BWW Reviews: Australia's LOVE NEVER DIES Film - A Real Treat

The premise for this story is that the Phantom is alive and running a freak show in Coney Island, New York and that Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber plans to stage this in theaters. This might incline one to wonder whose nightmare idea is this?

After a less than stellar London Opening production, painfully called "Paint Never Dries", the show goes back to the drawing table for a plot makeover; the result is a much improved stage version mounted in Melborune, Australia.

Making its first appearance in the United States, NCM Fathom and Omniverse Vision present Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies, the long awaited continuation to The Phantom of the Opera, in a fully-staged production pre-recorded at The Regent Theatre in Melbourne. This exclusive showing of Love Never Dies is being broadcast in select U.S. movie theaters for two nights only beginning with the premiere event on Tuesday, Feb. 28 at 7:30 p.m. local time; followed by an encore presentation on Wednesday, March 7.

Try if you can to put aside the plot, the characters and the music of the iconic original The Phantom of The Opera. While you will be drawn back into their lives, you will find that much has changed and is ‘twisted every way”.

The year is 1907. It is ten years after his disappearance from the Paris Opera House and the Phantom has escaped to a new life in New York where he lives amongst the screaming joy rides and freak-shows of Coney Island. In this new electrically-charged world, he has finally found a place for his music to soar. All that is missing is his love - Christine Daaé.

In a Broadwayworld.com interview with Love Never Dies lyricist Glenn Slater, he has this to share; ”the idea behind it is that we are going down to the depths of Coney Island into the Phantom’s lair where he keeps all the things that he imagined he could never show the world. Andrew always had a sort of nightmare vision of what it would be."

From the opening scenes where the Phantom sits at the organ and sings the haunting and beautiful “Till I Hear You Sing Once More” we are transported to his world and realize this musical is to be taken quite seriously.

The Australian cast features home grown talent Ben Lewis in the title role of the Phantom. Lewis plays the part with a self confident cockiness that hides a broken man, a more psychopathic, edgy character who carefully executes his plan of re-capturing his beautiful muse Christine Daae played by Anna O'Byrne. Christine has matured into an elegant opera diva and the classically trained O’Byrne brings a powerful instrument to her huge ballad style songs with a range that is off the charts. Ten years later, this Christine is no longer the love struck innocent chorus girl. The public has put her on a pedestal and privately she hides some deep secrets.

One is taken on a visual spectacle of lavish electronic sets; a carnival of delightfully freakish Coney Island residents and left wondering how these dark brooding characters from the original story will fit into such a parody.

Set and costume designs by Gabriela Tylesova and choreography by Graeme Murphy are the highlight of this production and seemingly no expense was spared to insure that the audience will not be disappointed.

Director Simon Phillips brilliantly finds the passageway to intertwine each well developed character,  the most altered being Meg Giry, who has gone from being Christine’s sweet ballet companion to a determined tour-de-force performer with a twist. Sharon Millerchip proves to be a perfect choice for the role. She has "been well taught” by her now aging mother/ballet mistress Madame Giry (Maria Mercedes), whose mystery and underlying wrath is yet to be exposed.

 Raul (Simon Gleeson), now married several years to Christine, turns out to be the not so dashing hero we pictured as he rescued his love from the Phantom’s liar ten years back. The tension between them is thick with secrets and long lost affection.

 The characters have all become compelling enough that we are curious about the plot, the veiled emotions and inner hostility that each are wearing behind their own masks. As Slater again shares,” the trick was to get all that back-story in, but, also, to get the audience to buy it and feel it - to feel it the way the characters felt. It’s a brooding piece. It’s an autumnal piece. It’s about roads not taken and mistakes made and things not being able to be recaptured. The first one (Phantom of The Opera) is, you know, about the romance of the minute.”

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s score for this piece is beautifully presented by a talented 21 piece orchestra. It is a mix between songs that intrigue and create the tension of the characters such as “Dear Old Friends” and “Devil Takes the Hindmost” to the less impressive duets “Beneath a Moonless Sky” and “Once Upon Another Time” to wonderful solo ballads such as “Till I Hear You Sing Once More” and of course the title song “Love Never Dies” which is vocally and aesthetically the 11 o'clock number, giving this piece the beauty it deserves.

If the Australian production is any indication of what will be brought to Broadway, the Big Apple is in for a real treat and Love Never Dies may be sitting in good company with The Phantom of The Opera.

For more information about this production visit www.loveneverdies.com.au

 Photos: Love Never Dies, Australian production website

 

 

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