Andrew Lloyd Webber writing musical about theft of the Mona Lisa

Andrew Lloyd Webber has revealed details of his latest musical project.

While plans are very much afoot for Lloyd Webber’s next show, The Illusionist, it seems that there is more in the pipeline from the Cats and Phantom of the Opera composer, who has just celebrated the launch of Cats: The Jellicle Ball  on Broadway.

Speaking to entertainment journalist Frank Dilella as part of press promotion for The Jellicle Ball (we’ve credited Dilella with the video below) about The Illusionist, Lloyd Webber revealed even more intrigue, saying: “The other one that I’m doing is the true story of the theft of the Mona Lisa. And it’s a true story about how the Mona Lisa disappeared for three years, roughly about 1910, and, ended up in Italy.”

The incident was the handiwork of one Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian decorator who gained insider knowledge about how to steal the famed Da Vinci painting from the Louvre after working there in the 1910s. The event was hailed as “the greatest art theft of the 20th century”, and Lloyd Webber’s initial reveal comes six months on from a very high-profile daytime robbery at the same museum.

Peruggia’s actions have been brought to film and TV on a number of occasions, including in French film On a volé la Joconde and German film Der Raub der Mona Lisa. Interestingly, both The Illusionist and this incident are set around the same couple of decades, as is the prologue scene in The Phantom of the Opera, and Love Never Dies. 

As for when, who, where and what form the musical may take, we’ll have to wait and see, as Lloyd Webber continues: “And, more than that, I can’t really tell you, for the simple reason that I am going away next week to write it.”

In the meantime, the composer has plenty to keep him occupied – alongside work on The Illusionist, there are new stagings of Cats and Jesus Christ Superstar in London this summer, Phantom’s 40th anniversary this autumn and rumblings of a New York spell for a multi-award-winning production of Evita. 

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