Love Never Dies, the sequel to Andrew Lloyd Webber's epic musical The Phantom of the Opera, will be the opening show at the new AIA Grand Theater in Shanghai on Sept 28.

Webber's most iconic musical creation, The Phantom of the Opera has enjoyed enduring popularity with audiences in China, especially Shanghai, where the original English production has toured multiple times.

The Chinese production of the classic, which premiered in May, had 40 shows at the Shanghai Grand Theatre that were watched by 65,000 people and generated box-office sales of 48.5 million yuan ($6.66 million).

As soon as the sequel's upcoming premiere in China was announced last month, thousands of enthusiastic fans flocked to the online box office system of the Poly Theatre Group and snapped up the tickets for the opening show at the AIA Grand Theater in Shanghai within an hour. Love Never Dies will be shown at the AIA Grand Theater for a month until Oct 29.

The production will then go on a tour of 18 cities.

Webber started working on Love Never Dies as early as in 1990, but he didn't begin to compose the music until 2007.He was reluctant to call it a sequel at first, and regarded it as a stand-alone piece.

He later clarified that audiences would not need to have watched The Phantom of the Opera to understand Love Never Dies.

The story of the latter is loosely adapted from the 1999 novel The Phantom of Manhattan by Frederick Forsyth.

The story takes place about 10 years after The Phantom of the Opera, when the Phantom disappears from the Paris Opera House and becomes the mysterious impresario behind Mr Y's Phantasma, a popular circus and vaudeville theater on Coney Island.

The Phantom enjoys the fame and fortune and lives with everything he could wish for, except his beloved muse, Christine Daae, who is now a superstar opera singer.

Daae is invited by Oscar Hammerstein to perform her American debut at his new theater, and travels with her husband Raoul and son Gustav to New York. However, she is later lured to Coney Island by the Phantom, who sends his circus minions to waylay her.

Love Never Dies is a sensational spectacle filled with the frenetic energy of carnival and vaudeville, the pain of unrequited love, bitter rivalries, murderous madness and the exotic splendors of the Phantom's new world.

The West End production of Love Never Dies ran from February to November in 2010, and was followed by productions in Australia, Denmark, Austria, Japan, as well as the United States.

The China tour is jointly produced by Webber's Really Useful Group, Crossroads Live Group and the Beijing Poly Theatre Group.

It will be directed by Simon Phillips, with costumes and stage settings designed by Gabriela Tylesova.

Luke McCall from North Wales will play the role of the Phantom in the new production of Love Never Ends.

The veteran musical artist has performed in West End productions of The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables and Man of La Mancha in London.

He is also the youngest person to have played the Phantom and Jean Valjean, the hero of Les Miserables.

Daae will be played by Manon Taris, a French musical actress. Taris was trained at the Institut Superieur des Arts de la Scene of Rick Odums in Paris, and her previous work in theater includes the role of Cendrillon in The Extraordinary Journey of Jules Verne, Belle in Beauty and the Beast, and Cosette in Les Miserables.

The 1,715-seat AIA Grand Theater is operated by the Beijing Poly Theatre Group. It is within walking distance to the Tianqiao metro station on line 12, a five-minute drive to the Bund, and an eight-minute drive to the Lujiazui in the Pudong New Area.

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