Durable ‘Phantom’ anticipating high season during holidays

Hal Prince didn't spot them, or else he might have thought he was at a "Star Trek" convention -- or even a "Star Trek" parallel universe.

Instead, it was "Phantom" star Anthony Crivello who saw the two guys dressed as Prince during "Phantom Fans Week."

"They wore false beards, and they wore their glasses on their head," Prince related with a chuckle. "And I thought, 'Well, wonders never cease.' "

Indeed, they seem to for "Phantom of the Opera," known at The Venetian as "Phantom -- The Las Vegas Spectacular." Now in its fourth year, the casino edition is anticipating high season during the holidays, which is the norm on Broadway but usually the reverse on the Strip.

Prince, its 81-year-old director, has seen the durable musical set a number of pop-culture milestones.

It has played at New York's Majestic Theatre since January 1988, continuing to set records as Broadway's longest-running title. Translated into people's real lives, it means Prince taking two of his grandchildren, who joined the ranks of audience members who weren't alive when it opened.

There are no plans to close the original before a sequel, "Love Never Dies," opens on Broadway next November (assuming the schedule remains unchanged by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber's battle with prostate cancer).

That would be another Broadway first: The original and its sequel running concurrently. "We'll operate hopefully simultaneously. Nothing would prevent (people) from wanting to see both," says Prince, who calls himself "just an observer" when it comes to the sequel.

"It's an audacious thing."

And that remains a good description of The Venetian's $75 million "Phantom," which Prince put up in June 2006. Working for different producers, Prince agreed to cut the musical down to 95 minutes and insert new surprises and special effects such as fireworks.

He hadn't been back to see it again until delivering the keynote speech at the fan festival in September. "I'd forgotten how much I'd changed it," he said in a Venetian suite during the festival.

"I just love this version so," he adds. "It was very expensive, and it shows it. Every penny that was put into it, you can see."

When "Phantom" opened in London in 1986, no one could predict its celebrated director would be attending a fan convention in 2009. "Damn Yankees" and "Fiddler on the Roof" were blockbusters for Prince as well, but they never spawned a convention.

"We never daydreamed it. It just happened," he says. But it's no real mystery why.

"It's the compelling part of the romantic story that is making this happen."

Years of recasting leads and putting up new productions has taught the director to "accommodate the difference between one Phantom and another. You don't want to just cookie-cut a performance."

He likes the edge of ferocity that Crivello brings. "I always thought that dangerous actors are very useful, very good for certain projects. They put you on edge. They even put this director on edge, and I like it."

Prince claims the show has "never gotten boring to me. And I think that's because its underpinnings are psychologically valid and dangerous.

"It's an entertainment, and yet what it says is universal: Do not assume because someone is grotesque that they're threatening. We all shy away from a visual. You can be shying away from someone with a heart of gold and a giant intellect."

The director says he and composer Lloyd Webber always agreed "the women in the audience had better regret" that the heroine Christine (Kristi Holden and sometimes Kristen Hertzenberg) didn't stay with the Phantom.

"But of course that's not possible, because no one would believe it."

And it wouldn't have left room for the sequel.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288