Unheard material from the Phantom Of The Opera is to be released to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the West End musical.
The Phantom of the Opera (The Andrew Lloyd Webber 2026 Mix) will be released after Andrew Lloyd Webber rediscovered the master tapes for the original 1986 cast recording featuring Some Mothers Do Ave Em star Michael Crawford and singer and actress Sarah Brightman.
The new album will feature unreleased sections and rare material from Lord Lloyd-Webber’s personal archive as well as a remix of the original record.
Lord Lloyd-Webber said: “Mixing the album I made 40 years ago was an extraordinary experience. It was as if I had the artists in the studio with me all over again.
“One of the most poignant moments was hearing the late Steve Barton as Raoul.
“As the memories of the making of this album flooded back, I was struck by how brilliant and precise Hal Prince’s casting was. Every performance has such character.
“Michael Crawford’s Phantom is a masterclass in musical theatre acting through song. Sarah Brightman’s voice has a trueness and clarity combined with vulnerability that I had forgotten.
“I remembered the late drama critic Jack Tinker describing it as like fine porcelain.
“Mike Reed, the conductor, interpreted my score with an unerring understanding of tempi and with a rare combination of bravura and sensitivity. The orchestral playing is sensational.”
The album will be available on streaming, CD and vinyl formats, with the three-LP edition restoring material cut from the original album because of running time restrictions.
Unreleased material includes a cassette demo of the title song from its earliest incarnation as a proposed stand-alone single, Box Five, the first draft of the Opera Managers’ Notes scene, later reworked into Prima Donna, and an early demo of Masquerade with Richard Stilgoe’s original lyrics.
With collective sales of more than 40 million, The Phantom Of The Opera is one of the best-selling cast albums of all time, and was the first musical cast recording to debut at number one in the UK charts.
Since Cameron Mackintosh’s original production opened in 1986, Lord Lloyd-Webber’s Phantom Of The Opera has gone on to see productions playing to 160 million people in 217 cities, 52 territories and in 23 languages.
The title song will be made available as a single on Friday, with the digital album being released on October 9, followed by the three-LP vinyl and two-CD versions on November 6, with a limited edition six-LP box set, titled A Collector’s Piece Indeed, being released on November 20.
