The Independent's Paul Taylor loved it.

'Phans' of the original are outraged that Andrew Lloyd Webber has written a sequel to the most successful musical of all time. But Love Never Dies – which opens in London tonight – is phabulous.

...So when this now highly successful soprano and irreplaceable Muse of the Phantom fetches up for a singing engagement at Coney, with her hard-drinking, disaffected gambler of a husband, Raoul (excellent Joseph Millson), it is with the Phantom's own 10-year-old son in tow...

...It's revealing that Andrew Lloyd Webber, who has cast leading roles in his most recent ventures by public vote on reality TV talent show, has not allowed the public anywhere near his casting decisions for Love Never Dies. This rather exposes how low-risk those TV experiments have been, geared as they have been to fairly safe properties such as The Sound of Music and Oliver!.

...In a sense, Lloyd Webber has become hoist by his own petard. Having over-petted the public, he is now being badly mauled by a section of it – the Phantom fanatics who feel that they own the original more than he does. On both counts (casting and the right to do what he likes with his own material), Lloyd Webber has, for once, the moral high ground here.