Phantom of The Opera

Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom Of The Opera is a worldwide entertainment phenomenon. It has been staged in 145 cities across 27 countries and has been seen by over 130 million people, its box office sales eclipse Avatar, Titanic and Star Wars and the original cast recording album remains one of the biggest selling music titles of all time.

The Phantom of the Opera is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart, additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe and a libretto by Lloyd Webber and Stilgoe. Based on the 1910 French novel of the same name by Gaston Leroux, it tells the tragic story of a beautiful soprano, Christine Daaé, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious, masked musical genius living in the subterranean labyrinth beneath the Paris Opéra House.

In 1986, Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera arrived on the West End stage at Her Majesty's Theatre. Fast forward 25 years and Phantom has achieved global success, millions of viewers, a film adaptation in 2004 and a musical sequel.

For better or worse, Andrew Lloyd Webber's adaptation of Gaston Leroux's gothic horror/romance novel has done for stage musicals what Spielberg's Jaws did for fish stories, with worldwide sales of its original cast album approaching 25 million. While director Joel Schumacher's film turns on his typically ambitious visual verve, its new film soundtrack recording has been paradoxically focused in scope, yet beefed up dynamically via the brawny presence of a hundred piece orchestra and The London Boys Choir. This single disc version showcases all of Phantom's key songs, with Gerard Butler imparting a welcome, youthful sensuality to his Phantom, making a fine foil for Emmy Rossum's ever-conflicted Christine. Original show orchestrator David Cullen has fashioned compelling new contemporary arrangements to frame Webber's songs – which now conclude with the lilting, upbeat new ballad he wrote for the film, "Learn to Be Lonely", sung by Minnie Driver.