Composer of legendary musicals and pioneer of rock opera, who is Andrew Lloyd Webber? A look back at ALW's incredible journey and its greatest successes.
music in the blood
Andrew Lloyd Webber was born on March 22, 1948 in London into a family of musicians, his father is a composer, his mother a pianist and his younger brother is a cellist. It is even said that he wrote several piano suites at the age of 9!
He studied at Westminster School then at Magdalen College in Oxford and began to compose his first musicals. He was only 17 when he received a letter from a certain Tim Rice, 3 years his senior… It was the start of a long collaboration.
Beginnings with Tim Rice
From their beginnings, ALW and Tim Rice are very close friends: one composes melodies and the other comes to put verses on it. In 1965, they signed their first musical The Likes of Us. But lack of financial means, it will not see the light of day before 2005. Also in 1965, they are invited to write a 15-minute "pop cantata" inspired by the Bible for a primary school. Appointed Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the show was played several times, each time growing in size, before being taken to the studio to record an album.
Following the success of Jesus Christ Superstar, who Joseph climbed all over the place until arriving in the West End in 1974 and on Broadway in 1982.
The phenomenon Jesus Christ Superstar
ALW and Tim Rice are writing their third theatrical project: Jesus Christ Superstar. Unfortunately, they find no interest to produce the show on stage. They then decide to record it as a “concept album”. The Decca record company allows them to record a first single: "Superstar". The legend also says that ALW would have noted the melody of the song on a napkin in a restaurant. Upon its release, the single was a hit.
The full album was released in 1970 and stormed the American charts. Following a concert tour across the USA, the show finally saw the light of day on Broadway. Jesus Christ Superstar received mixed reviews and only lasted a year and a half on Broadway. However, all is not lost; Andrew Lloyd Webber catches the eye of Hal Prince, producer and director.
In England, the show finally meets with success: In London, it will remain on display for 8 years!
In the early 70s, ALW married Sarah Hugill with whom he had two children. He also set up the company The Really Useful Group, with which he will produce all his shows.
The king of megamusic
In 1975, Andrew Lloyd Webber teamed up with a new lyricist, Alan Ayckbourn for jeeves, a show that is a real flop. He returns to Tim Rice to write Evita, based on the life of Eva Peron.
Here again, the music is recorded in a concept album that is a hit, especially with the hit “Don't Cry For Me Argentina”.
The musical is staged in London by Harold Prince where it will stay for 8 years! She arrives on Broadway with Patti Lupone and Mandy Patinkin in the main roles and wins all the prizes.
However, the relationship with Tim Rice deteriorates and they distance themselves. Following this, he wrote the song cycle tell me on a sunday in 1979 with Don Black.
The consecration Cats
Finally, Andrew Lloyd Webber decides to do without a lyricist for his next musical. For this, he will draw on the collection of poetry Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by TS Eliot and sets the various cats in the poems to music. He teamed up with producer Cameron Mackintosh and presented the first songs at the Sydmonton Festival. In the audience is Valerie Eliot, TS Eliot's widow, who presents him with other unpublished poems by her husband. Among them stands out the character of Grizabella. Andrew Lloyd Webber understands the scenic potential of these poems. He called on Trevor Nunn for the staging, Gillian Lynne for the choreography and Robert Napier for the costumes and sets. In 1981, all the "Jellicle Cats" began to come to life.
Rehearsals begin, although the libretto is not finished and many lyrics are not yet written. A week before the start of the previews, Judi Dench, who plays Grizabella, suffers a ruptured Achilles heel and the song “Memory” still has no lyrics… It is finally Elaine Page who becomes Grizabella while singing different lyrics for “Memory” every night!
Still, the show opened in London in May 1981 to rave reviews. On Broadway the following year, he won 7 Tony Awards. Musical comedy Cats will remain 21 years on the bill in London and 18 years in New York.
Although a success on stage, the 2019 film adaptation was a complete disaster.
It's during the episode Cats that he falls in love with one of the artists, Sarah Brightman. The two married in 1984.
The Ghost of all records
In 1987, the musical Starlight Express, was not well received by critics. The story is far-fetched: we witness the world train championship where several locomotives compete. All on rollerblades! However, in Germany, the show is a hit. The city of Bochum had a theater built especially for the show, and the performers skated non-stop from 1988 to 2020. The show, which has already welcomed nearly 2 million spectators, resumed after the Covid.
He then wrote a requiem mass for his deceased father as well as the musical Cricket for Prince Edward.
Inspired by his marriage to Sarah Brightman, he adapts the novel The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. The musical opened in the West End in September 1986 with Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford in the lead roles. We find the costumes and sets by Maria Björnson, the staging by Hal Prince and the choreography by Gillian Lynne.
On Broadway, the show breaks the record for the longest-running show, having run from 1988 to 2023. Everywhere in its path, the show wins every award it can get.
ALW is however accused of plagiarism by three different artists, including the heirs of Puccini and the group Pink Floyd.
Either way, Andrew Lloyd Webber was at the height of his fame in the late 80s.
Hit or miss?
In 1989, the show Aspects of Love, adapted from the novel of the same name by David Garnett, did not meet with the expected success. The song “Love Changes Everything” still becomes a hit.
New adaptation in 1990 with Sunset Boulevard, based on the film Dusk Boulevard by Billy Wilder. This is timely: Hal Prince (director ofEvita as well as Phantom) owns the film rights.
ALW borrows several melodies from Cricket and wrote several versions with different lyricists. At the end of the day, Sunset Boulevard opened in London in 1991 directed by Trevor Nunn. Despite mixed reviews in London, Sunset arrives on Broadway with Glenn Close in the role of Norma Dean and wins 7 Tony Awards.
In 2005, it was announced that the musical would be adapted into a film… We are still waiting for it!
The Queen of England knighted him in 1992. We can now call him Lord Andrew Webber within the Conservative Party, which he has supported for more than 20 years. From 1995 to 2000, ALW became a culinary and hotel critic for the Daily Telegraph. And why not ?
4 musical comedies follow which do not cause a stir: Whistle Down the Wind, The Beautiful Game, The Woman in White et Love Never Dies. The last one being conceived as the sequel to the The Phantom of the Opera.
60 years old and all his teeth
From 2000 to 2010, Andrew Lloyd Webber became a judge on BBC musical talent shows. These programs aim to find the future interpreters of the main roles of the shows that he produces or that he has written. In How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?, he finds his Maria de The Sound of Music or in Superstar, he is looking for THE next interpreter of Jesus Christ Superstar.
With Over the Rainbow, he finds the perfect Dorothée for his new musical: The Wizard of Oz. The show opened in 2011 in London.
A great art collector, he separated at this time from his Picasso painting, The Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto for the modest sum of… 34 million pounds.
In 2013, his show Stephen Ward, based on the life of the osteopath implicated in the Profuma scandal, does not last long.
Where did the rock go?
It's 2015 and Andrew Lloyd Webber is spicing up his life by adapting the film into a musical School of Rock. The show, which includes hundreds of extra talented child musicians, remains on display for 4 years on Broadway and in the West End.
As of 2017, four of his shows are playing simultaneously on Broadway – a record he shares with Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Another record in 2018, Andrew Lloyd Webber obtains an EGOT. That is to say that he received an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Awards. They are less than 20 to hold this record! That same year he published his memoirs, unmasked.
The beginning of the end ?
While the movie Cats released in 2019, Andrew Lloyd Webber described the film as "ridiculous". Traumatized to see his singing cats disfigured… he buys himself a therapy dog!
Following the Covid, all its shows are closing. In 2021, when theaters reopen, his new show Cinderella is caught in the turmoil. Entire weeks of performances are cancelled, leaving artists without work and without financial compensation. The composer takes the opportunity to make changes in the songs. A few months later, the actors of the troupe learn on social media that the show is closing, as new artists were about to join the show. New ball during the last performance: Andrew Lloyd Webber qualifies his Cinderella "expensive mistake" and gets booed on stage.
Around The Phantom of the Opera to reopen but this time, with an orchestra reduced by half, which arouses a wave of protest from the musicians. In short, things are not going well for Lord Webber.
Following the difficulties of recovery from the Covid, Andrew Lloyd Webber announces that his The Phantom of the Opera will close on Broadway in 2023, after 37 years. This will leave room for Cinderella, which for its arrival on Broadway is renamed Bad Cinderella. Unfortunately, according to the critics, the show lives up to its name a little too well…
Finally, Lloyd Webber is one of the composers selected to write for the coronation of King Charles III.
Despite the last complicated years, Andrew Lloyd Webber is not ready to stop. He has more than 20 musicals, millions of albums sold, an estimated fortune of 700 million pounds and eternal melodies!
True king of the musical, he will have marked the genre for nearly 60 years.