I have been watching musicals in Korea since the 1980s. During my years studying in the United States, and even after returning to Korea, I attended both Broadway and Korean productions. But if you look at my website, you’ll see reviews only from 2005 onward. Before then, I enjoyed the shows but never mulled them over afterward or recorded my impressions.

All of that changed after seeing The Phantom of the Opera.

The first time was in 2005. I was on a business trip near New York, and after work I headed straight to the Majestic Theatre. Back in my student days in the U.S., a friend who loved Phantom had played me Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman’s CD. On a ten-hour drive along the interstate to Long Island, we listened to that album on repeat and even memorized and sang along to the lyrics. But the shock of seeing the live performance years later was completely different. The heart-shaking live sound felt like being struck by lightning; the falling chandelier, the unexpected stage effects and lighting, the majestic boat scene—everything was magical. The Playbill from that night bears the names Hugh Panaro and Sandra Joseph. The original cast recording I knew so well was excellent, but the thrill of a live stage went far beyond that. After the show, I was so absorbed in its afterglow that instead of taking the subway back to my hotel, I walked for over an hour.

In the years that followed, I saw Phantom three more times, and the fourth and final Broadway performance was in August 2022. My elder son had never seen a Broadway show, and I wanted his first to be special, so I chose Phantom again. But as soon as the performance began, despite the good voices, I felt unmoved.

Perhaps I was unusually sensitive that day, but I felt a strange distance, as if the magic had vanished. I even found myself wondering, “Should I stop watching this show?” Was it over-polished now? Or had I simply seen it too many times? My son, for his part, asked, “So… the Phantom is crazy?” (For reference, after watching Rebecca in Korea, he also said, “The butler’s crazy.”) I kept wondering why this performance hadn’t captivated me like before.

The next day we saw The Lion King, and my son loved everything about it—the stage, the acting, the energy, the audience reaction. I enjoyed it as much as I had a few years earlier. That reassured me that my passion for musicals hadn’t faded, but made me even more curious about why my feelings toward Phantom had changed.

A month later, I read an article announcing that Phantom’s Broadway run would end in February 2023 after 35 years. I felt satisfied that I had gone “before the final performance,” and bid it farewell. I thought perhaps one day I might see it again in the UK, but as a Broadway Phantom fan, my time had ended.

However, after seeing the Korean licensed production more than 50 times, I realized that the magic still existed.

Ever since my first Phantom in 2005, I would want to see it again the very next day. Over time, I revisited it occasionally, and each time the sense of wonder and amazement returned—except for that last Broadway viewing. The chandelier, the boat, the angel statue, the stage direction—all were impressive, but the true shock came from the Phantom’s musical numbers. On Broadway, Hugh Panaro is my Phantom. His voice etched the performance into my memory. Hearing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music live, with the theater’s acoustics and sheer vocal power, was a thrill that recordings could never match.

That final viewing was disappointing—not so much because of the performance itself, but because of a feeling that something was missing. Perhaps I had picked up on the energy of the looming Broadway closure. I had always thought I would keep watching the show every five years, but I no longer wanted to go back.

Then, watching the Korean production rekindled my affection for Phantom. That passion turned into a year-long “Phantom obsession,” which led me to write reviews and feel the need to leave something behind. Eventually, I created a website to record every musical I had seen. At first it focused on Phantom, but now it embraces even Korean original musicals.

This piece is less a detailed review of a performance and more a memoir of how I came to create my website.