The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
The musical opened in London's West End in 1986, and on Broadway in 1988. It won the 1986 Olivier Award and the 1988 Tony Award for Best Musical, and Michael Crawford (in the title role) won the Olivier and Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Musical. It is the longest running show in Broadway history by a wide margin, and celebrated its 10,000th Broadway performance on 11 February 2012, the first production ever to do so. It is the second longest-running West End musical, after "Les Misérables", and the third longest-running West End show overall, after "The Mousetrap".
The Phantom of the Opera (1925 film)
For unknown reasons, an opening prologue showing a man with a lantern has been added—using a single continuous take—but no corresponding title cards or dialogue survive. This shot seems to have been a talking sequence, but it shows up in the original 1925 version, shorter in duration and using a different, close-up shot of the man with the lantern. Furthermore, the opening title sequence, the lantern man, the footage of Mary Fabian performing as Carlotta, and Mary Philbin's opera performances are photographed at 24 frames per second (sound film speed), and therefore were shot after the movie's original release. It is possible that the lantern man is meant to be Joseph Buquet, but the brief remaining close-up footage of this man from the 1925 version does not appear to be of Bernard Siegel, who plays Buquet. The man who appears in the reshot footage could be a different actor as well, but since there is no close-up of the man in this version, and the atmospheric lighting partially obscures his face, it is difficult to be certain.