THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

Special feature editorial by Druidess

"The Opera Ghost really existed. He was not, as was longed believed, a creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the managers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of the young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the cloak room attendants or the concierge. Yes, he existed in flesh and blood, although he assumed the complete appearance of a real phantom; that is to say, of a spectral shade.” So Gaston Leroux states in the opening of his novel, the Phantom of the Opera.

The Phantom, as depicted in Andrew Lloyd Webber's smash hit musical.

Ever since Gaston Leroux's novel was published in 1911, the Phantom of the Opera has captured the public imagination. The mysterious, disfigured musician has been the subject of at least eight films, seven musicals, and several other works of fiction--and the list is still growing. Why has this story continued to fascinate audiences for so many years? And how is the Phantom himself viewed by society--as an evil monster, a misunderstood genius destroyed by society's intolerance, or as something else? Although there is no concrete evidence that the Phantom existed, the story of an intelligent and talented man whom society condemned to the basement of an opera house because of his ugliness is a plausible one. Throughout history, severely disfigured people have been feared and considered to be evil, and even today people like the Phantom must deal with discrimination and fear in all aspects of their lives. Society's attitudes do seem to be improving, however, and this trend is reflected in modern adaptations of The Phantom of the Opera, which paint the Phantom as the misunderstood genius that he truly was.

Christine approaches the mirror as the Phantom looks on in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical.

IThe original novel, written by Gaston Leroux in 1911, tells the story of a man known only as Erik. He is a genius in many fields, including music, architecture, and magic, but his face has been hideously disfigured since birth and everyone he meets is terrified of him. Erik eventually takes refuge in the labyrinthine cellars of the Paris Opera House, where he becomes known as the Opera ghost and hastens the managers' retirement by demanding money and the exclusive use of Box Five. He also kills Joseph Buquet, a stagehand who tells stories about him to frighten the ballet and chorus girls. Erik sees and falls in love with Christine Daae, a beautiful chorus girl, and begins to give her voice lessons by singing to her from behind the wall of her dressing room. She believes him to be the Angel of Music that her violinist father often told stories about, and does not realize that she is being deceived even when he forbids her to see the handsome Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, with whom she has fallen in love. Erik sends threatening letters to the Opera's prima donna, Carlotta, frightening her so that Christine will have to sing in her place.

Sarah Brightman (left) as Christine Daae and Michael Crawford (right) as The Phantom on the Broadway stage.

One night, as Christine is singing with Erik in her dressing room, the mirror mysteriously swings away, and he takes her to his underground world. There, his face covered by a mask, he begs Christine to forgive him for deceiving her and confesses his love. As Christine explains, "He lays at my feet an immense and tragic love... He has carried me off for love! He has imprisoned him with me, underground, for love!... But he respects me: he crawls, he moans, he weeps!" (Leroux 124) The next morning, as they sing a duet from Othello, she suddenly pulls off his mask and is terrified by what she sees. Feeling both horror and pity for him, she forces herself to pretend to accept him and after a few days, he takes her back to her dressing room. She promises to return to him and does, hoping to calm him, but instead he falls even more deeply in love with her. Meanwhile, the Opera's new management has been protesting Erik's demands, selling Box Five and refusing to let Christine sing in Carlotta's place. Erik is furious, and sends them a note saying, "So it is to be war between us? ... If you refuse, you will give Faust to-night in a house with a curse upon it" (Leroux 67). The managers laugh off the letter, and that night Carlotta's voice croaks like a toad, and the Opera house's huge chandelier falls. Horrified by what the Phantom has done, Christine makes plans to escape with Raoul. But at her final performance, the lights go out and Erik kidnaps her, taking her down to his subterranean lair once again. Raoul goes searching for them, assisted by the mysterious Persian, who reveals that he and Erik were friends many years before, but now he is angry because Erik has broken his promise never to kill again.

The Persian is somewhat familiar with Erik's method of concealing and booby-trapping secret entrances, so he and Raoul manage to enter Erik's "house." But they are trapped in the torture chamber, a mirrored room that heats to an unbearably high temperature. Meanwhile, Erik has given Christine two choices, represented by caskets containing a bronze scorpion and grasshopper. "If you turn the scorpion round," he says, "that will mean to me, when I return, that you have said yes. The grasshopper will mean no" (Leroux 241). The grasshopper, Raoul and the Persian discover, is wired to enough gunpowder to blow up the entire opera house. And yet, they wonder, "Would she not prefer to espouse death itself rather than that living corpse?"

A modern day view of the Paris Opera House, designed by Charles Garnier and completed in 1874. A large cistern constructed beneath the Opera House, used to store water, may have inspired Leroux's "underground lake".

In the end, Christine chooses the scorpion, and when she kisses Erik to show her love, he is so overwhelmed that he sets her free, saying that she is free to marry Raoul. Leroux then re-enters the story, relating how he spoke to the Persian himself, who told of his last meeting with Erik, the Phantom of the Opera. "I am dying of love for her, I...I tell you!" Erik tells the Persian, gasping for breath. "If you knew how beautiful she was...when she let me kiss her...alive ... the first time I ever kissed a woman". The Persian is moved to tears by Erik's story, and agrees to advertise Erik's death in the newspaper so that Christine may bury him as she has promised she will. Erik is never heard from again. Gaston Leroux was able to go beyond the fear and superstition of his time and see the human being behind the monstrous face of the character that he created. He did all that he could to convey Erik's true genius to those who read the novel, and made it clear that Erik could have been a great and renowned human being if society had given him the chance. "He asked only to be ‘some one,' like everybody else ... He had a heart that could have held the empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar"

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