Love Never Dies: The Phantom Does Coney Island

Andrew Lloyd Webber has announced the sequel to his massively successful Phantom of the Opera that will be set at New York's Coney Island. Webber's new production, Love Never Dies, is due to open in London in February of next year.

Behind the News

The musical picks up a decade after the original's conclusion, and has the Phantom trading his hideout beneath the Paris opera house for the iconic Brooklyn amusement park known for its roller-coasters and hot dogs. Webber said he wanted to produce a sequel because the conclusion of the original was too boring.

Yesterday, in a military-like fashion, guests were ushered into Her Majesty's theatre, Haymarket, to be introduced to the upcoming Love Never Dies. After a video explaining how successful the original Phantom has been, Lloyd Webber took to the stage to introduce Ramin Karimloo, currently playing the man in the mask in London (and who's been recording the Phantom's vocals for the Love Never Dies concept album for the past year).

Karimloo was confirmed as the new production's leading man (as predicted months ago), with Sierra Boggess signed to play opposite him as Christine, the role made famous by Sarah Brightman. The new musical will open in London in March of next year, and will also be staged in New York beginning November 2010 and will open in Australia in 2011. The New York staging will be at the Adelphi theatre. The venue has been widely rumoured for a while, as it's one of Lloyd Webber's favourite haunts and has no tenant at the moment.

Love Never Dies is set in America ten years roughly after the original The Phantom of the Opera and is set in Coney Island. "Coney Island is a fantastic place," says Lloyd Webber. "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."