very long time coming. I mean quite frankly, I thought about it 15 years ago, perhaps a little bit more. At that time I‟d come up with the idea about the "Phantom‟ going to America and I talked about it with Freddy Forsyth, the novelist who obviously wrote things like "The Day of the Jackal‟ - a very very successful and fine writer. We talked about it and we came up with a plot which he subsequently published as a little book called "The Phantom of Manhattan‟ but it just simply didn‟t gel for me and I couldn‟t find a way through it and it was left alone. The only one thing that I took away from the book would be this time the "Phantom‟ would live above everything and he shouldn‟t live below like he did underneath the opera house. So, I abandoned it frankly and I forgot about it. But, about three years ago I thought about it and came back and I thought "you know, there is the germ of an idea here‟ and I worked on it again with a couple of writers and again it didn‟t happen. But, I then worked with Ben Elton on a project and Ben who is a very very clever story teller said "you know what - this whole thing is really all cuckoo - you‟ve got a fantastic basis this idea of him going to America, the idea of him perhaps going to Coney Island, it‟s wonderful but you‟re not developing all of the original characters, you‟re not taking them with you, you‟re putting in new characters and I‟m going to do a plot which comes up with the original characters transported.‟ So, we have all of the five: "Raoul‟ and "Christine‟, "Meg‟, "Madam Giry‟ and "The Phantom.‟ They all appear in our piece and there‟s only one new character who‟s a 10-year old child of Christine and Raoul‟s called Gustave and that‟s what we came up with. Now, I‟m not going to give the story away but Ben unlocked it. I‟m very story driven and anybody who writes for musical theatre has to be very story driven and I couldn‟t write it when the story wasn‟t right. But the moment I had this outline, which was about just over 18 months ago, I was away and so the first thought was "who‟d be a really great lyricist for this?‟ Everyone had been telling me about Glenn Slater, who wrote the notes for the "Little Mermaid" and who‟s written "Sister Act" now, and we clicked immediately so we got started.

Tell us about the two leads you have cast Our lead is the present "Phantom‟ in London who‟s been playing it for a long time and has been a really popular and very sexy "Phantom,‟ I have to say, called Ramin Karimloo and he‟s just great. We‟ve just finished the recording of the complete album and it‟s all done now, unusually for a show. Our other principal, Sierra Boggess, who played the "Little Mermaid‟ in New York, I‟ve known for a while. She also played Christine as a young girl - well, she‟s very young now - but she was only 21 when she played "Christine‟ in Vegas for me in the Las Vegas version of "Phantom." She‟s a terrific actress and having just now recorded the whole thing and finished it I know they are an incredible fit. The passion that there is between the two of them, it‟s almost unbearable at sometimes -- it‟s so strong.

How will "Love Never Dies" roll out internationally? Originally we thought that we‟d roll out "Love Never Dies" internationally very quickly and in fact we thought about doing three production at the same time. We drew back from that because I wasn‟t absolutely certain that we could cast it sufficiently well immediately like that. I thought that we must get the initial cast completely right which is why we‟ve got this unique thing of an album already recorded which contains our original cast and I don‟t think that‟s ever been done before. We are going to open in London in March, then in New York in November. All the plans now are pretty advanced for certainly the Far East, Canada is way on slate already and we hope that it will roll out around the world rather quicker than usual. But, it all depends on the cast.

Are you more excited or nervous about how "Love Never Dies" will be received? Well, of course I‟m nervous - I‟m following up my own biggest success and there‟s no question about it. I mean "The Phantom of the Opera," really, is the biggest thing I‟ve ever done - even bigger than "Cats‟ which in itself I never thought we‟d top it. This is a piece I‟m very proud of I have to say. I think it‟s maybe more three-dimensional in terms of the characterization than the original piece was which really is a version of "Beauty and the Beast" with a bit of a twist. But, this one really does develop the characters in a way that I didn‟t have the opportunity to do in the old one and therefore it was a very exciting thing for me to write musically. So, yes, of course I‟m nervous about it but I‟m very proud of it and I‟m very, very much looking forward to seeing it on stage.

When you look at the phenomenon that is "The Phantom of the Opera" did you ever have any idea that it would be so successful? Well, I must say when I wrote "Cats" and "Cats" became the longest running musical on Broadway I thought I‟ll never ever succeed in getting near this one and then nobody thought "Phantom" was going to be quite what it was. I remember when it opened in London it wasn‟t the favourite of the season in the sense that it was "Chess" the musical that everyone thought would be the absolute huge one that year. We came in as the sort of slight underdog and it just took off. I mean, I remember the first preview we knew we had something which was special but we didn‟t know that we had anything that would quite do this. We didn‟t know that we were going to have people changing their name to Christen Daae by deed poll and the whole thing that went with it. I mean it was way before the internet of course and you begin to wonder when we had these fan clubs that grew up all over the world. Every single performance at one point they reviewed you begin to wonder what on Earth would have happened if the Net had been around. Anyway, yes it‟s a very tough act to follow and nobody ever thinks that the work they‟re going to do could ever be bigger than the one they do before, especially if you‟re lucky enough like I had to have such a huge thing as "Phantom" was.

What are your plans for the release of the album? Although the album is completely finished and recorded, we‟re going to issue a couple of songs from it before the show opens but I want to keep the album until the show is finally on and we know exactly what it is. But, it will be out and available I think within days of the opening which is somewhat unusual I know, but it‟s all there, all done and we‟re keeping it under wraps at the moment.

Would you like to tell us about the international creative team you have brought together for "Love Never Dies"? Well, as I said the story was unlocked by Ben Elton who did a wonderful synopsis which is the reason I‟m sitting here. Glenn Slater is my lyricist who I suppose is of the new young lyricists coming along, I mean, the most exciting I think. In fact, we‟re going to be working together again on the "Wizard of Oz‟ but that‟s another story. Our director is Jack O‟Brien, who of course is one of sort of America‟s legendary Broadway names. I was incredibly impressed by the fact that he managed to come up with "Hairspray," came up with his version of "Il trittico" by Puccini at the Metropolitan Opera House which is one of the most difficult operatic evenings to stage and Tom Stoppard‟s "The Coast of Utopia." In fact, it was through a friend of Tom Stoppard‟s that I came to him because Tom was so pleased with what he did. He‟s been fantastic joy, great fun and has been a rock in pulling it all together. We have Bob Crowley designing who is probably, I suppose, our foremost designer at the moment. One of the sadnesses about whole thing is that Maria Bjornson, who designed the original "Phantom," died very strangely and mysteriously very young only a few years ago. Of course, I did talk about the idea of the new "Phantom" with Maria but Bob was a very, very close friend of Maria‟s and in fact was a little of a mentor to her and I think, that in a way, we all feel the production is dedicated to her.

Product Description

LOVE NEVER DIES continues the story of The Phantom , who has moved from his lair in the Paris Opera House to haunt the fairgrounds of Coney Island, far across the Atlantic. Set ten years after the mysterious disappearance of The Phantom from Paris, this show is a rollercoaster ride of obsession and intrigue...in which music and memory can play cruel tricks...and The Phantom sets out to prove that, indeed, LOVE NEVER DIES .

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Phantom" sequel sails over it's rough spots, March 9, 2010

By	Byron Kolln (the corner where Broadway meets Hollywood) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Love Never Dies (Audio CD)

Twenty years after the original smash-hit "Phantom of the Opera" (which knocked "Cats" off it's scratching post in 2006 as the longest-running musical in Broadway history), Andrew Lloyd Webber has finally come through with the long-awaited sequel, LOVE NEVER DIES.

LOVE NEVER DIES picks up the story ten years after the events of the original "Phantom". Following his mysterious disappearance in the underground lair, the Phantom was quickly spirited away to America by Madame Giry and her daughter Meg; and has now established himself as the most successful, albeit mysterious, impresario of New York's bustling Coney Island fairground. For his latest venture at "Phantasma", the Phantom--using the new alias of Mr Y.--finally manages to lure his beloved opera singer Christine Daaé, her husband Raoul and their young son Gustave, to perform in America for the first time...and the scene looks set for a dramatic confrontation...

Andrew Lloyd Webber hasn't had a hit new musical in years ("The Beautiful Game" was a forgettable mess, and "The Woman in White" failed spectacularly on Broadway despite a respectable, two-year London run); so the stakes were high for Lloyd Webber to extend the story for his most successful, beloved and most personal work. Does it succeed? Well, yes and no. Ben Elton's plot (loosely adapted from Frederick Forsyth's "Phantom of Manhattan") has enraged longtime "Phans", who have denounced it as nothing more than illogical, worst case-scenario fan-fiction, the characters bear little resemblance to how they were seen or portrayed in the original "Phantom"; and the score swings, almost wildly in places, from inspired to mundane.

Despite it all, though, Andrew Lloyd Webber has beautifully furnished the world premiere cast of his LOVE NEVER DIES with two performers who have also played their roles in productions of the original "Phantom". Ramin Karimloo is a particularly romantic Phantom with a voice direct from heaven; Sierra Boggess--who most recently originated the title role in Broadway's "The Little Mermaid"--is delightful as Christine. If there is one thing that slightly worries me about Karimloo and Boggess, it is the issue of their relative youth, which definitely plays against the reality of their characters being ten years older! As such, it would have been a dream come true to see Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman back in their trademark roles, but in light of the incredibly demanding score (and indeed, Brightman's reluctance to re-enter the musical theatre scene), I understand completely why this was perhaps never even possible in the first place.

All of the characters make quite dramatic transformations in LOVE NEVER DIES, but perhaps the biggest is Raoul. Ten years after winning the hand of Christine, Raoul (played by Joseph Millson) is now an embittered, drunken mess, resentful of Christine and Gustave, still haunted by his past battles with the Phantom (and, to top it all off, suspicious of Gustave's true parentage!). A far cry from the bright-eyed lad who once professed his undying love to Christine on the Paris Opera rooftop by singing "All I Ask of You". Summer Strallen is Meg, who has given up ballet to become the Phantom's headlining "Ooh-La-La Girl"; and Sally Dexter plays the ever-mysterious Madame Giry.

The best numbers in the show are those that Andrew Lloyd Webber wisely used in the official LOVE NEVER DIES press launch, namely "The Coney Island Waltz" (an eerie melody with shades of "Sunset Boulevard" in it's opening strains), and the Phantom's soaring ballad "'Til I Hear You Sing". Raoul and the Phantom's "Devil Take the Hindmost" duet harks back to their stormy vocal tauntings in the original "Phantom" score. The title song ("Love Never Dies", sung by Christine at the climax of the second act) is merely a re-tread of a piece that ALW previously slotted into "The Beautiful Game", entitled "Our Kind of Love", but apparently it always meant for the eventual Phantom sequel, according to the composer at least. Glenn Slater's lyrics serve their purpose.

The storyline will forever shatter the romantic dreams of diehard "Phans", the score is brilliant in some places but sketchy in others, and the overall tone of the piece wildly shifts during the course of events. It's never going to achieve the same level of success or adoration as the original "Phantom", let alone threat it's position as the longest-running musical Broadway has ever seen, but it's fine footnote if nothing else.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Continuation, March 14, 2010

By	Carol Burton "Bookworm" (Lynchburg, TN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Love Never Dies (Audio CD)

"The Phantom of the Opera" is a musical that holds a special place in my heart. It was my first introduction to musical theater, so I am of course biased. Andrew Lloyd Webber has revisited his most famous musical and created an interesting sequel.

The sequel takes place ten years after the events of the first musical. The show is set in New York on Coney Island. Mr. Y, an aloof masked man, owns Phantasma, the most famous amusement park around. Mr. Y is actually "The Phantom." He has been spirited away from Paris by Madam Giry and her daughter, Meg. The Phantom engages his love, Christine Daae, to sing at a performance given at the park. He longs to hear her "sing once more." Christine comes with her husband Raoul and her ten-year-old son, Gustav. What follows is a plot of surprising revelations and a climactic and unexpected conclusion.

The cast on this album is excellent! Ramin Koomiloo has a soaring voice that brought me to tears. I would love to hear his rendition of songs from the original Phantom show. Sierra Boggis is a superb Christine. Her voice is gentle and soaring. The other cast members are equally good, particularly the boy that portrays Gustav.

So, why only 3 stars? I simply think the story is implausible. The characters are more developed in this sequel, which is a good point. However, their roles seem so reversed as to be unbelievable. I am referring particularly to the character of Raoul, who has undergone a complete turnaround. He is a vastly different man from the one who sang "All I Ask of You". However, his song, "Why Does She Love Me?" redeems him somewhat. The Phantom is now kind and none of his inegmatic and dangerous personality seems to remain. Christine is still kind, but I miss her original innocent spirit. I suppose we must all grow up. I cannot say much more without revealing crucial points of the plot, but I will say that Meg Giry is excellently developed. I love the twist that Webber incorporates with this character.

The songs on this recording are good. They do not have the memorability of the first show, but they do stand on their own. I appreciate that Webber did not merely rehash old songs, although I question why "Music of the Night" was not alluded too. I particularly enjoyed: "Only for Him," "Till I Hear You Sing," "Bathing Beauty," "Once Upon Another Time," "The Beauty Underneath," "Devil Take the Hindmost," and "Love Never Dies." I think fans of the original show will enjoy this one simply because questions will be answered, but I do not think the original will ever be surpassed. Anyway, happy listening, and God bless.

36 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Love Never Dies? It sure does., March 18, 2010

By	M. Secaur "Meredith Secaur" (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Love Never Dies (Audio CD)

First of all, I'd like to say right up front that I am a tremendous admirer of Andrew Lloyd Webber. I am not one of those people who write reviews only to bash him and denounce his life's work as unsubstanciated trash; nor am I one of those manic "Phans" who are all torch-and-pitchfork for any attempt at a sequel that comes rolling their way. I'm simply a fan of both him and his previous works who was highly disappointed.

When I first found out there was going to be a sequel to "Phantom", I hoped Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford would come back to repise their roles. After listening to this album, I am so glad they didn't. I was sorely let down by the quality of "Love Never Dies", and taking part in it would have only brought them down in my own estimation.

I had heard alternately positive and negative reviews for this show; being a big fan of the original, I was a little curious about this, though leery of the setting at Coney Island. After some deliberation, I decided to just go ahead and take a listen. My fears were justified.

Love Never Dies is a tremendous monstrosity. Set in 1907, ten years after the events of the "Phantom of the Opera"(Time discrepancy anyone? I thought the original took place in 1881. Hmm...), and set in New York; or more specifically, Coney Island, of all places; the Phantom has built himself up as an innovator for the freak-shows and attractions at the park. Calling himself Mr. Y, he devises a plan to lure Christine from Paris to sing. To make a long story short, she arrives; tragedy ensues; and the whole thing ends just as abysmally as it starts.

The plot is ridiculously kitsch and predictable. You needn't even have to see it live to know what direction it's going to take, and even then it is beyond unbearable. Even the title itself is deplorable, for SPOILER HERE: one of the principle characters is "done away with", for lack of another phrase, in a rather merciless and unnecessary manner, proving that love does indeed die (I hope I didn't give away too much). Lust never dies would be a far more fitting moniker. What should be a celebration of the strength of love and its ability to persevere through any circumstance is instead reduced to a wake, displaying in vivid color the irrevocable tragedy caused by it and the destructive effect it has upon people's lives.

As a word of note to fans of the original, I would like to point out how far removed and very different from "Phantom" this is; much too different. Andrew Lloyd Webber freely admitted that this was going to be a completely separate work, and in case it doesn't meet your expectations (it REALLY failed to meet mine), he at least met that one.

In case you're wondering, don't go looking for any continuation musically. There is no romantic lullaby like "Music of the Night" or a beautiful, longing ballad like "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again". Instead, those greats have been replaced by songs like "The Beauty Underneath", a weird, pounding, rock-stomp, or "Beneath a Moonless Sky" which left me feeling sick to my stomach. We all knew ALW was secretly bursting to include more rock in POTO. In LND he's gotten his chance; and boy, did he go all out.

Even character-wise, nothing is the same. The characters are desecrated and made largely one-dimensional, with enough problems to fill an entire season of "As the World Turns". All of the beautiful characterization that was put into the Phantom himself is done away with for LND. I never though Ramin Karimloo made a very good Phantom, and, unfortunately, it seems the revised character was written around his lackluster portrayal. The Phantom is made very uninteresting. He has no style, no grace, no nobility, and no personality. He's little more than a shadow of his former self. He's no longer a genius, but a freak-show sell-out, everything he aspired not to be in both Leroux's novel and the original play--heck, he isn't even scary!

The rest of the cast is also changed considerably. Meg (little Meg Giry!), has seriously gone to the dark side in her role as the lead "Ooh-la-la girl", a group of seriously underdressed showgirls. For supposedly being French, she comes off too brash and brassy, and not at all the sweet little member of the corps de ballet. Christine is too flat and boring, and doesn't have any of the really sweet, innocent qualities she used to that made her such a compelling character. Oh, and to top it all off, Raoul is a bitter, gambling drunkard, totally lacking in sympathy and warmth. What a group of winners. None of them are in any way appealing; there is far too much anger running through them, enough that it makes you, as the listener, uncomfortable. It really left me wondering,"What was anyone thinking?" or more probably, "Were they thinking?". And the resounding answer to that question is No.

What really tore me up emotionally was the lack of sympathy and honest devotion between the Phantom and Christine. Their first meeting, for instance, which should have been a sweet homage to their parting at the end of POTO is nothing more than a gruff confrontation, ending in a sickening duet showcasing an overabundance of bawdiness. The only touching emotional conflict in the whole show is that the Phantom hasn't written any decent music since Christine left him, and has instead produced cheap side-show jingles. A nice tribute, but it leaves me to wonder, did he write the music for LND too?

Concerning the music, Andrew Lloyd Webber has really lost his touch here. The entire score feels like it was written by someone else. Grating, disturbing, and for all intents and purposes Tim-Burton-esque, it is slow-moving and nowhere near the caliber of any of his other work. It doesn't leave you feeling uplifted, but drained and unsettled instead. There is nothing pretty or romantic about it. It has has none of the sweeping, grandiose melodies of POTO, and if you didn't know any better, you could easily pass this off as a very poor imitation of a usually good composer.

The songs here aren't even sappy. They're just bad. I actually had to stop and walk away from listening for a while before I got through it, they are just that terrible. They sound like cheap, third-rate songs tossed hap-hazardly into your average third-rate American musical. There is all flash and no substance, and what a weak flash it is, too. The lyrics are clunky and cumbersome, and if they weren't so utterly ridiculous, maybe you'd be able to focus on some of the better points of the score itself. There's hardly a tune out of the whole lot I can remember enough to hum or would even care to. None of them are memorable and certainly will not be ones that are still popular some 20-odd years later. The only exception is the title song "Love Never Dies", which is very beautiful and classic, a real show-stopper; but is sadly the one and only, and is nothing more than an ominous portent when taken in context with the show.

All of the gorgeous operatic sensibilities that made the original Phantom stand out have been uprooted for the sake of appeasing those who objected to "too much Opera". Excuse me? It was set inside an Opera house, written by a man who was an opera critic, and has the very word displayed quite blatantly in the title.

As a major fan of POTO I admit to have listened to the original album more times than I can count. I certainly couldn't stand to listen to this album more than once without my head exploding or my eardrums bursting from the overwhelming shrillness of each piece, coupled with the overly-repetetive introduction of electric guitars. The cast as singers are only annoying and seem perfectly content with their terrible habit of over-acting and under-singing lines, which is only magnified by what dribble the material is that they have to work with.

The score by itself certainly has some merit, but with different lyrics and better story I can see working, ideally, in another show, one totally unrelated to "Phantom"

Those who are more familiar than I am with Webber's earlier works will probably deem this classic ALW; edgy, slightly irreverent, and definitely different than anything else standing in musical theatre; but for something as a follow-up to a show based in an opera house, that style just doesn't fit.

In few words, Love Never Dies is a chaotic, unexciting spectacle (and I mean spectacle in a bad way). It certainly has no makings for being a theatre classic, nor a timeless masterpiece. It doesn't have the nostalgic feel of "Phantom of the Opera", nor the sense of tension or anticipation that was so apparent throughout all of the score. The dismal choice of setting is so completely unsuited to the core subject, it's hard to even believe anyone gave it the green light. I completely understand that ALW aimed to be different, but honestly, when you're dealing with a sequel, shouldn't it at least be a little cohesive to where you started from?

I really blame Mr. Webber for his choice of Glenn Slater as lyricist and Fredrick Forsyth's novel as source material. Don't get me wrong; I think Mr. Webber is a gifted composer who has produced some of the best theater works in the last forty years, nearly all of which have been received as world-renowned smash-hits; but I personally don't see this as one of his best. The stinker lyrics and bad choice of source material bring it all down. I honestly believe he would have done much better if he had tried to come up with a story himself, rather than depend on the atrocious sell-out "Phantom of Manhattan" is.

In tone, the show is far too dark and depressing. There is no mystery and absolutely no magic; humor is nonexistent. The romance and wonder is gone, only to be replaced by a drawn-out nightmarish bore... Read more ›