"It absolutely is a bodice ripper. Lavish, gold, sets and huge dreebies," says director Andrea Hazily. "The whole thing is meant to sort of imply sex without their ever actually being any." The chandelier is one of the most famous parts of Phantom. A mystery never fully explained.
The chandelier crashes for a final time as Broadway’s longest-running musical, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s extremely ’80s Phantom of the Opera, closes after 35 years and nearly 14,000 performances. Vulture’s Andrea Long Chu assesses its cultural staying power.
This episode was produced by Siona Peterous, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Victoria Chamberlin and Laura Bullard, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey and Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Noel King.
Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained
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