REVIEW: 'Love Never Dies' showcases spectacular sets and amazing vocals

Love never dies and, it goes without saying, neither do well-crafted musicals on the topic of love. For example, see Love Never Dies, a sequel to famed The Phantom of the Opera, which had a two-week run in March 2017 as the first huge touring spectacle at the newly remodeled and refurbished Robinson Center Performance Hall in Little Rock.

Love Never Dies, which opened a five-show run at Robinson Center Tuesday night, arrives as a new Andrew Lloyd Webber production, with lyrics by Glenn Slater and book by Webber, Ben Elton, Frederick Forsyth and Slater, and loosely adapted from Forsyth’s novel, The Phantom of Manhattan. The show is out on the road without first having a Broadway run, but you would never know it from the spectacular sets, props, costumes and lighting.

The play is set in 1907, on Coney Island in New York, where The Phantom (Bronson Norris Murphy) runs a freakish amusement park, populated by acrobats, dancers and one little person, Fleck, played nicely by Katrina Kemp. The Phantom has come up with a scheme to lure his long-gone love object, Christine, (Meghan Picerno ) from Europe to the park, as she and her husband, Raoul (Sean Thompson) are financially embarrassed due to his gambling problem. They bring along their young son, Gustav (played on alternate nights by Jake Heston Miller or Christian Harmson.)

Listening to Picerno’s voice, it’s easy to understand The Phantom’s longing to hear her sing again. Others in the cast are good, but none can measure up to her operatic talents. When she first sings “Look With Your Heart” to her son, you realize the magnitude of her talents. Murphy is no slouch, as he gradually rises to the challenge of convincing Christine to again sing for him, and the name of the show is the song he has written for her.

Complications arise when her dissolute husband figures out he must make an effort to keep his wife from leaving him, and then there’s young Gustav, who falls under the spell of The Phantom and his show folks. On opening night, Miller plays the young lad, and he slowly reveals his own amazing vocal talents.

There’s an impressive moment early in the show when a giant carriage arrives on stage, and the cast does splendid work on songs that are new to most of us, with the best of the numbers being “Bathing Beauty,” “Once Upon Another Time,” “Devil Take the Hindmost” and of course, the title song.

There are enough plot twists to amaze and entertain, and knowledge of The Phantom of the Opera itself is not crucial.

Additional performances are at 7:30 p.m. today and Friday, and 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. For more information, call Celebrity Attractions at (501) 244-8800 or see CelebrityAttractions.com

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