LONDON—There's no chandelier. But there is a roller coaster -- literal and, producers hope, emotional.
Audiences need to be thrilled by Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Love Never Dies," sequel to "Phantom of the Opera," the show that bills itself as the most successful piece of entertainment of all time. Still running in London 24 years after it opened, it's also the longest-running show in Broadway history. Producers say it has been seen by more than 100 million people and staged in 25 countries from China to Brazil.
So hopes and fears are both running high for the follow up, which began previews Monday and opens March 9 at London's Adelphi Theatre. Some praise Lloyd Webber's bravery in trying to best his biggest success, especially amid an economic downturn. Others think he's crazy. Even the creative team has occasional doubts.
"I'm not sleeping all that well," said the show's American director, Jack O'Brien -- although the twinkle in his eye belies the statement.
"The investment in 'Phantom' runs deep into people's imaginations and into their history. People fell in love in the balcony. People are taking their children, conceived during the run."
Lloyd Webber has been recovering from prostate cancer while preparing for the London run.
"Phantom" found a new formula for commercial dynamite -- a mix of insinuating melodies, lush romanticism and a frisson of horror. It is a beauty-and-the beast potboiler about a young opera singer, Christine Daae, who attracts the brooding attention of the Phantom, a disfigured genius haunting the cellars of the Paris Opera.
"Love Never Dies" takes up the story 10 years on, after the Phantom -- Canadian actor Ramin Karimloo -- has fled to the roller-coaster rides and amusement arcades of New York's Coney Island, a place of bright lights and dark desires. Starting out as a sideshow freak, he rises to control the entire complex, but still pines for Christine (Sierra Boggess, formerly Broadway's "Little Mermaid"), now married to his rival Raoul and mother to a 10-year-old son.
"Phantom" owed its success to catchy, romantic ballads such as "The Music of the Night" and "All I Ask of You," but also to the set and costumes designed by Maria Bjornson -- the lush, Gothic, candlelit world, the underground gondola ride, that famous crashing chandelier.
Bjornson died in 2002, and "Love Never Dies" is designed Bob Crowley, an acclaimed Irish designer who has worked with Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre, in the West End and on Broadway, where the show is scheduled to open in November. (It opens in Australia in 2011.)
"I feel we have a lot to live up to, particularly in my own sphere, because Maria's work was so exquisite," said Crowley amid rehearsals at the Adelphi. "If you go and see it today, it looks as good as it did 20-odd years ago. The zeitgeist changes so quickly these days, things look aged and dated, whereas that doesn't. It looks beautiful."
"Love Never Dies" has a very different setting -- 20th rather than 19th century, American rather than European -- and a design vocabulary that incorporates elements of cinema as well as the excitement of electricity and the automobile.
"This has a much more wide, open-lens feel about it," said Crowley. "The first one was all by candlelight. This was the birth of the electric bulb. That's all part of what I put on stage."
Crowley, a five-time Tony Award winner whose designs include sets for "Mary Poppins," "The History Boys" and "The Coast of Utopia," was inspired by the glory days of Coney Island. He first visited the park 15 years ago and found it "tawdry and broken-down and sad and dilapidated and a bit crass." A century ago, however, it was a wonder: Las Vegas and Disneyland rolled into one.
"Like seeing 'Avatar' for the first time -- completely cutting edge, and changing the way people saw entertainment," Crowley said. "It must have looked like Atlantis, approaching it from the sea."
Crowley says he drew on archival images of the theme park, but added a slightly surreal twist. The show is set in a fairground attraction created by the Phantom called Phantasma -- "a projection of his slightly twisted genius."
"Just as he took the (Opera) Garnier and turned it into a place of threat and horror, here he's taken a theme park and made it his own world, which can either be threatening or beautiful," Crowley said.
Crowley has to create that dazzling world in the confined space of the Adelphi stage.
"I've got a space the size of somewhere where you buy your pizzas or your hamburgers, and I've got to put the whole world of Coney into this confined space," he said. "Including the beach.
"The show is pretty low-tech. I haven't got loads of crazy machinery onstage. There are tricks, but there's no room to put too much machinery up there. I'm using traditional methods and hopefully making them look new."
And will "Love Never Dies" produce its own "chandelier moment"?
"I don't think there's a chandelier moment," said O'Brien, whose credits include the Tony-garlanded Broadway production of "Hairspray."
"I think there's a chandelier climate."
Will it work? The signs are mixed.
Lloyd Webber has been developing the show since 1997, working for a while with thriller writer Frederick Forsyth, then with comedian and novelist Ben Elton. The final product has lyrics by Glenn Slater, whose work includes "The Little Mermaid" and "Sister Act."
The songs sound promising, with soaring romantic numbers such as the title track and the Phantom's ballad, "Till I Hear You Sing Once More." The song, performed by Karimloo, has already gotten over 100,000 hits on YouTube.
But the first preview, scheduled for Saturday, was canceled to give cast and crew more time to prepare. And musical sequels do not have a great track record. "Annie," which opened in 1977, was one of Broadway's biggest hits; "Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge" closed during its 1989 out of town tryout in Washington. The sequel to "Bye Bye Birdie," a Tony-winning hit in 1960, died on Broadway in 1981 after only four performances.
"'Godfather II' is better than 'The Godfather,' so you can do it," O'Brien said.
"We know we're playing with fire," he said -- and his eyes lit up. "Fire! That's pretty cool."
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