{"id":95559,"date":"2026-10-11T22:38:28","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T05:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=95559"},"modified":"2026-10-11T22:38:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T05:38:28","slug":"phantom-turns-40","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2026\/10\/11\/phantom-turns-40\/","title":{"rendered":"Phantom Turns 40"},"content":{"rendered":"

This leads to a perfectly timed theatre-related Ask Billy<\/em><\/strong> question.  Frank <\/strong>in NYC asks, \u201cDid you hear about the 40th<\/sup> anniversary performance of <\/em>Phantom <\/strong>in <\/em>London<\/em>?  Did Michael Crawford <\/strong>and Sarah Brightman <\/strong>really sing?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, they \u201cappeared\u201d to be singing.  But let me explain what happened for those who don\u2019t know.  This special landmark performance of The Phantom of the Opera<\/em><\/strong> was recorded live for future release in cinemas.  The momentous event took place at His Majesty\u2019s Theatre <\/em>in London, where the show has been running these past four decades (it was called Her Majesty\u2019s Theatre <\/em>for most of the show\u2019s run).  After the musical ended, several former notable stars turned up for an encore of the title duet.  Genonimo Rauch <\/strong>and Sierra Boggess<\/strong>, John Owen-Jones <\/strong>and Lucy St. Louis<\/strong>, Killian Donnelly <\/strong>and Gina Beck<\/strong>, Ben Forster <\/strong>and Claire Moore<\/strong>.  The final pair to appear were Michael Crawford <\/strong>and Sarah Brightman<\/strong>, who entered on that mysterious gondola in the basement of the Paris Opera House<\/em>.  I\u2019m told that the vocals for these veterans had been pre-recorded, but the audience didn\u2019t seem to care.  I think everyone was amazed that the final twosome were able to get out of the gondola without breaking a hip!  There was at least one bit of live singing from the 84-year-old Crawford.  The evening closed with all of the Phantoms singing \u201cThe Music of the Night\u201d.  Particularly poignant is when the current Phantom sang, \u201cYou alone can make my song take flight,\u201d motioning for Crawford to sing the final line: \u201cHelp me make the music of the night.\u201d  You can see the full videos from the event on BillyMasters.com<\/u><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u00ad\u00ad\u00adWhen anyone is paying to see Gillian 20 times, it\u2019s definitely time to end yet another column.  Here\u2019s a fun fact \u2013 two of the gentlemen in this column actually dated each other.  It\u2019s really not much of a secret, but you can probably figure it out by heading over to BillyMasters.com<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 the site that proves missionary is more than just a position.  If you have a question, dash it off to Billy@BillyMasters.com<\/a><\/strong> and I promise to get back to you before Plastique works her magic on Seacrest!  Until next time, remember, one man\u2019s filth is another man\u2019s bible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This leads to a perfectly timed theatre-related Ask Billy question.  Frank in NYC asks, \u201cDid you hear about the 40th anniversary performance of Phantom in London?  Did Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman really sing?\u201d Well, they \u201cappeared\u201d to be singing.  But let me explain what happened for those who don\u2019t know.  This special landmark performance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95560,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95559\/revisions\/95560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}