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After a record-smashing 35 years on Broadway, The Phantom of the Opera will give up the ghost for good on April 16. Until now, tickets to its final performance have only been available by invitation. But this week, the production is offering a chance to the show's many Phans to see the final curtain—and the final chandelier—come down.
If you want to attend this historic performance, you'll have to act fast. From today through noon on Friday, March 31, fans of the show can enter a digital lottery to buy seats for the Phantom finale. A lucky few winners will get a chance to buy one or two tickets each in the rear mezzanine of the Majestic Theatre at 5pm on April 16.
To enter the lottery, visit Telecharge's lottery and rush tickets page this week. If you’ve never used the page before, you’ll need to register with a social media account. Then scroll down to the bottom for the box that says “The Phantom of the Opera Final Performance.” You only need to click it to enter the lottery, but you’ll have to stay alert next week: Four rounds of winners will be chosen each day from April 3 through April 6, and winners must buy their tickets within 24 hours of the drawing. The seats cost $99 apiece, including fees.
Phantom, of course, is composer Andrew Lloyd Webber's greatest hit of them all: a timeless tale of candlelit romance between a pretty young singer and the masked serial killer who has been stalking her from his subterranean lair beneath a 19th-century Parisian opera house. The libretto, adapted from Gaston Leroux's novel, is by Charles Hart, Richard Stilgoe and Lloyd Webber. The final company of the Broadway version, directed by the late Harold Prince, stars Ben Crawford as the Phantom, Emilie Kouatchou as Christine, John Riddle as Raoul and Raquel Suarez Groen as the tempestuous diva Carlotta Giudicelli. The orchestra of 27 remains the largest on Broadway.
The Phantom of the Opera has been nearly sold out since the closing was announced last year, but a small number of tickets to performances before the final one are still available, albeit at exorbitant prices.
