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Andrew Lloyd Webber jokes that he has mixed feelings about becoming the recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor this weekend.

"I'm delighted, absolutely delighted," he says. "I'm overjoyed. It means a lot to have an American honor. Obviously, the British ones I've sort of had." (The world's most popular theater composer was made Baron Lloyd-Webber in 1997.)

But he adds, "You're always worried when you receive something like this that your career's over."

One hopes Lord Lloyd-Webber is joking.

He's speaking by phone from Las Vegas, where his biggest success, "The Phantom of the Opera," was edited into "Phantom: The Las Vegas Spectacular" in a $40-million, custom-built theater in the Venetian earlier this year.

His London revival of "The Sound of Music" opened just over two weeks ago to both critical and public acclaim.

Even someone as successful as Mr. Lloyd Webber, it seems, can't help but look to the past.

"I know I will never have anything in my career that's as big as 'Phantom.' When something like that happens, it's a phenomenon," he says. "Frankly, 'The Sound of Music' in London is the biggest thing since 'Phantom.' "

Luckily, the composer has neither rested on his laurels nor given up trying to do something new.

"I don't think, I just enjoy writing," he says. "Everyone's got to be realistic." Even if he had another huge hit, he notes, "I wouldn't see it run as long as 'Phantom.' "