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Details about Masquerade, an immersive new revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera in New York, are still scarce; so far, the production has obscured the cast and crew’s specific roles under the guise of following strict instructions from the Opera Ghost. But here’s what we do know: Named after one of the 1986 musical’s songs and major set pieces, Masquerade will begin previews later this month at a renovated art-supply store near Central Park South. Excepting a few matinee performances, it will be a 21-plus affair, modeled after the recently shuttered Sleep No More.
Another hint that this go-around with Phantom—which arrives two years after the iconic Broadway production ended its 35-year-long run—will be more grown-up? The recent announcement that Nicola Formichetti, Vogue Hommes Japan’s former fashion director and a frequent collaborator of Lady Gaga’s, serves as the show’s director of masks.
In an interview earlier this month, Formichetti told Vogue that he was brought into the fold of Masquerade by Shai Baitel, the production’s creative director. Director Diane Paulus then paired him with her longtime costumier, the Tony-nominated Project Runway favorite Emilio Sosa. Though this is Formichetti’s first proper theater job, his appointment will make good sense to anyone who remembers Gaga’s MTV VMA debut in 2009. Performing “Paparazzi,” the then 23-year-old donned a custom Keko Hainswheeler mask and bled out onstage in an extremely theatrical homage to the musical. (Formichetti served as the performance’s fashion director.)
“Gaga and I never put Phantom on the mood board, but it’s just engraved in our DNA, this chic attire and mask,” Formichetti recalled. (He showed Paulus a video of the number upon first meeting.) “I’ve always had a fascination with masks, and maybe it came from loving Phantom in high school. To me, masks are very similar to the art of makeup or drag. It’s not about hiding who you are but transforming yourself into something else, whoever you want to be. Maybe that’s showing, actually, the true self.”
His list of inspirations for the nearly 50 designs used in the production ranges from the original musical’s early-20th-century Parisian setting to the modern underground club scene. Formichetti said that car parts and broken glasses, Dalí and Duchamp, ’90s Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, and Amanda Lepore’s punk-glamour attitude also found their way in: The show’s aesthetic is, in his words, a “kind of surrealism-meets-S&M-dungeons” situation.
For Sosa—a Broadway mainstay who got his start at New York’s storied Grace Costumes shop working with opera divas Beverly Sills and Denyce Graves— Masquerade represented a chance to “tap into my reservoir of things that I’ve wanted to design but never got a chance.” He told Vogue that the production’s official crystal partner, Preciosa, opened up their coffers and let him be a kid in their candy store. (They also provided some 30,000 crystals for the musical’s crashing chandelier.)
“I wanted to approach this like I was doing a film, where the camera is right in your face,” Sosa continued. “The audience here is right on top of you, so they see every detail—front, back, side, and under. That allowed us to really show off some really cool craftsmanship that you won’t see on a stage.”
Yet the production’s performers won’t be the only people dolled up: Masquerade requires audience members to “dress extravagantly” in black, white, or silver and to don a mask. (Formichetti designed two for this purpose: one, featuring custom lace and embroidery—“a little punk and slightly erotic”—is included with admission; the other, more elaborate mask is available for purchase.)
Paulus (Jagged Little Pill, Waitress), who has been developing Masquerade for more than two years, drew her own inspiration from the grand balls of fin de siècle Paris—“epic, theatrical events for which people would spend a year preparing,” she noted.
“Tapping into this history of masquerades and asking the audience to be a partner—it starts with, ‘What are you gonna wear?” she added. “And you’re already participating. Our lives can be very casual these days, and the idea of not spectacle, but occasion is really exciting.”
Ahead of the start of performances later this month, Formichetti, Sosa, and Paulus gave Vogue an exclusive look at Masquerade’s masks, costumes, and overall reinvention of a classic work of musical theater.
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Nicola Formichetti: [Designer] Chris Habana and I got to go crazy and initially went a lot of different ways before editing down and finding the masks’ own language. This one was inspired by [the Phantom’s] shattered past—the broken mirror, reflecting yourself but distorted. It’s very handmade, almost a little ugly. There’s a scene in there that’s not in the original story where you find out why and how he became who he is, through the mask.
As a fan, as a loyal student to the Phantom’s story, I would never do anything that is not on-brand. Speaking with Sir Webber, we knew that 19th-century Paris and the Opera Garnier were very important reference points, but at the same time, we didn’t want to do something that was just historical. It’s in a weird world of its own.
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Formichetti: Raoul’s more of a noble person, so we used the scales to represent that sense of justice. It’s very baroque, with different appliqués and a Gothic type of embellishment.
Diane Paulus: What is special about this theatrical experience is that it’s driven by the music, by live singing. Even before I started working on it, the idea that people could experience Broadway-caliber singing two feet away from them was vibrational. I was in rehearsals, looking at Raoul during the masquerade scene, and he’s literally a foot away, singing to me, with those gold scales swinging back and forth on his mask. There is no way you would ever catch a detail like that on Broadway.
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Formichetti: Piangi’s masquerade mask had to be comedic but a little insane, almost showing what’s inside of this character. It’s this slightly ugly, disturbing piggy that has sort of a sexual connotation, maybe. The “Masquerade” scene is a feast of visual ecstasy.
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Emilio Sosa: I wanted movement, I wanted sound. He has little bells on the bottom of his pants, and the fabric is this beautiful brocade. We all wanted the masquerade portion of the show to have a wow factor, to give the audience as many things as possible to look at. So we made that ruffled neck and then exaggerated it just for the sake of theater. I wanted drama and spectacle. Nicola designed what looks like an origami fantasy mask, so the costume had to live up to that fantasy.
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Sosa: This is a little Easter-egg nod to my opera upbringing. Carlotta is the diva of the opera, and this is a gown we would have made at Grace Costumes for a diva. It’s big, it’s bold, it’s too much, but that’s opera. I wanted to give dimension because people are so close. The fabrics, leather, brocade, stones, velvet—it was everything but the kitchen sink. The Hannibal section, for me, was, How could it be the most over-the-top, gold section that I’ve ever designed? One hundred years ago, if I were designing an opera somewhere with all the resources, this is what it would have looked like.
Formichetti: It’s crazy to think how many of [the show’s] songs are so good, just hit after hit, from the drama of the overture to “Think of Me.” I cry every time I watch that scene, it’s so beautiful. Andrew’s genius is to just hit you to the core.
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Sosa: I wanted to play with fabric manipulation, so we pleated the silk and wool to make the ruffle and then pleated some silk satin to make swoops. This robe is about sumptuousness but also protection. It might be one of the more period-correct costumes in the show because of the nature of the scene, where she’s on the rooftop. When the wind hits it, it becomes a moment in and of itself.
Paulus: I was motivated by thinking of the audience’s experience. How do they want to be inside Phantom of the Opera? How do they want to live it, breathe it, feel it? We have this extraordinary venue we’ve been working on for years, and I wanted to explore how to experience clothes and designs that are sensual and tactile. So it was the music, the characters—obviously the Phantom and his legend—but also Christine. For me, she is the most unafraid young woman, who’s not afraid to look under the rock and see all the dirt.
We’ve always been clear that this [version] is something new. This is not the Broadway production redone. This is a whole new creation that lends a new perspective to this treasured legacy. It’s great to have references, because you’re tapping into people’s memory bank and expectations. I love playing with those things so that they’re in a dance with each other. We go to this show in 2025, and then, like in all great theater, we’re taken on a transformative journey. This one takes us back to this score and story we know and love but in a whole new way that makes you [experience] the period in close-up.