Musical theatre responsible for "Les Misérables", which became the longest-running international musical hit in history. The team, in collaboration with Richard Maltby Jr., continued to produce hits, including "Miss Saigon", inspired by the Puccini opera "Madama Butterfly". The British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber saw similar success with "Evita", based on the life of Argentina's Eva Perón; "Cats", derived from the poems of T. S. Eliot (both of which musicals originally starred Elaine Paige); "Starlight Express", performed on roller skates; "The Phantom of the Opera", derived from the Gaston Leroux novel, "Le Fantôme de l'Opéra"; and "Sunset Boulevard" (from the classic film of
Gabriel Bacquier School and in 1945 entered the Paris Conservatoire, graduating in 1950. He joined the opera company of José Beckmans from 1950 to 1952, and then became a member of La Monnaie in Brussels from 1953 until 1956. There he sang both the French repertory, opera (Faust, Lakmé, Manon, Werther) and operetta ("Angélique", "La belle Hélène", "Les Cloches de Corneville", "Miss Heylett", "Monsieur Beaucaire"); as well as Puccini ("La Boheme", "Madame Butterfly"), the "Barber of Seville" and the "Bartered Bride". He made his debut at the Opéra-Comique in 1956, as Sharpless in "Madama Butterfly", and at the Palais Garnier in 1958,