'Phantom' gets face-lift

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LAS VEGAS

He's keeping his brooding to less than 95 minutes and disappearing amid fiery blazes. Sparks shoot out of his sleeves; the chandelier is even more unruly; and the fog machine is cranked up full blast.

This is "Phantom -- The Las Vegas Spectacular."

After more than 65,000 performances in 24 countries, the longest-running show in Broadway history has gone under the knife. It will emerge Saturday as a trimmed-down, amped-up version tailored to suit casino audiences who have dinners to eat and slot machines to play.

"Spectacular" is just the latest, and likely the priciest, attempt to translate a Broadway hit for Las Vegas Strip visitors, an endeavor that has enjoyed only mixed success. But "Phantom" backers say they're not dealing with a Broadway show, they're dealing with the strongest "brand" in live entertainment -- and now they've "added value."

"It's a very different experience," says composer Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, who collaborated with the show's original director, Harold Prince, to rework the production. "This will be an experience you can't get anywhere else in the world." For now, that is. There's already talk of taking the production to the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau, presumably after renaming it.

Costs for the new production topped $75 million, including $40 million for a lavish, 1,800-seat replica of the Paris Opera House constructed inside The Venetian hotel-casino. Co-producers Live Nation and BASE Entertainment, spinoffs of Clear Channel Entertainment, and the Venetian foot the massive bill, nearly eight times the average cost of mounting a Broadway musical.

Technically, there's less show, or at least running time, for the money. Nearly an hour of transitions and some character development have been eliminated. The phantom composer, his coveted soprano and the temperamental chandelier all made the cuts, deemed necessary to accommodate Las Vegas' unwritten no-intermission rule.

"So they're not burning their entire evening, so to speak," says Scott Zeiger, head of BASE Entertainment and executive producer.

Mr. Lloyd Webber insists that nothing was lost and only "breathtaking" special effects were gained. "The piece is the piece," he says.