Yes, it's a revival of a 31-year-old musical based on a 74-year-old black and white film. And both are remembered by young viewers just as the main character Norma Desmond is remembered by cruel Hollywood.

But age is just a number – right, Norma? “Sunset Boulevard,” which opened Sunday night at the St. James Theater, is the most exciting Broadway show in years.

There's so much energy, freshness and unrelenting intensity coursing through the veins of director Jamie Lloyd's surprising production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical from start to finish, you'd swear it was brand new.

And every time the extraordinary Nicole Scherzinger, making her wondrous Broadway debut, utters a note, adrenaline pumps through our bloodstream.

She is as otherworldly as the reclusive Norma. A revelation. And when the former Pussycat Doll sings Lloyd Webber's stirring ballads “With One Look” and “As If We Never Said Goodbye” as the mist swirls dreamily behind her, the audience practically floats.

The entire production takes your breath away. We're transfixed from the moment the giant video screen – this production's chandelier – descends from the rafters to reveal the image of actor Tom Francis' dangerous eyes as struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis heads toward his doom.

From then on, Joe and the ticket buyers out there in the dark are drawn into Norma's delusional fantasy – that she's still the biggest star of them all; that she will make her long-awaited return; that her whole sad life is one big movie.

A damn entertaining one at that.

Anyone who watched Billy Wilder's 1950 classic starring Gloria Swanson or the show on Broadway in the 1990s and 2017 starring Glenn Close might be worried that their glasses prescription is out of date. Lloyd's production is unrecognizable.

Call it “No-Set Boulevard.” The director threw away the magnificent mansion with its endless staircase, leaving only a few chairs. There are no 1930s Hollywood parking lots and sound stages. Scherzinger wears a silky black dress (costumes by Soutra Gilmour) instead of a turban and shape-concealing scarf.

Some filler songs, such as “The Lady's Paying”, were cut. Good! And anachronistic dances – a la “The Robot” – were added. Norma, who desperately wants to be half her age, sometimes speaks as if she were filming an Instagram reel.

A sensual dancer, young Norma (Hannah Yun Chamberlain), tickles and torments Norma with memories of her glory days. Choreographer Fabian Aloise's movements range from seductive to chaotic.

It's a lot. But somehow everything works wonderfully.

Because the tragic story of the path of fame to ruin is as true and relevant as ever. As Joe acerbically remarks, “The world is full of Joes and Normas.”

At first, the frustrated Joe is just a writer who can't get a job, until one day he is chased by gangsters in Sunset and stumbles into the mansion of Norma Desmond – a crazy silent film star who fell into obscurity with the release of talkies.

She hires Joe to rework her terrible script, “Salome,” which is supposed to be her Hollywood comeback. With no other choice, he moves into the cavernous house ruled by their Lurch-like butler Max (David Thaxton), and together Norma and Joe race toward disaster.

Incidentally, Lloyd's is the first production of “Sunset Boulevard” that I have seen in which the scenes with Joe, Betty Schaefer (a strong Grace Hodgett Young), the third party in a messed up love triangle, Artie (Diego Andres Rodriguez) and her LA writer friends are more than just boring water breaks for the actress who plays Norma.

The cinematic close-ups of their expressive faces as they fall in and out of love, set to Lloyd Webber's stirring score, add real flesh to sections that can easily sag.

At the same time, lighting designer Jack Knowles uses shadows and harsh brightness to heighten the drama with haunting images straight out of a silent film.

Francis, smoldering and velvet-voiced in his Broadway debut, walks off with the musical's greatest orator at the start of the second act.

A feat that requires video cameras, fresh air and a mountain of logistics. It's exciting, incredibly fun… and will make some people angry. After all, it wouldn't be Broadway if someone didn't complain about videos.

But the show belongs to the titan Scherzinger, who makes a particularly proud and wild Norma. Her self-confidence and burning desire for success make her fall much deeper than that of a dusty hermit.

As I watched her flowing arms as she sang “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” it occurred to me that the actress was channeling Michael Crawford's creepy, lovesick phantom.

“The Phantom of the Opera,” of course, was performed directly across the street at the Majestic Theater for 35 years until it closed last spring.

Now Lloyd Webber is back on 44th Street with a real new star of the stage, and it seems fitting. As Norma says, “Back where I was born!”