If you’re wondering whether two productions of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical The Phantom of the Opera, staged in Sydney within a few months of each other, is one too many, the answer is not at all – not when they’re so different to each other and special in their own particular way.

Josh Piterman and Amy Manford, The Phantom of the Opera, 2022. Photo © Daniel Boud

In fact, it’s manna from heaven for musical theatre fans, who will be fascinated to see how and to what degree they vary from the original production, which premiered in the West End in 1986, and has been breaking box office records ever since. If you haven’t seen the original, it won’t matter of course, you’ll be blown away regardless.

Opera Australia’s Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour production, which opened in March this year, with direction by Simon Phillips and set and costume design by Gabriela Tylesova, was the first completely new production of Phantom staged anywhere in the English-speaking world.

The production now playing at the Sydney Opera House (presented in association with Cameron Mackintosh), was originally scheduled to...