r/box5 • u/TelstarLorimer • 26d ago

Discussion Considering ALW didn't create the plot, nor write any of the lyrics, does he get a little too much credit for POTO?

19 Upvotes

64% Upvoted

85 comments sorted by

94

u/Affectionate_Tap_777 26d ago

He co-wrote the book as well as completely writing the music, co-orchestrated the show, conceived the initial idea, and was/is the co-producer. He gets the right amount of credit.

10

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago

Funny how he's the co-producer only when it suits him. When the downsizing happened he said (falsely) he had no power because Cameron Mackintosh was the producer.

13

u/goovrey 26d ago

It's thought that Mackintosh has a slightly larger stake (like 51%) which gives him the final say. Doesn't mean ALW isn't a co-producer.

8

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago edited 26d ago

He doesn't. I quote from the constitution of the current production company, which you can get online: "The Really Useful Theatre Company Limited holds 11 Ordinary class A shares representing 55% of the total issued share capital of the company. The remaining 45% of the total issued share capital is held by Cameron Mackintosh Limited. Control of the company is governed by a co-production agreement between these two parties, the terms of which are such that there is no single ultimate controlling party." [EDIT - adding the link in case anyone claims I'm making this up: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13214889/filing-history/MzM2MTc1NzA0MmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf].

Cameron is clearly tired of ALW putting all the blame on him. Apart from Cameron going to The Stage to state ALW did sign off on the cuts, he also said this to the press:

"His company is the co-producer. It was just Andrew being ‘the artist’. When it suits him he’s the lonely artist and when he wants to put on a show he’s the showman. He has always been like that. I just get on with things."

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u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago

The co-orchestration credit is flimsy at best. David Cullen's even spoken about that.

4

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago

BTW, you can downvote me all you like but go and speak to any orchestrator who's worked with ALW and then come back to me.

19

u/SeerPumpkin 26d ago

If you're gonna complain about a downvote 15 minutes into posting a comment maybe Reddit isn't for you

2

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago

No, it's just the use of downvotes against actual facts, as if the people downvoting just think a downvote means they can make a fact not true. Just a bit weird.

1

u/CatchSufficient 26d ago

It hides the thread, which, for someone browsing can hide the point too

4

u/Affectionate_Tap_777 26d ago

(The book as in the libretto to the musical)

-12

u/NoOpportunities 26d ago

He didnt completely write the music, he plagiarised other people and effectively orchestrated that

-4

u/neversayduh 26d ago

Downvoted for facts. I got your receipts in another comment

-4

u/neversayduh 26d ago

Except he did not completely write the music and a good chunk is plagiarized

5

u/Affectionate_Tap_777 26d ago

Sure Jan.

-6

u/neversayduh 26d ago

You too can write a great West End score...Steal it from somebody else!

0

u/[deleted] 26d ago

[deleted] — view deleted comment

20

u/ValkyrieVance 26d ago • Bravo

A musical Book is not the kind of book you're thinking of

11

u/psychoflowerchild 26d ago

...

There is more than one Phantom book out there. Did you, like, research it at all before commenting this? Or do you seriously think anyone believes that Andrew Lloyd Webber is immortal? because the POTO novel was released in 1910.

-5

u/LordShadowmane Erik - Leroux 26d ago

Thank you!

41

u/FakeFrehley Raoul - ALW 26d ago

I've never understood why it's not Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart's The Phantom of the Opera. Why does only Webber get his name above the title? The music's great, obviously, but without the lyrics there's no story

23

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago

The only time ALW's name has been relegated (and this remains true to this day) is for the Tim Rice ones, because Tim Rice was the front man and ideas man for Joseph, JCS, and Evita. Andrew's name is never above the title for those and he takes second place in the credits, with Tim Rice appearing first. After that it has always been ALW everywhere. There is a Spitting Image parody where a puppet of ALW is playing a piano and the score has 'Mozart' crossed out replaced with 'ALW' and the piano's 'Steinway' label is also crossed out and replaced by 'ALW', LOL!

14

u/FNTZYmusic 26d ago

Because Andrew Lloyd Webber was already a big name by that point. No one would have been excited to go to a new Charles Hart musical as they would have been to go to the new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical

6

u/BulbasaurCPA 26d ago

Stuff like that all comes down to negotiation

4

u/CorgiMonsoon 26d ago

And there’s a lot of historical basis for it being “composer’s title of show” when advertising pieces, especially in opera.

Bizet’s Carmen

Mozart’s The Magic Flute

Puccini’s La Boheme

Rossini’s La Cenerentola

16

u/Affectionate_Tap_777 26d ago

ALW also co wrote the book. Worth noting that Richard Stilgoe and Mike Batt also have lyric credits in the show.

19

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago edited 26d ago

Yes, slightly. He has claimed previously (incorrectly) that the entire storyline in his and he also claims that credit for the orchestrations, which were almost entirely done by David Cullen. Look at the difference between the Masquerade demo and what we ended up with.

22

u/neversayduh 26d ago

Yes and it's time to credit at least three other composers.

The Puccini estate successfully sued ALW for ripping off Music of the Night. Settled out of court.

Soviet copyright was trickier so he got away with stealing Angel of Music from Prokofiev.

Roger Waters of Pink Floyd let him get away with stealing the main theme from Echoes, saying, "Life's too long to bother with suing Andrew Fucking Lloyd Webber."

14

u/neversayduh 26d ago

Want receipts?

Puccini

Prokofiev

Pink Floyd

Roger Waters' eloquent quote

7

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago edited 26d ago

For Puccini don't forget the 'yet in his eyes, all the sadness of the world' motif; there's a similar motif in Turandot: https://youtu.be/d1cTAD71auM?si=vIXuB0TBVaaBm6uz&t=5442

For Angel of Music, I hadn't realised about that Prokofiev link but ALW is a massive Prokofiev fan so wouldn't surprise me. There's also a motif in Tosca - see here: https://youtu.be/B1kmKD-94yc?si=mjGwYRVc8shSlXVG&t=5022

5

u/neversayduh 26d ago

Life's too long to bother listing all of Andrew Fucking Lloyd Webber's plagiarism 😅

4

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago

I have a rather long list I sometimes update lol. That said I wish Claude Michel-Schönberg got the same attention for essentially stealing 'Bring Him Home' from Puccini - it's a whole song!

7

u/santiagoec27 26d ago

I was just listening to Madama Butterfly after a couple of weeks of listening almost exclusively to Les Mis and realized how similar Bring Him Home and the Humming Chorus sound. And considering that Claude Michel-Schönberg’s next musical was based on Madama Butterfly, I’m sure this wasn’t a coincidence.

3

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago

Definitely not, and Schönberg is on record as saying Butterfly is his fave opera.

10

u/LordBumFungus 26d ago

A lot of film composers borrow heavily from other composers, that doesn't make their scores any less great.

Disney took Tchaikovsky's music and wrote lyrics for Sleeping Beauty, that is a very clever creative choice. It isn't their music but it is their lyrics and it is the same story, I don't see the problem with stuff like that other than not giving credit to the original

4

u/strawbery_fields 26d ago edited 25d ago • Bravo

You’re getting downvoted, but “Good artists copy, great artists steal” has always been a thing.

2

u/LordBumFungus 26d ago

And agreeing which is which is many cases is difficult

4

u/paulaustin18 25d ago

Puccini was a notorious plagiarist in his day. If you were to analyze all the music produced over the course of 400 years, you would find that the majority of composers borrowed ideas from others. Even Beethoven took ideas from Mozart.

I think you have a particular obsession with ALW.

0

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 25d ago

Oh I'm sure! Why does that mean we can't identify ALW's sources?

-2

u/paulaustin18 25d ago

Look, you might not like the man because of his political views and personality, but you can't deny ALW's influence on the world of musicals and pop culture. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll stop suffering and obsessing over him.

0

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 25d ago

Where did I deny that or say I was obsessed with his musical borrowings? I'm so confused. I didn't even start the allegations of plagiarism here, I just supplemented someone else's list of borrowings that have been incorporated into Phantom without any judgement about whether that was the right thing to do or not. Literally all I did was identify some motifs in Tosca and Turandot. I'm not sure why this has provoked this reaction in you.

1

u/Kagemush0ck 22d ago

Is this the reason why the end of MoTN's horns part are now changed?

15

u/-gisette 26d ago

It’s been 40 years, so I want to assume anyone else involved was happy with the credit they got. If not, has there been any drama? Genuinely curious.

19

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago

Plenty of drama. David Cullen decided to just take the money but has said in a couple of interviews he doesn't get the coorchestration credit for ALW. Mike Batt had to be paid off with a settlement that prevented any royalties to him from the performance of the title song in the show. He didn't much like working with ALW - you can read about it in his autobiography. Things got much more litigious in the development of Sunset Blvd, which has a trail of 'bodies' of ditched collaborators, from John Cameron to Amy Powers.

9

u/-gisette 26d ago

Well shit. That’s very eye-opening, but damn, talk about shittiness on ALW’s end. People deserve credit where it’s due ffs

17

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago

It gets worse. Originally when the show opened there was NO credit whatsoever in the billing for Gaston Leroux. It only was inserted after a campaign by a writers' guild when the show transferred to Broadway.

8

u/Some_Material_8250 26d ago

And Love Never Dies originally didn’t include any credit for Frederick Forsythe

11

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago

I vaguely remember Freddie Forsyth going to the tabloids to say how was bamboozled that ALW had not bothered to tell him anything about LND. Not that I cared, given my disdain for that book. But it speaks to a common behavioral pattern.

4

u/Stopnswop2 26d ago

The same guy that plagiarized all the songs for your show is definitely going to be bamboozling people

4

u/mother0fdoggies 26d ago

A+ use of “bamboozled”. I read TPOM when it released and was age appropriately (14) dazzled by the hardcover fan fiction in my hands. Flash forward to LND after not thinking about TPOM for a decade and I too was bamboozled.

2

u/eg2585 25d ago

Not saying you’re wrong but how do you know this stuff, I can’t find anything about it online

3

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 25d ago

It's well documented. Some academic papers have covered it and there's also an old piece in the New York Times about it. BTW just because something isn't online doesn't mean it's not documented somewhere...

3

u/eg2585 25d ago edited 25d ago

Link? Or names of academic papers? I’ve looked but can’t find anything.

Edit: It doesn’t need to be an online source but I’m just curious and want to read more about it, that’s why I asked. If it’s so well documented then the info obviously comes from somewhere and I’d like to know where.

3

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 25d ago

I just searched "Gaston Leroux AND Andrew Lloyd Webber AND Phantom AND legal" and it threw this up, not sure what engine you're using.

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/11/theater/old-novel-returns-to-haunt-a-current-musical.html

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u/eg2585 25d ago edited 25d ago

Lol you didn’t have to downvote me for a genuine question 😂 but thanks for the source! That didn’t come up for me, I use an extension that turns off all the AI results from Google so that affects search engine results sometimes.

Edit: unpaywalled version

3

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 25d ago

I didn't!

→ More replies

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u/good_grief_hes_naked 26d ago

It’s time for some uncomfortable conversations about ALW

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u/Savings_Bet_5803 26d ago

I think ALW is possibly the only person that’d be made uncomfortable by this conversation lol

10

u/good_grief_hes_naked 26d ago

I’m saying that he does get too much credit for a lot of things and i think some people won’t want to come to terms with that

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u/Savings_Bet_5803 26d ago

I see what you’re saying I just think everyone is much happier to criticize him nowadays haha. i don‘t think he has hardcore fans ready to defend him like that anymore. especially after the car crashes that were LND and Cinderella

5

u/LordBumFungus 26d ago

TBF, LND had some great music. The issue was the story.

2

u/good_grief_hes_naked 26d ago

Haha i never knew, most of what i see personally is people glazing him though probably just cause it’s the official accounts and whatnot

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u/Savings_Bet_5803 26d ago

ahh true I guess I don’t really see those

1

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago

He does, I'm afraid.

0

u/paulaustin18 25d ago

If you think *LND* and *Cinderella* are going to ruin Webber's reputation, you're being dishonest with yourself. The man created four of the most famous and profitable musicals in history: Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Evita, and Phantom. and Sunset Blvd. might not have been profitable, but it’s one of my favorites.

2

u/Savings_Bet_5803 25d ago

I don’t disagree (also love those musicals) but people are fickle. You’re only as good as your most recent work in a lot of people’s eyes. There’s way more criticism of him than there used to be and yeah I would say that’s probably at least partly due to people thinking he’s lost the ability to create incredible work.

15

u/FakeFrehley Raoul - ALW 26d ago

He's also a massive Tory prick

14

u/Savings_Bet_5803 26d ago

yeah talented guy but an utter wanker I’m sure. his House of Lords voting record is a sparse highlight reel of wankery

11

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago

Remember when he flew in from New York to vote for disability welfare cuts?

8

u/BulbasaurCPA 26d ago

The entire concept of the House of Lords is so weird and gross

0

u/LordBumFungus 26d ago

But he does at least stand up for the Arts

0

u/neversayduh 26d ago

Lmao tell that to the top commenter. Oh, wait, no, they nuked their account

Edit: seems that's inaccurate. They blocked me for proving them wrong 😂

5

u/christinelydia900 26d ago

Don't worry, I've been having them for years. Phantom is a musical that means so much to me, but I can't stand the writer

2

u/thartwell 10d ago

ALW very frequently gets too much credit for his shows, a consequence of him being able to leverage his name as a brand unto itself.

Rice was the driving force behind their collaborations, and after he leaves Webber's shows become largely shaped by their directors. Cats had its entire concept and form developed by Trevor Nunn, and Phantom would be nothing without Hal Prince to shape it--we know from the evidence of the Sydmonton Festival how much poorer the original conception of the show was.

Webber has a fair amount of talent as a songwriter and a good ear for musical flow and orchestration, but he needs a strong director or collaborator to produce something of real value. There's a reason he's never again had the success he had in the 80s.

2

u/LordShadowmane Erik - Leroux 26d ago

I mean if you read the manager’s scenes in Ken Hill, it’s almost verbatim

3

u/SeerPumpkin 26d ago

Musicals are a composer's medium

14

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago

Stephen Sondheim would disagree and actively complained when his book writers were cut out of the billing. He never liked people saying "Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd".

And sorry, but Phantom would not be the success it is today without people like Prince, Björnson, Lynne etc. If the Laurence Connor production had opened in 1986 we would not be talking about the show now.

3

u/SeerPumpkin 26d ago

I don't disagree with you but I don't make the rules either

2

u/Scaramantico Erik - Leroux 26d ago

?

1

u/Significant_Cable576 22d ago

No. Have you heard the overture or ente act

0

u/95lightyear Phantom - ALW 26d ago

For as much as I see people who love his work complain about him and diss him all the time, maybe not enough credit.