I will state upfront that POTO is my favourite of all West-End musicals and its opening — on my tenth birthday in 1986 — also ignited an enduring love affair (strictly musical of course) with popera diva Sarah Brightman.

So, when Lloyd Webber, 62, announced, in the earlier part of the decade, plans to follow up his gothic — if not autobiographic — masterpiece, I was intrigued to see how, or if, he could better the original.

After several years of rewrites, reworks and redos (allegedly Lloyd Webber's cat erased his music notation computer in 2007), Love Never Dies — The Phantom II, opened on Mar 9 in London.

Soundtrack from Love Never Dies musical. PHOTO: Supplied

Not able to see the show's premiere, I pre-ordered the digital version of the soundtrack and had gone through several "plays" before the curtain had even gone up at the Adelphi Theatre.

Firstly, without giving too much away, the story picks up 10 years after the Phantom escaped the Parisian hoards and moved from his subterranean lair beneath the Opera House to the weird and wonderful Coney Island in New York City.

There, the Phantom has taken on the moniker of Mr Y (I've yet to find out why) and with the help of returning characters Madame Giry and her daughter Meg (who has become a vaudeville singer), he's built a freak show empire.

But the Phantom continues to pine for Christine, and finally lures the now married soprano to sing for him in the Big Apple. It's not all roses and symphonies though, and Christine's ten-year-old son throws a spanner in the musical works.

Will she sing again, will the music of the night again start to soarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr? That's the underlying theme of Love Never Dies.

And after a dozen or so listens I can hear that Lloyd Webber has worked hard to pull this show off. But unfortunately, it falls short of equalling its predecessor — however, I hasten to add, this is not due to the music.

Love Never Dies features some of the best, freshest and most emotional music Lloyd Webber has composed since 1993's Sunset Boulevard.

Right from the get-go, with the Coney Island Waltz, we are transported back to a time of everyday fantasy and the elaborate mystique of the pier-side fairground — once described as the eighth wonder of the world.

Soaring strings give way to manic brass and percussion that take on the momentum of a runaway roller coaster, a musical interpretation of the events set to come.

Lloyd Webber's knack for orchestrating grand sweeping scores becomes apparent a few tracks later with The Ayrie. From the first bars you feel Erik's (the Phantom's actual given name) despair as he ponders his life filled with "smoke and noise" in the US and the years past since he last heard Christine's angelic voice.

The instrumental also provides a bridge to the show's first big ballad, Till I Hear You Sing, performed with great gusto by 31-year-old Iranian-born Canadian actor Ramin Karimloo, who played the Phantom for two years at Her Majesty's Theatre in London. The heart-wrenching song is gritty and impassioned and harks back to the Phantom's unbridled and, at times, malevolent love for his songstress, in the original story. But the years have mellowed him somewhat and manic adoration has given way to more poignant angst.

Lloyd Webber has been responsible for some of the most enduring pop songs to come out of musical theatre in the past 30 years. There is Any Dream Will Do, Jesus Christ Superstar and No Matter What — made famous by Boyzone — but my favourite remains The Phantom of the Opera, sung originally by Sarah Brightman and Steve Harley (whose mask was taken away when Michael Crawford came on board).

Love Never Dies has its own rock/pop standard in the form of The Beauty Underneath sung by Karimloo and Harry Child, 13, playing Gustave, Christine's son. Again, Lloyd Webber has nailed the mix between gyrating rock and theatrics, with electric guitar, blaring brass and racing strings working into a frenzy as the Phantom waxes lyrical over pleasures dark and mysterious. And although the scream at the end is a desperate link to Brightman's famous shreak — the song, overall, works.

Sadly, it's in the second act that things start to go awry — mainly due to the predictable plot. There are some intriguing moments when there are snatches of music and words taken from POTO — a shrewd move on Lloyd Webber's part. And the duet, Devil Take The Hindmost, between a warring Phantom and Raoul (Joseph Millson), shows off some masculine musical bravado.

In the latter half, the show's namesake, Love Never Dies, sung by a love torn Christine — played elegantly by American soprano Sierra Boggess, 27 — is given its premiere.

Interestingly, the ballad has in fact had two previous births; it first premiered at Lloyd Webber's 50th birthday celebration in 1998, sung by  New Zealander Kiri Te Kanawa and titled The Heart Is Slow To Learn. It then got rehashed, two years later, for cricket musical The Beautiful Game. In the third incarnation the haunting melody remains but the new lyrics really don't pull at the heartstrings as Te Kanawa's original version did.

And that's the main irk. The show's lyrics, as they currently stand, is what keeps Love Never Dies from truly soaring. To put it bluntly, many of the words are quite naf and do not do the music justice.

POTO had lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe. They were deep, poetic, funny, multi-layered and poignant, and yet not so complex as to make them unmemorable.

The sequel, however, is penned by American lyricist Glenn Slater (The Little Mermaid) who seems content on using at times tacky word-play and easy rhyme to get through his bosses' sweeping orchestrations. An example is the duet Beneath A Moonless Sky, sung when Christine realises the true identity of Mr Y and both reminisce about one night in their distant past — whilst in the throws of passion:

Christine: "And I touched you"
Phantom: "And I felt you"
Together: "And I heard those ravishing refrains"
Christine: "The music of your pulse" (?)
Phantom: "The singing in your veins" (?!)

or, in Act I's closing...

Christine: "Tomorrow night, I'll sing with all my might"

Luckily the sweeping melody and chemistry between Boggess and Karimloo makes up for some of the jarring prose.

Like a film's soundtrack, musical lyrics only work when they're not apparent, when it just seems like the characters are speaking, albeit in song — that's its mastery and art.

In POTO, even words spoken in whispered soliloquies carried great emotional weight. Slater's words meld better in the more upbeat tunes, like The Beauty Underneath and quartet My Dear Old Friend or the vaudeville shenanigans of Meg Giry (Summer Strallen) and her troupe in Bathing Beauty. Expressing "ravish refrains", comes out cheesy, which is the last thing you'd expect from this lovelorn fairytale.

Of course it takes two hands to conduct and it's not like Lloyd Webber left Slater to his own devices (at least I hope not). But somehow, this crucial element seems to have escaped, or not bothered the composer — his casting of Gerard Butler as the lead in the movie version of POTO also continues to baffle me.

And when these lyrical issues are mixed with a plot that has not held up well in critics' show reviews (some disgruntled "phans" have actually retitled it Paint Never Dries), it weakens the foundations of a potentially magical musical sequel.

Personally, I feel Hart and Stilgoe should have been a mandatory requirement for this production.

But the joy of theatre, unlike cinema, is that it's always a work in progress and there has been some tweaks to the score, the script and the characterisation since previews began in February.

The soundtrack itself was recorded in mid-2009, months before the production really kicked into overdrive. Will these changes stop Love Never Dies from actually dying prematurely onstage? It's too early to say.

Still it cannot be denied that Lloyd Webber took a big gamble by continuing the story of Erik and Christine and there are many reasons to add this show to your musical collection. The album contains a strong and able cast, especially the five core characters, and although the studio recording is slightly too dry for my liking, the orchestrations are glorious to listen to.

With everlasting hits like All I Ask Of You, Think Of Me, Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again, Masquerade and the much covered Music Of The Night, a sequel to POTO was always going to be a tough act to follow.

My final verdict will only come when I see it in London next year. As they say, it's not over 'til the phat lady sings — or, in this case, Christine.

Official website: www.loveneverdies.com
Footage of the musical at London's Adelphi Theatre is available on YouTube.

On Monday evenings we would spend two hours or so cavorting around learning characterisation (a broom stick attempting to free itself from a cupboard), improvisation techniques and how to project the voice ("diaphragm people!").

These weekly classes were to ready us for the end of term musical productions the club would stage three times a year. In my time I played numerous characters, from a glow-in-the-dark toadstool and an evil baron with a wry smile, to a juggling clown called Zibbidy.

All this experience ignited my passion for the performing arts, which continued through my teenage and tertiary years, eventually leading me to theatre, film and television/media work.

Apart from confidence, the shows I was a part of as a child imparted the fine art of communication — no matter how or what I was dressed-up in — something that has come in very handy in my career.

I got to re-live some of my experiences in child-theatre last weekend when I saw one of the final performances of Magic For Maya, produced by the Centre Stage School of the Arts, which conducts regular classes in acting, dance and singing from a black and white colonial building, off Portsdown Road.

Set in war-time Singapore, the play tells the tale of a young teen, Maya, and her friends as they wait out the night for word of their parents who are stationed at Alexandra Hospital. To ease their angst, Aunt Jenny — the only adult in the play — gets the kids to role-play, sing songs and perform magic as the ominous drone of air raid sirens and mortar explosions echo outside.

Over 60-minutes, we experience the children's emotional challenges as they discover more about themselves and how, even in the darkest of moments, they must find courage together and hope for a better tomorrow.

Writer/director, Sangeeta Nambiar said the story came about after she read about the Alexandra Hospital massacre on Valentine's Day 1942, where hundreds of British troops, medical staff and patients were slaughtered by the Japanese forces.

"I was amazed at how this event had stayed a statistic," said Nambiar. "The idea for the play emerged from there."

The energised cast, ranging from eight to 15-years, gave a thoroughly engaging performance that also included music by Jane Lau and Neeraj Shaabi, dance and even some sleight-of-hand trickery.

Their raw talent shone through and each member brought individuality to their part, which was refreshing to see and contributed to the intrigue and the message behind Nambiar's script.

Maya, played by 15-year-old Ida Esmaeili, gave a stand-out performance as the play's main protagonist and even at such a tender age, her talents are already apparent.

She was complemented by Sam Duffy, 13, who took on the imaginary character of the Great Count Spinney during one of the kids' games, with great gusto and swooping of limbs. Shaggy-haired Neil Shaabi, eight, was also a joy to watch as he confidently performed the famous Indian rope trick to the gasps and applause of the cast and the packed-out audience.

At one point, the game between Spinney and Maya role-playing the wise Lord Tigre (Tiger), goes too far. Spinney pretends to be wounded in a dramatic duel, scared she may have actually hurt him, Maya breaks out of character to check on her friend. But it was all a trick and Spinney claims victory, abruptly ending the game.

Aunt Jenny steps in, reminding Sam the game should be fun.

"What have we done to them?" Maya pleads.

Heavy stuff and yet the cast of nine never missed a beat and had the audience — a mixture of parents, kids and the public — in the palm of their hands, right to final scene where Maya and Aunt Jenny remind us that with hope, and strength of character we're capable of great things.

During the rapturous curtain call, seeing the kids beaming with delight at their performance, it reminded me how important this exposure is for a child. The opportunity to take on a character, make it your own and work with both kids and adults to put on a show for the public is an empowering feeling that stays with you always.

The cast and crew of Magic For Maya. PHOTO: Centre Stage

Productions like Magic For Maya provide an outlet for youth to explore their abilities, where they can feel emotions and use them to power a story line, allowing them to communicate on multiple levels with their peers and their audience.

Through my work in schools here, teaching drama and media, I've seen that this form of expression is sometimes lacking as drama and dance co-curricular activities are often used as a vehicle to win awards in the Singapore Youth Festival. Their efforts are worthy, but once the competition is over that's it for another year.

Hopefully, more schools like Centre Stage will take up the baton and provide opportunities for Singapore youth to perform year round.

Child-theatre not only imparts the skills to communicate but also the confidence to be an individual, the sooner kids grasp this the better and like Maya they will come to realise, as Aunt Jenny said: "Magic is all in the mind. Magic is really what we make of it."

The Centre Stage players are next performing at Jubilee Hall from December 3-6 in their Christmas production; A Right Rubbish Christmas. Visit their website for show and course details.

Like its 2006 predecessor, director Ron Howard employs the talents of German-born Hans Zimmer (The Dark Knight) to scribe the gothic chords of this action thriller. After being nominated for a Golden Globe and Grammy for The Da Vinci Code, which took Zimmer’s music to new holy ground, the pressure was on for A&D.

Photo: Handout

From the outset, the score furiously hammers out a dark mix of choir, orchestra and electronics that matches the frenetic and ubiquitous relationship between Faith and Science.

This is fervently present in the first track, 120BPM, whose pulsating bassline is a definite test for any good sound-system – warn the neighbours first – and God Particle, which visualises the awesome power and beauty of antimatter, the Illuminati's weapon of mass destruction.

But it's not all earth shuddering. Zimmer also maps a spiritual, almost hypnotic soundscape that can make even the hardest of atheists shudder. Science and Religion is the most lengthy of examples. The 12-minute suite draws the emotional pull of faith shadowed with the inescapable questions ever-present in our modern-day quest for answers. 

Subtle nuances, such as the rustle of wind through reeds and the haunting chants of the gregorian chorus make this the most mesmerising of tracks.

Being a strong proponent of electronic music, Zimmer has gained and lost fans over the years, with his use of synthetic sounds, which sometimes replace the orchestra altogether. A&D has been 'economised' somewhat, with an orchestra half the size of Da Vinci Code's but the digital pulses rarely overpower the more acoustic elements of the score. 

This ‘restraint’ adds more layers to the soundtrack, something which Zimmer has been accused of omitting in his more recent compositions, such as Madagascar and the last Pirates of the Caribbean voyage.

While lacking the thematic intensity of The Da Vinci Code, the composer hints at motifs first developed in the 2006 film, blending the two stories together. This is embraced fully in Election By Adoration and 503, which also features the soaring strings of American violinist Joshua Bell (The Red Violin). Unfortunately, the pace of A&D doesn't give Bell near enough 'airtime', but his inclusion enhances the listening of the soundtrack sans the film.

Coming in at a short 56 minutes, the soundtrack is only a taste of the full score that seldom goes quiet during the film's 138 minutes run-time. 

Despite this, the Angels & Demons soundtrack still packs a pious-punch, that is edgier and darker than Robert Langdon's first cinematic outing.