Meet 'Gillian': The untold story of 'Phantom of the Opera's' 2,000-pound chandelier

It’s implicit 8 feet tall, astir 11 feet wide and travels by 53-foot semitrailer. It’s covered successful much than 20,000 beads and weighs astir 1 ton — oregon astir 2,000 pounds. And 8 times a week, it’s dropped atop the heads of radical who wage for the privilege — conscionable a fewer feet abbreviated of really hitting anyone.

Meet “Gillian,” the stunning chandelier traveling with “The Phantom of the Opera” connected its existent North American Tour. Playing astatine the Hollywood Pantages Theatre done Aug. 9 earlier heading to Segerstrom Center for the Arts, the amusement is simply a “replica” of the archetypal 1980s West End and Broadway extravaganzas , maintaining manager Hal Prince’s staging, Gillian Lynne’s choreography and Maria Björnson’s iconic accumulation plan portion incorporating modern technology.

As a result, the accumulation — and the chandelier astatine its halfway — are laden with history. But the originative squad is cautious not to fto the amusement go a “museum piece.” When the chandelier falls, Production Stage Manager Jovon E. Shuck wants audiences to consciousness a caller thrill of terror.

“I anticipation you poop a small bit,” helium joked. “We privation the assemblage successful the backmost of the location to beryllium gladsome that they’re not sitting nether it, and the folks sitting nether it to beryllium thrilled that they [did].”

Far from a stagnant acceptable piece, the “Phantom” chandelier is considered a quality successful its ain right. The amusement opens by foreshadowing a past catastrophe involving the lighting fixture astatine the Paris Opéra House, which comes to fruition astatine the extremity of Act 1 erstwhile the titular Phantom sends it crashing successful a climactic acceptable of rage.

A conception of the 2,000-pound chandelier acceptable portion for “Phantom of the Opera” hangs successful the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

So beloved is the chandelier that each exemplary is named aft 1 of the show’s pioneering creatives. The archetypal Broadway accumulation featured a chandelier named “Ruthie 2,” a successor to an aboriginal London chandelier reportedly named “Ruthie” aft Hal Prince’s longtime adjunct Ruth Mitchell (alternate stories suggest the archetypal chandelier was conscionable called “the Chandi”).

Both the chandelier successful the existent London accumulation and the 1 built for the 25th day performance astatine the Royal Albert Hall are named “Maria” aft Björnson, the show’s archetypal designer, and the chandelier connected the existent World Tour is named “Hal,” successful grant of Prince. On the North American Tour, we person “Gillian,” namesake of Lynne.

In summation to the caller name, Gillian is distinguished by a revamped plan and capabilities.

Forty years ago, Björnson initially modeled her chandelier plan aft the 1 successful the Palais Garnier (Paris Opera House), but ended up “squishing” it into a much oblong, elliptical signifier to accommodate the staging. In the archetypal productions, the chandelier started onstage and traveled diagonally to a constituent supra the audience, earlier traveling down again to “crash” onto the signifier and collapse. Critically, the oval signifier allowed it to inhabit little signifier depth.

Maria Björnson’s archetypal 1986 “Phantom” exemplary and chandelier design.

(Maria Björnson Archives)

“Over the years, arsenic the oval became the iconic look of the phantom chandelier, replica productions some successful America and past internationally successful Vienna, and onwards from determination crossed Europe and Asia and Australia each conscionable held connected to the archetypal design,” said Seth Sklar-Heyn, “Phantom’s” manager and enforcement producer.

Later tours reconfigured the chandelier’s choreography, hanging it connected 1 fixed constituent to little and assistance up and down without the sideways question — a overmuch easier installation for touring.

In 2020, a caller United Kingdom circuit led designers to revisit and accommodate Björnson’s archetypal spherical plan with added bells and whistles. As a effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, that accumulation was short-lived, but the plan was re-appropriated erstwhile the philharmonic reopened successful London successful 2021. The existent West End accumulation includes the massive, ornate spherical chandelier and the stage-to-ceiling question — “a blessed mean betwixt the 2 worlds,” said Sklar-Heyn.

Though Gillian — the biggest moving “Phantom” chandelier successful the satellite — lone travels vertically and doesn’t commencement onstage, the accumulation squad makes definite it’s inactive a spectacle.

1991 chandelier schematic for the 1993 North American “Music Box” circuit of “Phantom of the Opera.”

(Maria Björnson Archives)

“We are spherical. We person the harps. We person the swags of beads. We person the globes. We person the fluted solid lanterns. We’ve got each these small elements that callback Maria’s archetypal design, due to the fact that we person the abstraction to make an constituent that doesn’t person to spell to the stage,” said Sklar-Heyn.

“We tin bash definite things successful the aerial successful L.A., connected tour, with swinging and pyrotechnics, and there’s definite elements we can’t bash successful London due to the fact that it moves from the stage,” helium continued. “So you effort to marque the champion of whichever mentation you’re moving with.”

Different productions person required antithetic chandeliers. According to Lighting Designer Andrew Bridge, for the 2000s-era Las Vegas iteration of the show, “everything had to beryllium bigger and much spectacular.” That chandelier started successful 4 abstracted pieces, flying done the auditorium to travel unneurotic and signifier the implicit fixture astatine the overture’s climax.

“Phantom of the Opera” plays astatine the Hollywood Pantages Theatre done Aug. 9.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

For the 25th day show astatine London’s Royal Albert Hall, the accumulation squad planned to get 1 of the chandeliers that Swarovski had made for the 2004 “Phantom” film.

“For immoderate reason, we couldn’t get it,” recalled Set Design Adapter Matt Kinley. Instead, Kinley and his squad had to telephone upon lighting decorator and prop shaper Howard Eaton, whose institution Howard Eaton Lighting Ltd. has constructed virtually each “Phantom” chandelier, and inquire him to marque a “giant” 1 from scratch successful conscionable 2 weeks.

“He’s a existent maverick,” Kinley said. “There’s nary 1 truly similar him successful [the U.K.], and he’s capable to instrumentality connected these insane projects and instrumentality an creator little and crook it into thing hugely technical. They’re benignant of works of creation successful themselves.”

In his role, Kinley draws from Björnson’s archive of sketches, photos and models to support a “DNA link” betwixt her archetypal conception and each portion of the design.

“She was a hard task master, you know, she was tough, but she was superb and ‘Phantom’ is her masterpiece,” helium said.

“Phantom” Production Stage Manager Jovon Shuck sits successful the Hollywood Pantages Theatre. The North American circuit of the philharmonic kicked disconnected past November.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

Bringing Gillian connected circuit is different feat. It takes up one-third of a 53-foot tractor trailer—one of 17 trailers “Phantom” travels with, and the squad anticipates astir 38 hours to load into a venue. Six months earlier each circuit stop, idiosyncratic from Shuck’s squad visits to survey the theatre gathering and conscionable with structural engineers to guarantee the structural alloy equine tin enactment its value and dynamic force.

“We privation that infinitesimal astatine the extremity of enactment 1 to beryllium terrifying and wholly safe,” Shuck said.

When the “phans” — that’s “Phantom” fans — travel to the theater, whether they’ve seen each accumulation oregon are conscionable seeing it for the archetypal time, Shuck, Sklar-Heyn and the full squad privation their acquisition to beryllium arsenic adjacent to the archetypal Broadway spectacular arsenic possible.

If that involves a monolithic chandelier falling supra their heads successful a pyrotechnic explosion, adjacent better.