Andrew Lloyd Webber dedicates final Phantom of the Opera Broadway performance to his late son
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Sunday marked the end of an era for Broadway. After 35 years and more than 13,000 performances, The Phantom of the Opera took its final bow as the longest-running show in Broadway history. For the musical's creator and composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber, the momentous farewell had a very personal resonance.
As the cast stood on stage receiving their last standing ovation, Webber took the opportunity to dedicate the show to his late son Nicholas "Nick" Lloyd Webber, who died in March at 43 after a battle with cancer.
"I hope you won't mind if I dedicate this performance to my son Nick," Webber told the audience, per Deadline. "When Nick was a little boy, he heard some of this music."
Sarah Brightman, Webber's ex-wife and the original star of Phantom when it debuted on Broadway in 1988, was also on stage and added, "When Andrew was writing it, [Nick] was right there. So his soul is with us. Nick, we love you very much."
Nina Westervelt/Variety via Getty Images Sarah Brightman and Andrew Lloyd Webber bid farewell to 'The Phantom of the Opera' on Broadway
Based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 French novel of the same name, The Phantom of the Opera is a dramatic romance about a beautiful soprano singer and a masked genius who lives beneath the subterranean labyrinth of the Paris Opera House.
In a guest essay for The New York Times published Monday, Webber recalled co-creating the musical with late legendary producer Hal Prince and exchanging P.D. Wodehouse quotes with Nick the day before his death.
"This has been a season of goodbyes, personal and public," Webber wrote. "With the curtain now fallen in New York on the musical that has been the biggest of my career, I passionately pray that Broadway rediscovers the appetite for new scores and original work that made me so excited when I was, as Hal always called me, a kid."
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