PHANTOM OF THE OPERA Wanted Pigeons in Original Production, but They’d ‘Sh— All Over the Audience’

When The Phantom of the Opera opened 40 years ago at His Majesty’s Theatre in the West End, there were quite a few elements that may have been different from the show we all know today. 

A retrospective on the famed Andrew Lloyd Webber musical published Monday, October 5, in The Guardian revealed that late director Harold Prince had a few ideas early on in the process that never came to fruition. 

According to the publication, Prince wanted to release white doves — actually played by pigeons — and have them fly up into the theatre boxes.

“It was a lovely idea,” said producer Cameron Mackintosh, “except all they did was fly up to a perch and sh— all over the audience.”  

But that wasn’t the only plan for animals incorporated into Phantom.

Prince apparently wanted rats running around beneath the stage of the Paris Opera House, where the musical is set, but the fake glowing rats had “little red eyes” that left the creative team “in stitches.” 

Production designer Maria Björnson also wanted a white horse to carry the Phantom into the lair, but that didn’t work out either. 

The Olivier Award-winning musical — which opened October 9, 1986, in the West End before its celebrated run on Broadway — wasn’t actually intended to play His Majesty’s Theatre, either. 

According to former Phantom John Owen-Jones, the show was meant to go into the Palace Theatre, but Les Misérables was still playing. It therefore went to the smaller His Majesty’s (then titled Her Majesty’s under the reign of Queen Elizabeth II). 

“At the time, Her Majesty’s had the only functioning Victorian understage in London,” said Owen-Jones. “So the team were able to use that for things like the candelabra coming up through the floor. People hadn’t seen things like that in the West End for a long time.” 

Though Phantom became a massive success, Mackintosh told The Guardian that the creative team had no idea they had such a big hit on their hands. 

“The show only clicked on the first night of previews,” he explained. “I always describe it, up until that point, as a watch running really slowly. But on that night the audience was completely swept into another world.” 

“Maria Björnson’s incredible design, Hal Prince’s brilliant ability to shape pictures on stage; [choreographer and stager] Gillian Lynne inhabiting the real world of the opera house and giving it authentic style,” Mackintosh added. “It all came together and looked and sounded as one.”  

Following its West End debut, The Phantom of the Opera began Broadway performances at the Majestic Theatre on January 9, 1988, prior to an official opening on January 26, 1988. 

It won the Tony Award for Best Musical, among many other accolades, and played nearly 14,000 Broadway performances through April 16, 2023.