Once, in an interview with the American NBC network, Mr Andrew Lloyd Webber he had confided the secret of his success. “You always have to start from history.” He would obviously know something. Because the success of the patriarch of musicals, loved and sung by entire generations, has no end. Today he turns 75 and his list of achievements is endless. But let’s take a brief look back at its history. And it is not without significance that Weber, born in the posh Kensington district of London, grew up in a highly musical environment. His father was a composer and professor at the Royal College of Music in London and his mother a pianist. Already in the first grades of elementary school, he started writing music and playing musicals in the family environment, but they were “horrible”, as he later admits.

From one success to another

But it was not only classical music, with which Andrew was “inoculated” by his family environment. He is influenced by both rock and pop. Ultimately he merges them all and this is the trademark that characterizes his music and makes it recognizable from the very first musical melody. But his big break came with his multi-year collaboration with lyricist Tims Rice. Masterpieces sprung from it. Firstly ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’ (1968) and ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ (1970). The collaboration ends with another masterpiece, “Evita” about the ex-wife of the Argentine president and actress Eva Peron. The song “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” climbed to the top of the charts in Britain and other countries. “Tim was fed up with my outbursts. In my defense I have to say that for me it’s important to get the sound right,” Lloyd Webber confesses in my memoir, Unmasked, published on the occasion of his 70th birthday. But even Lloyd Webber himself is surprised by himself and the great success of “Cats” (1981).

It is the longest-running musical in the Broadway repertoire before being replaced by The Phantom of the Opera (1986). Starlight Express (1984), was not well received by critics, but became a major commercial success. Lloyd Webber was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1992 and elevated to the peerage as Baron Lloyd Webber of Sydmonton in 1997. He has long been considered the pope of the musical. He belongs to a small circle of people who have won at least one of the coveted Emmy, Grammy, Oscar or Tony awards each. Over the years things become quieter for him. He is battling prostate cancer. “I went down so much morphine and painkillers that I honestly thought it was all over,” she told theater paper The Stage, But she didn’t give up. With “School of Rock” (2015)” and “Bad Cinderella” (2021) he proves that he has lost nothing in creativity.

Hymn for the coronation of Charles by Weber

In 2017, four of his musicals played simultaneously on Broadway. The period of the pandemic was traumatic for him. He strongly advocated the reopening of theaters and concert venues in the UK and was outraged by football fans’ celebrations at the 2021 European Championship. “If the government doesn’t allow shows with packed theaters, I will have to break the rules,” he threatened. He didn’t even care if he got caught. But it didn’t go that far. Because performances of the latest musical “Cinderella” (Cinderella) in the West End would stop in less than a year due to, among other things, cases of coronavirus in the troupe with constant cancellations of performances. Now the audience-only and critic-free performances of “Bad Cinderella”, in a new direction. The official premiere is scheduled for Thursday, 24.03, a day after his birthday. But Weber will not be present for private reasons.

He announced at the weekend that his eldest son Nicholas is seriously ill and that his place is at his son’s side who has been battling stomach cancer for 18 months. For the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s accession to the throne, Lloyd Webber accompanied on the keyboard the title song from “Phantom of the Opera” in a purple suit outside Buckingham Palace. He will still be commissioned to compose a hymn for the coronation of King Charles III next May. “It’s an incredible honor,” he said. “I hope my anthem will match this joyous occasion.” Even at the age of 75, the Briton with the strong temperament and endless inspiration seems to be far from thinking about retirement.