The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical) place long ago), "a chandelier in pieces", alluding to a connection with "the Phantom of the Opera". As the porters remove the drop cloth covering the fixture, it flickers to life and ascends to the ceiling as the auditorium's former grandeur is restored ("Overture"). It is now 1881 and the cast of a new production, "Hannibal", are rehearsing onstage when they learn that new owners, Firmin and André, are taking over the Paris Opéra House ("Hannibal Rehearsal"). Carlotta, the Opéra's resident soprano prima donna, begins to perform an aria for the new managers when a backdrop inexplicably falls from the
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical) Puccini charged in a lawsuit that a recurring two-bar passage in "Music of the Night" closely resembled a similar phrase first heard in the aria "Quello che tacete" from Puccini's opera "Girl of the Golden West". The litigation was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. In 1990 a Baltimore songwriter named Ray Repp filed a lawsuit alleging that the title song from "Phantom" was based on a song that he wrote in 1978 called "Till You". After eight years of litigation – including an unsuccessful countersuit by Lloyd Webber claiming that "Till You" was itself a plagiarism of