Fans of the Phantom are surely pleased to add this song to “Till I Hear You Sing” for the anticipated musical’s repertoire. “Love Never Dies” is lovely-sounding and hypnotic. The lyrics also provide a unique perspective on Christine’s emotions in the new story because it was never clear in the original musical whether her character truly loved the Phantom. It was always up for audience interpretation but I think most believed that Christine was entranced by the Phantom and cared for him because no one else in the world did. However with this new piece, it appears that Christine perhaps also felt a mutual affection – perhaps love – for the Phantom which has lingered throughout the years and thus… has never died. Or perhaps she’s simply singing of the Phantom’s love for her in a somewhat endearing fashion. Or there’s a chance she’s singing about her love for Raoul.

However – curiouser and curiouser – it seems that the musical score for “Love Never Dies” has been heard before in Webber’s previous work. Fans of Webber’s musical The Beautiful Game will instantly recognize the tune as reminiscent of this older musical’s most popular song, “Our Kind of Love.” In fact, the tune is essentially exactly the same. Hear it for yourself below:

Not only that, but Kiri Te Kanawa once sang a number called “The Heart is Slow to Learn” (also by Webber) which coincidentally enough – is set to the same musical score. There have also been murmurs that the lyrics are the same too, but we didn’t find that to be the case when we listened through. Kanawa’s performance is below:

Webber has a sort of reputation for recycling musical works, so we suppose it’s no great disappointment that he’s re-using some of his own. However, this knowledge in sense takes away from the beauty of “Love Never Dies” as a title piece. After all, if these sentiments have been expressed before… then what’s so special about them? An unfortunate little bit of a damper on our Phantom excitement.

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