Phantom - The Las Vegas Spectacular
After more than 65,000 performances in 24 countries, The Phantom of the Opera, the longest-running show in Broadway history, is getting a makeover. It will emerge tomorrow as a trimmed-down, souped-up extravaganza - Phantom - The Las Vegas Spectacular - tailored to suit casino audiences who have dinners to eat and slot machines to play.
Costs for the new production have topped $75 (£41m), almost double the cost of the musical version of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, one of the most expensive pieces of theatre ever produced (due to transfer from Toronto to London next summer), and nearly eight times the average cost of staging a Broadway musical.
The new Phantom includes a lavish, 1,800-seat replica of the Paris Opera House constructed inside The Venetian hotel-casino costing $40m (£22m) and the infamous chandelier which took up nearly $5m of the budget. The prop shakes, splits apart and falls so quickly that a warning to audiences is posted in the theatre lobby.
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