A musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, The Phantom of the Opera, is based on the novel by French novelist Gaston Leroux, composed by Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe and directed by Harold Prince. The musical is focused on Christine Daae, a beautiful singer, who becomes the obsession of "The Phantom of the Opera", a mysterious, disfigured musical genius who terrorizes the Paris Opera House. The Phantom is facially deformed since his birth, but he is a genius composer and musician who hides behind a white mask and is known to the managers and actors as the "Opera Ghost".

The musical is inspired by an earlier musical version of the same story by Ken Hill, "Phantom" opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in London on October 9, 1986. Andrew Lloyd Webber announced that he is working on the musical's sequel with the book written by Ben Elton and lyrics by Glen Slater on February 16, 2007 which is named “The Phantom of Manhattan” and is adapted from the novel of the same name, written by Frederick Forsyth and published in 1999.