The Chandelier Falls: Phantom's Broadway Opening Night
On January 26, 1988, Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera opened at Broadway's Majestic Theatre — and ran for 35 years, becoming the longest-running show in Broadway history.
On the evening of January 26, 1988, the lights dimmed at Broadway's Majestic Theatre, the overture swelled, and a masked figure rose from beneath the Paris Opera House into theater legend. After seventeen days of previews, The Phantom of the Opera officially opened on Broadway — and it would not leave for 35 years.
The show had already conquered London, where it premiered at Her Majesty's Theatre on October 9, 1986. Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, fresh from the triumphs of Cats and Evita, had adapted Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel about a disfigured musical genius haunting the Paris Opera, obsessed with a young soprano named Christine. With lyrics by Charles Hart, a book by Lloyd Webber and Richard Stilgoe, and direction by the legendary Hal Prince, producer Cameron Mackintosh brought the whole West End company across the Atlantic: Michael Crawford as the Phantom, Sarah Brightman as Christine, and Steve Barton as Raoul.
Audiences had never seen anything like it. The story itself is pure gothic romance: beneath the opera house, the disfigured Phantom mentors the chorus girl Christine Daaé, convinced she will be his star, while her childhood love, the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, fights to win her back. Jealousy curdles into menace — a murdered stagehand, a threatened theater — until the Phantom must choose between possessing Christine and setting her free. Maria Björnson's gothic sets, the underground lake, the masked ball — and above it all, the show's signature moment: the great chandelier crashing down over the audience as the Phantom's fury erupts. The score, from the thundering title theme to "The Music of the Night" and "All I Ask of You," became some of the most recognized music in theater history.
The critics were swept away, and so were the awards: the production won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. But its real triumph was endurance. Night after night, year after year, the chandelier fell at the Majestic. In 2012 it became the first Broadway show to reach 10,000 performances. It closed on April 16, 2023, after 13,925 performances — more than 3,500 ahead of its nearest rival — having played to some 19 million people and grossed over $1 billion.
The Phantom's mask became as recognizable as any logo on Broadway. Generations of theatergoers made the pilgrimage to West 44th Street: parents who had seen it on opening week brought their children decades later. When the final curtain fell, the show held a record that may never be broken.
Thirty-five years, one theater, one falling chandelier. Broadway's longest-running show began with a single opening night — on January 26, 1988.
Photo: Ajay Suresh, CC BY 2.0 (via Wikimedia Commons). The Majestic Theatre marquee during the show's Broadway run.
