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
William Furst productions. He produced music for, or was music director for numerous plays, including a steady stream of dramas produced by David Belasco and Charles Frohman. Two plays by Belasco which had Furst's musical accompaniments, "Madame Butterfly" and "The Girl of the Golden West", were made into operas by Giacomo Puccini who attended their New York productions. Musicologist Allan W. Atlas has shown that Puccini modeled some music heard in his opera La fanciulla del West on Furst's music. His last theatrical composition was music for "Joan the Woman", starring Geraldine Farrar. Furst died in 1917 at his home in Freeport