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New York (dpa) - Nearly 18 years and 1,300 tonnes of dry ice after its debut, Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera" was set Monday to become the longest-running musical on Broadway.
The show's scheduled 7,486th performance puts it ahead of "Cats" and third-place "Les Miserables", Playbill.com reported. Already, "Phantom" is the highest-grossing show on Broadway, netting 600 million dollars over the years.
Based on a 1911 novel by Gaston Leroux, "Phantom" tells the story of a masked figure who lives in the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera and falls in love with a young soprano.
Since its New York debut on January 26, 1988, 11 singers have donned the mysterious mask of the phantom. Nearly 100 million people in more than 20 countries have seen the show.
Lloyd Weber seemed surprised at the Phantom's success.
"When I wrote 'Cats' I never thought anything would come along that was going to top it," he told Playbill.com.
"It's a fantastic occasion. I think the fact that 'Cats' is the one it's taking over from is obviously, for me, very special because it's something I know I'll never ever achieve again, and even if I did achieve it, I wouldn't live to see it."
Copyright 2006 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
