Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture

Professor Explores Critical Response to Lloyd Webber’s ‘Phantom of the Opera’

Wednesday, October 29, 2014, By Rob Enslin
Share
College of Arts and Sciences

Critical response to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera,” within the political and economic milieu of the Thatcher/Reagan era, is the subject of a scholarly article by a professor in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Amanda Eubanks Winkler

Amanda Eubanks Winkler

Amanda Eubanks Winkler, associate professor of music history and cultures in the Department of Art and Music Histories (AMH), is the author of “Politics and the Reception of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘The Phantom of the Opera’” in the November issue of the Cambridge Opera Journal (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Much of the article focuses on Lloyd Webber’s most popular stage work, set against the sweeping economic conservatism of the mid-1980s.

“British critics writing for Conservative-leaning broadsheets and tabloids took nationalist pride in Lloyd Webber’s commercial success, while others, on both sides of the Atlantic, claimed ‘Phantom’ was tasteless and crassly commercial, a musical manifestation of a new Gilded Age,” says Winkler, an expert in English theater music and the director of AMH’s undergraduate program in music history and cultures. “Broader issues regarding the relationship between government and elite culture also affected the critical response.”

Winkler maintains that, for some, “Phantom” represented a new kind of populist opera that could survive and thrive without government subsidy; for others, it was a mockery of high art.

“The show’s puerile operatics were considered to be sophomoric jibes against an art form that was held in esteem,” she says.

“Phantom” opened in London’s West End in 1986 and on Broadway two years later—a time when critical hostility toward Lloyd Webber and mega-musicals had reached a fever pitch. European blockbusters such as “Cats,” “Starlight Express” and “Les Misérables” may have held sway with mainstream audiences, but some critics saw the genre’s runaway extravagance and crass consumerism as out of step with the unsettled economic times.

Case in point: The U.S. premiere of “Phantom” came on the heels of the so-called Black Monday stock market crash, which caused a wave of global economic uncertainty. Still, Lloyd Webber’s material success and political conservatism (he was a vocal champion of Tory policy in the U.K.) seemed to matter little to populist audiences.

Andrew Lloyd-Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber

“These traits may have helped him in some places, particularly in the U.K., among those who supported Margaret Thatcher’s economic values,” Winkler says. “While she did not actively cut the government’s funding of the arts, she failed to increase government subsidy. Thatcher herself pointed to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s shows as an exemplar of profitable capitalist art—a model to be emulated.”

In addition to English theater music, Winkler has published and lectured on an array of subjects, including the relationships among musical, bodily and spiritual disorder; musical depictions of the goddess Venus; the gendering of musical spirits; and the intersection of music and politics. Her first book, “O Let Us Howle Some Heavy Note” (Indiana University Press, 2006), analyzes the musical conventions associated with disorder on the early modern English stage and is cited by literary scholars and musicologists in equal measure. She has two forthcoming books that consider other facets of musical life in early modern England and has also edited two volumes of theater music.

A former department chair, Winkler is involved with numerous academic and administrative committees at Syracuse, including the music history and musicology working group of the Central New York Humanities Corridor.

 

  • Author

Rob Enslin

  • Recent
  • Syracuse University and University of Bergen Host Transatlantic Alliance for Law, Outreach and National Security Conference
    Monday, August 4, 2025, By Robert Conrad
  • National Grid Summer College Scholars Program Invests in Energy Literacy
    Thursday, July 31, 2025, By Hope Alvarez
  • Bowlers Wanted for Faculty and Staff Bowling League
    Thursday, July 31, 2025, By News Staff
  • Lender Center New York Event Gathers Wealth Gap Experts
    Wednesday, July 30, 2025, By Diane Stirling
  • After Tragedy, Newhouse Grad Rediscovers Her Voice Through Podcasting
    Wednesday, July 30, 2025, By Chris Velardi

More In Arts & Culture

How New Words Enter Our Language: A Linguistics Expert Explains

From “yeet” to “social distancing,” new words and phrases constantly emerge and evolve in American English. But how do these neologisms—newly coined terms—gain acceptance and become part of mainstream dialect? We interviewed Christopher Green, associate professor of linguistics in the…

Art Museum Acquires Indian Scrolls Gifted by SUNY Professor

The University Art Museum has received a monumental gift of more than 80 traditional Indian patachitra scrolls, significantly expanding its collection of South Asian art and material culture. The scrolls were donated by Geraldine Forbes, Distinguished Teaching Professor Emerita at…

Architecture Students’ Project Selected for Royal Academy Exhibition

In a prestigious international honor, a project by three students from the School of Architecture has been selected for inclusion in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2025, currently on view in London. The work, titled “Evolving an Urban Ecology,” was…

Vintage Over Digital: Alumnus Dan Cohen’s Voyager CD Bag Merges Music and Fashion

Bucking the trend of streaming music platforms and contrary to what one might expect of a member of his generation, musician Dan Cohen ’25 prefers listening to his favorite artists on compact disc (CD) and record players. His research and…

VPA Announces New Drama Department Chair

The College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) has appointed Eleanor Holdridge as the new chair of the Department of Drama effective July 1. Holdridge comes to Syracuse University from the Catholic University of America, where she served as professor…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.