One of my favorite musicals is Phantom of the Opera. Lately, searching it on youtube, I was finding some songs that... I didn't know. Where did they come from? So I found out that Webber debuted 10 years ago the sequel of Phantom of the Opera and named it Love Never Dies.
I read the funny stories about it. Like, when the musical was complete, Webber's cat walked on the electric piano that had the entire music recorded and accidentally hit certain buttons... and the entire musical was lost. Webber had to rewrite it entirely. That's really a big pain for a composer!
Listening to it, my first impression was that it was very far from the original Phantom (despite Phantom contains a hint to what becomes its main theme). It sounded much gloomier. Some passages remind me Batman style of soundtrack... The critics wrote that the plot is not well defined and gave poor reviews. Well, I am used that the gems are hidden where you less expect it, and that holds true for Love Never Dies too. So many songs contain so profound messages. Soon it became my favorite. Once you get used to that sort of decadent but engaging style, it's intoxicating.
This song reminds me very much of "Love is strong as death", Song of Solomon 8:6.
As for the plot, the sequel starts after Christine met the phantom, accepted his ugliness and faults (half of his face was severed), and fell badly in love with him, the only true love of her life. But their relation was impossible, and Christine marries another pretender, who can give her all the security that she needed, or at least she hoped (those things never work and both were unhappy). After many years, she goes back to sing in the theater where she met the phantom, just to find him again.
But the concept of love transcending death cannot escape the plot. So at the end she dies by an incident.
True love in history seems always bound to death... see Romeo and Juliet, or many other couples. Maybe, when it comes, death or some unforseen circumstances always try to delete it in the real world. Death only allows one last sigh when things finally fall into their right place, and all that could have been returns to oblivion, altering the course forever. I wonder if this is just a good plot for art, or art is just depicting what happens in real life, over and over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knvOnWAPWpg
Who knows when love begins
Who knows what makes it start
One day it's simply there
Alive inside your heart
It slips into your thoughts
It infiltrates your soul
It takes you by surprise
Then seizes full control
Try to deny it and try to protest
But love won't let you go
Once you've been possessed
Love never dies
Love never falters
Once it has spoken
Love is yours
Love never fades
Love never alters
Hearts may get broken
Love endures
Hearts may get broken
Love endures
And soon as you submit
Surrender flesh and bone
That love takes on a life
Much bigger than your own
It uses you at whim
And drives you to despair
And forces you to feel
More joy than you can bear
Love gives you pleasure
And love brings you pain
And yet when both are gone
Love will still remain
Once it has spoken
Love is yours
Love never dies
Love never alters
Hearts may get broken
Love endures
Hearts may get broken
Love never dies
Love will continue
Love keeps on beating
When you're gone
Love never dies
Once it is in you
Life may be fleeting
Love lives on
Life may be fleeting
Love lives on