Raoul indulges what he assumes are fantasies and insists on taking Christine to dinner. Christine confides that the Angel has visited her and taught her to sing ('Little Lotte').

Raoul visits Christine in her dressing room and the two reminisce about 'Angel of Music' stories that her late father used to tell them. Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman performing the title songīackstage after her triumphant debut, Christine confesses to her friend, Madame Giry's daughter Meg, that her singing has been inspired by an unseen tutor she knows only as the 'Angel of Music' ('Angel of Music'). As Christine sings the aria during the evening performance, the Opéra's new patron, Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, recognizes her as his childhood friend and playmate ('Think of Me'). As their only alternative is cancelling the sold-out show, the managers reluctantly audition her, and discover that she is indeed talented. Madame Giry, the Opéra's ballet mistress, suggests that Christine Daaé, a chorus girl and orphaned daughter of a prominent Swedish violinist, has been 'well taught' and can sing Carlotta's role. Carlotta, the Opéra's resident soprano prima donna, begins to perform an aria when a backdrop inexplicably falls from the flies, causing anxious chorus girls to shout, 'He's here! The Phantom of the Opera!' The new owners, Firmin and André, try to downplay the incident, but Carlotta angrily storms offstage. The year is 1881 – the cast of a new production, Hannibal, is rehearsing ('Hannibal Rehearsal'). As the overture plays, it flickers to life and ascends to the ceiling, as a transition back in time restores the opera house to its former grandeur ('Overture'). He commands the auction assistants to turn on the power and light up the chandelier for all to see. The auctioneer states that this chandelier was involved in a famous disaster, connected to 'the strange affair of the Phantom of the Opera, a mystery never fully explained'. The next lot – Lot 666 – is a broken chandelier, portions of which have been renovated with electrical wiring. He eyes it sadly, cryptically observing that it appears 'exactly as she said'. Among the attendees is an aged Raoul de Chagny, who purchases Lot 665, a papier-mâché music box with a monkey figurine. In the year 1911, the Paris Opéra House hosts an auction of old theatre memorabilia. The original Broadway production played its final performance on April 16, 2023. A new production of Phantom opened in the same theatre in July 2021. The original West End production at Her Majesty's Theatre, London, ended its run in 2020, its run cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2019, it had been seen by over 140 million people in 183 cities across 41 countries. With total estimated worldwide gross receipts of over $6 billion and total Broadway gross of over $1 billion, The Phantom of the Opera was the most financially successful entertainment event until The Lion King surpassed it in 2014. It is the second longest-running West End musical, after Les Misérables, and the third longest-running West End show overall, after The Mousetrap. The Phantom of the Opera was the longest running show in Broadway history, and celebrated its 10,000th performance on February 11, 2012, becoming the first Broadway production in history to do so. A film adaptation, directed by Joel Schumacher, was released in 2004. It won the 1986 Olivier Award and the 1988 Tony Award for Best Musical, with Crawford winning the Olivier and Tony for Best Actor in a Musical. The musical opened in London's West End in 1986 and on Broadway in New York in 1988, in a production directed by Harold Prince and starring English classical soprano Sarah Brightman (Lloyd Webber's then-wife) as Christine Daaé, Michael Crawford as the Phantom, and Steve Barton as Raoul. Based on the 1910 French novel of the same name by Gaston Leroux, it tells the story of a beautiful soprano, Christine Daaé, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious, masked musical genius living in the subterranean labyrinth beneath the Paris Opéra House. The Phantom of the Opera is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart, additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe and a libretto by Lloyd Webber and Stilgoe. 1988 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Broadway Musical.1986 Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best New Musical.

1986 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical.

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