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
Madama Butterfly States in 1906, first in Washington, D.C., in October, and then in New York in November, performed by Henry Savage's New English Opera Company (so named because it performed in English-language translations). In 1906, Puccini wrote a third version, which was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In 1907, Puccini made several changes in the orchestral and vocal scores, and this became the fourth version, which was performed in Paris. In 1907, Puccini made his final revisions to the opera in a fifth version, which has become known as the "Standard Version" and is the one which is