Meet 'gillian': The Untold Story Of 'phantom Of The Opera's' 2,000-pound Chandelier

It’s complete 8 feet tall, astir 11 feet wide and travels by 53-foot semitrailer. It’s covered successful much than 20,000 beads and weighs almost 1 ton — aliases astir 2,000 pounds. And 8 times a week, it’s dropped atop nan heads of group who salary for nan privilege — conscionable a fewer feet short of really hitting anyone.

Meet “Gillian,” nan stunning chandelier walking pinch “The Phantom of nan Opera” connected its existent North American Tour. Playing astatine nan Hollywood Pantages Theatre done Aug. 9 earlier heading to Segerstrom Center for nan Arts, nan show is simply a “replica” of nan original 1980s West End and Broadway extravaganzas , maintaining head Hal Prince’s staging, Gillian Lynne’s choreography and Maria Björnson’s iconic accumulation creation while incorporating modern technology.

As a result, nan accumulation — and nan chandelier astatine its halfway — are laden pinch history. But nan imaginative squad is observant not to fto nan show go a “museum piece.” When nan chandelier falls, Production Stage Manager Jovon E. Shuck wants audiences to consciousness a caller thrill of terror.

“I dream you poop a small bit,” he joked. “We want nan assemblage successful nan backmost of nan location to beryllium gladsome that they’re not sitting nether it, and nan folks sitting nether it to beryllium thrilled that they [did].”

Far from a stagnant group piece, nan “Phantom” chandelier is considered a characteristic successful its ain right. The show opens by foreshadowing a past disaster involving nan lighting fixture astatine nan Paris Opéra House, which comes to fruition astatine nan extremity of Act 1 erstwhile nan titular Phantom sends it crashing successful a climactic fresh of rage.

A conception of nan 2,000-pound chandelier group portion for “Phantom of nan Opera” hangs successful nan Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

So beloved is nan chandelier that each exemplary is named aft 1 of nan show’s pioneering creatives. The original Broadway accumulation featured a chandelier named “Ruthie 2,” a successor to an early London chandelier reportedly named “Ruthie” aft Hal Prince’s longtime adjunct Ruth Mitchell (alternate stories propose nan first chandelier was conscionable called “the Chandi”).

Both nan chandelier successful nan existent London accumulation and nan 1 built for nan 25th day performance astatine nan Royal Albert Hall are named “Maria” aft Björnson, nan show’s original designer, and nan chandelier connected nan existent World Tour is named “Hal,” successful grant of Prince. On nan North American Tour, we person “Gillian,” namesake of Lynne.

In summation to nan caller name, Gillian is distinguished by a revamped creation and capabilities.

Forty years ago, Björnson initially modeled her chandelier creation aft nan 1 successful nan Palais Garnier (Paris Opera House), but ended up “squishing” it into a much oblong, elliptical style to accommodate nan staging. In nan original productions, nan chandelier started onstage and traveled diagonally to a constituent supra nan audience, earlier walking down again to “crash” onto nan shape and collapse. Critically, nan oval style allowed it to inhabit little shape depth.

Maria Björnson’s original 1986 “Phantom” exemplary and chandelier design.

(Maria Björnson Archives)

“Over nan years, arsenic nan oval became nan iconic look of nan phantom chandelier, replica productions some successful America and past internationally successful Vienna, and onwards from location crossed Europe and Asia and Australia each conscionable held connected to nan original design,” said Seth Sklar-Heyn, “Phantom’s” head and executive producer.

Later tours reconfigured nan chandelier’s choreography, hanging it connected 1 fixed constituent to little and assistance up and down without nan sideways recreation — a overmuch easier installation for touring.

In 2020, a caller United Kingdom circuit led designers to revisit and accommodate Björnson’s original spherical creation pinch added bells and whistles. As a consequence of nan COVID-19 pandemic, that accumulation was short-lived, but nan creation was re-appropriated erstwhile nan philharmonic reopened successful London successful 2021. The existent West End accumulation includes nan massive, ornate spherical chandelier and nan stage-to-ceiling recreation — “a happy mean betwixt nan 2 worlds,” said Sklar-Heyn.

Though Gillian — nan biggest moving “Phantom” chandelier successful nan world — only travels vertically and doesn’t commencement onstage, nan accumulation squad makes judge it’s still a spectacle.

1991 chandelier schematic for nan 1993 North American “Music Box” circuit of “Phantom of nan Opera.”

(Maria Björnson Archives)

“We are spherical. We person nan harps. We person nan swags of beads. We person nan globes. We person nan fluted solid lanterns. We’ve sewage each these small elements that callback Maria’s original design, because we person nan abstraction to create an constituent that doesn’t person to spell to nan stage,” said Sklar-Heyn.

“We tin do definite things successful nan aerial successful L.A., connected tour, pinch swinging and pyrotechnics, and there’s definite elements we can’t do successful London because it moves from nan stage,” he continued. “So you effort to make nan champion of whichever type you’re moving with.”

Different productions person required different chandeliers. According to Lighting Designer Andrew Bridge, for nan 2000s-era Las Vegas loop of nan show, “everything had to beryllium bigger and much spectacular.” That chandelier started successful 4 abstracted pieces, flying done nan auditorium to travel together and shape nan complete fixture astatine nan overture’s climax.

“Phantom of nan Opera” plays astatine nan Hollywood Pantages Theatre done Aug. 9.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

For nan 25th day capacity astatine London’s Royal Albert Hall, nan accumulation squad planned to get 1 of nan chandeliers that Swarovski had made for nan 2004 “Phantom” film.

“For immoderate reason, we couldn’t get it,” recalled Set Design Adapter Matt Kinley. Instead, Kinley and his squad had to telephone upon lighting designer and prop shaper Howard Eaton, whose institution Howard Eaton Lighting Ltd. has constructed virtually each “Phantom” chandelier, and inquire him to make a “giant” 1 from scratch successful conscionable 2 weeks.

“He’s a existent maverick,” Kinley said. “There’s nary 1 really for illustration him successful [the U.K.], and he’s capable to return connected these insane projects and return an creator little and move it into thing hugely technical. They’re benignant of useful of creation successful themselves.”

In his role, Kinley draws from Björnson’s archive of sketches, photos and models to support a “DNA link” betwixt her original conception and each portion of nan design.

“She was a difficult task master, you know, she was tough, but she was superb and ‘Phantom’ is her masterpiece,” he said.

“Phantom” Production Stage Manager Jovon Shuck sits successful nan Hollywood Pantages Theatre. The North American circuit of nan philharmonic kicked disconnected past November.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

Bringing Gillian connected circuit is different feat. It takes up one-third of a 53-foot tractor trailer—one of 17 trailers “Phantom” travels with, and nan squad anticipates astir 38 hours to load into a venue. Six months earlier each circuit stop, personification from Shuck’s squad visits to study nan theatre building and meet pinch structural engineers to guarantee nan structural alloy equine tin support its weight and move force.

“We want that infinitesimal astatine nan extremity of enactment 1 to beryllium terrifying and wholly safe,” Shuck said.

When nan “phans” — that’s “Phantom” fans — travel to nan theater, whether they’ve seen each accumulation aliases are conscionable seeing it for nan first time, Shuck, Sklar-Heyn and nan full squad want their acquisition to beryllium arsenic adjacent to nan original Broadway spectacular arsenic possible.

If that involves a monolithic chandelier falling supra their heads successful a pyrotechnic explosion, moreover better.