The Phantom of the Opera is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the novel The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux.

It was inspired by a different musical version of the same story, by Ken Hill, which Andrew Lloyd Webber saw at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in 1984. The music for Lloyd Webber's own version was composed specifically for the voice of his then wife, singer Sarah Brightman.

The show was taken to Broadway, and premiered on the 26th of January, 1988. Despite early negative reviews (including a pan by Frank Rich in the New York Times) it is still running today. On January 9th, 2006, the show surpassed Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats as Broadway's longest-running show upon its 7,486th performance. The show won a Tony Award for Best Musical, Michael Crawford won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of The Phantom and Judy Kaye won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of opera diva Carlotta Giudicelli. The show also won Tonys for its sets, costumes, lighting and its director (Hal Prince). In his staging of the title song, Prince required the use of some pre-recorded music and vocals (Christine's part of the song is extremely difficult to sing). Andrew Lloyd Webber also made it a requirement that the role of Christine be played by two actresses due to its vocal difficulty; one would perform six shows per week, the other would perform the other two shows per week.