‘Think Phantom’s scary? You should meet Putin’, says Andrew Lloyd Webber

The composer of hit musicals including Phantom of the Opera and Cats discusses the time he met Vladimir Putin and the post-Covid challenge for theatre producers.

Joshua Robson will play the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera as part of Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour. Picture: John Feder

When Andrew Lloyd Webber met Vladimir Putin, the then Russian prime minister arrived for an ­interview about the Eurovision Song Contest with a pair of dogs and a penetrating gaze that did not let the composer go.

Lloyd Webber had written Britain’s entry for the 2009 Eurovision contest, and Russia was the host country, hence the rather novel ­interview for the BBC.

“He’s a very frightening guy,” Lloyd Webber said in Sydney on Tuesday. “He arrived with a couple of dogs, and he looks at you straight in the eyes all the time. He’s very, very scary.”

He asked the Russian leader whether he would consider ­becoming president again. “He said, ‘If Russian interests were threatened in any of the former Soviet (states)’. That was in 2009.”

Lloyd Webber, 74, is in Sydney for the opening of a new production of his musical – and one of the most popular musicals of all time – The Phantom of the Opera.

The Handa Opera performance on Sydney Harbour is the first time Phantom has been staged outdoors in a major new production.

He also has announced a return of one of his earliest hits, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, opening at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre in ­November, and an arena-style production of Evita next year, starring Tina Arena.

A separate production of Phantom will open at the Sydney Opera House in August and Arts Centre Melbourne in October.

The theatre baron, whose ­private company the Really Useful Group owns the rights to his musicals and theatre properties, had an estimated wealth in 2019 of £820m (about $1.45bn in today’s money).

Andrew Lloyd Webber in Sydney on Tuesday. Picture: Jane Dempster

The pandemic and theatre lockdowns dented earnings by about £40m to $50m, he said, and had brought his company LW Theatres to within a week of “breaching all our bank debt ­covenants”.

Since the pandemic, he said, theatre producers could no longer rely on tourism to provide a substantial share of box office takings, and last week his company announced plans to diversity into filmed and streamed entertainment. “One of the lessons … is that we have been concentrating purely on theatre, and then something comes along like (the pandemic), and suddenly we’re bust,” he said.

“We can’t depend now as we have done exclusively on live entertainment … not wise, really.”

The Sydney Harbour production of Phantom has been directed by Simon Phillips and designed by Gabriela Tylesova, and will be substantially different from the classic 1986 production.

“It’s always interesting to see a new production, a new take,” Lloyd Webber said. “I know Simon as a director, I think he’s brilliant. I’m looking forward to seeing it.”

Lloyd Webber said he had ­cancelled the productions of his musicals that were due to open in Moscow, including School of Rock, because of the Russian ­invasion of Ukraine.

He had no further contact with Putin but said he had heard once from Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, who wanted the composer of Phantom, Cats and Sunset Boulevard to write an “ice ballet” for his wife.

“That’s been my last contact with the Russian regime,” he said.