Originally an import from London, the musical written by Andrew Lloyd Webber was an instant smash hit.

For every performance of Phantom, there are 130 cast, crew, and orchestra members involved, which is necessary to manage the show’s 230 costumes, 14 dressers, 120 automated cues, 22 scene changes, 281 candles, 250 kg of dry ice, and ten fog and smoke machines. The show includes hits such as “Think of Me,” “All I Ask of You,” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” and is set in the opera world, complete with elaborate costumes, set designs, and a huge ensemble. Phantom centers around the titular “Phantom of the Opera” and his tumultuous romance and obsession with the Soprano prodigy Christine Daaé. Presidents, fourteen iterations of the iPhone, and 20 seasons of Keeping up with the Kardashians that have come and gone since 1988, one thing in American culture has stayed constant: Phantom of the Opera being on Broadway. Same–sex marriage has become legal, the Chicago Cubs finally won their first World Series since 1908, and the iPhone was invented. In the opening auction scene, a system of magnets and a weight in a tube at the bottom of the medallion sucks the bag inside the chandelier, revealing its splendour, Chockley said.In the years since 1988, the United States has seen an insurmountable amount of change. It takes carpenters half an hour before each performance to install the chandelier and wrap it in silks.

“If you’re sitting under it, it’s quite scary,” she said. To terrify spectators below, the theatre’s lights go off before the chandelier has finished falling, according to Chockley.

At its top speed, it drops 3 metres per second. Inside, there is one large motor that controls the chandelier’s movement.

She gave the Star an idea of how it works. Heather Chockley, Phantom’s production stage manager, has seen nothing else like it in her 14-year career. In Cameron Mackintosh’s remake of The Phantom, which opened at the Princess of Wales Theatre last week, the chandelier is more opulent and sophisticated than ever before.ĭesigned by British engineer Howard Eaton, whose company created the rings for the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London, the 680-kilogram 1,500-pound chandelier rattles, shoots firecrackers and plummets. Just like the Phantom himself, the chandelier that is the key prop in The Phantom of the Opera has a few tricks up its sleeve.

Phantom of the opera chandelier