Charles Hart (lyricist)

For other people named Charles Hart, see Charles Hart (disambiguation).

Charles Hart (born 3 June 1961 in London) is a British lyricist, songwriter and musician. He is best known for writing the lyrics to, and contributing to the book of Andrew Lloyd Webber's phenomenally successful stage musical The Phantom of the Opera, which has since been produced as a film. He also co-wrote (with Don Black) the lyrics to Lloyd Webber's 1989 musical Aspects of Love, based on the novel by David Garnett.

Hart attended Robinson College, Cambridge and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He had began writing lyrics as a child, but first seriously contemplated turning his talent into a profession in the 1970s when his grandmother - Angela Baddeley, an actress - was on stage in a London production of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music.

"When I was at the Guildhall I sent a tape to [Stephen] Sondheim, fully expecting a reply hailing the next true genius of the West End," he said in a rare interview in The Times. "All I got was a note saying that I had 'rhyming poison' which got in the way of my characters and plot, and of course he was entirely right. But my ambition was to be an English Sondheim.

"Being a lyricist is the ideal job for a university-educated dilettante, because it uses up all the rubbish in your education."

He attracted the attention of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh when they were judges of the Vivian Ellis awards for music theatre writers, in which Hart was a finalist for his musical based on Moll Flanders. Lloyd Webber hired him as a lyricist for The Phantom of the Opera a year later.

In 1993, he also created new lyrics for Der Vampyr, to create The Vampyr: A Soap Opera for BBC Television. Other projects include both words and music for television (Watching and Split Ends, Granada TV) and radio (Love Songs, BBC Radio). His most recent work, Two Studies for String Quartet, received its premiere in February 2005 at London's Purcell Room, performed by the Sacconi Quartet.

Other musicals include the National Youth Music Theatre's production of a The Kissing-Dance (based on Goldsmith's play, She Stoops To Conquer) and (in 2001) a musical version of A Midsummer Night's Dream (entitled The Dreaming), both co-written with Howard Goodall, as well as (more recently) French Without Tears (based on the Terence Rattigan comedy), with both music and lyrics by Hart.

He has received two Ivor Novello Awards and has been nominated twice for a Tony Award. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for writing the lyrics to a new song "Learn to be Lonely" which was sung by Minnie Driver over the final credits to the film version of The Phantom of the Opera

Charles Hart is also a photographer. His photographic work has appeared on posters and in playbills, as well as publications ranging from Attitude to the Daily Telegraph, and in 2003 he was one of three photographers to feature in an exhibition organized by UNICEF to celebrate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Charles is a longstanding trustee and supporter of the UK charity ratings agency, Intelligent Giving.