When Kopit saw the Lloyd Webber version of The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, he realized that the approach he and Yeston had taken was fundamentally different and that it could still work on the musical stage. Yeston, Kopit and Holder reluctantly shelved their plans for Phantom and went their separate ways for a time. Īfter The Phantom of the Opera became a smash hit in London in 1986, Lloyd Webber announced a Broadway production, and Yeston's Broadway investors backed out. Yeston had completed much of the score to Phantom, and Yeston, Kopit and Holder were in the process of raising money for a Broadway production when the Lloyd Webber plans were announced. Holder only held the rights for two years in the United States and Europe before the property became public domain there as well. The rights to the novel were in the public domain in Great Britain. The real threat emerged through an announcement in Variety, where an article was published concerning plans for a musical production of The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber. This was not a big threat to Holder, Kopit and Yeston, since their musical was intended to play on Broadway. In 1984, British producer Ken Hill revived his 1976 musical Phantom of the Opera in England.

Don't all of us feel, despite outward imperfections, that deep inside we're good? And that is a character you cry for.' would be a Quasimodo character, an Elephant Man. And then it occurred to me that the story could be somewhat changed.

That's the worst idea in the world! Why would you want to write a musical based on a horror story?. Initially, Yeston was skeptical of the project. Holder had obtained the rights to musicalize the novel in America from the Leroux estate, making Phantom the only Phantom of the Opera musical to do so. Yeston and Kopit had just finished the musical Nine, winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1982, when in 1983 they were approached by actor/director Geoffrey Holder to write a musical based on Leroux's novel.

1983 phantom of the opera cast