The Phantom Of The Opera Audiobook

[Myra Krallman]

ThePhantom of the Opera (French: Le Fantme de l'Opra) is a novel by the French author Gaston Leroux. It was first serialised in Le Gaulois from 23 September 1909 to 8 January 1910, and was released in volume form in late March 1910 by Pierre Lafitte.[1] The novel is partly inspired by historical events at the Paris Opera during the nineteenth century, and by an apocryphal tale concerning the use of a former ballet pupil's skeleton in Carl Maria von Weber's 1841 production of Der Freischtz.[2] It has been successfully adapted into various stage and film adaptations, most notable of which are the 1925 film depiction featuring Lon Chaney, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical.

Leroux initially was going to be a lawyer, but after spending his inheritance gambling he became a reporter for L'cho de Paris. At the paper, he wrote about and critiqued dramas, as well as being a courtroom reporter. With his job, he was able to travel frequently, but he returned to Paris where he became a writer. Because of his fascination with both Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he wrote a detective mystery entitled The Mystery of the Yellow Room in 1907, and four years later he published Le Fantme de l'Opra.[3] The novel was first published in newspapers before finally being published as a book.

The setting of The Phantom of the Opera is the actual Paris opera house, the Palais Garnier. Leroux had heard the rumours about the time the opera house was finished, and these rumours became closely linked with the novel: Act One of the opera Hell had just finished when a fire in the roof of the opera house melted through a wire holding a counterweight for the chandelier, causing a crash that injured several and killed one. Using this accident paired with rumours of a ghost in that same opera house, Leroux wrote Le Fantme de l'Opra and published it in 1910, which was later published in English as The Phantom of the Opera.[4] The underground "lake" that he wrote about, in reality an enormous cistern, does exist beneath the opera house, and it is still used for training firefighters to swim in the dark.[5][6]

In the 1880s, in Paris, the Palais Garnier Opera House is believed to be haunted by an entity known as the 'Phantom of the Opera', or simply the 'Opera Ghost', after stagehand Joseph Buquet is found hanged, the noose around his neck missing.

At Perros-Guirec, Christine meets with Raoul, who confronts her about the voice he heard in her room. Christine says she has been tutored by the "Angel of Music", whom her father used to tell her and Raoul about. When Raoul suggests that she might be the victim of a prank, she storms off. Christine visits her father's grave one night, where a mysterious figure appears and plays the violin for her. Raoul attempts to confront the figure but is struck and knocked out in the process.

Back at the Palais Garnier, the new managers receive a letter from the Phantom demanding that they allow Christine to perform the lead role of Marguerite in Faust and that box 5 be left empty for his use, lest they perform in a house with a curse on it. The managers assume his demands are a prank and ignore them. Soon later, Carlotta ends up croaking like a toad, and a chandelier drops into the audience, killing a spectator. The Phantom, having abducted Christine from her dressing room, reveals himself as a deformed man called Erik.

Erik intends to hold her prisoner in his lair with him for a few days. Still, she causes him to change his plans when she unmasks him and, to the horror of both, beholds his skull-like face. Fearing that she will leave him, he decides to hold her permanently. However, when Christine requests release after two weeks, he agrees on the condition that she wear his ring and be faithful to him.

On the roof of the Opera House, Christine tells Raoul about her abduction and makes Raoul promise to take her away to where Erik can never find her, even if she resists. Raoul says he will act on his promise the next day. Unbeknownst to Christine and Raoul, Erik is watching them and overheard their whole conversation.

The following night, the enraged and jealous Erik abducts Christine during a production of Faust and tries to force her to marry him. Raoul is led by a mysterious Opera House regular, 'the Persian', into Erik's secret lair in the bowels of the building. Still, they end up trapped in a mirrored room by Erik, who threatens that unless Christine agrees to marry him, he will kill them and everyone in the Opera House by using explosives.

Under duress, Christine agrees to marry Erik. Erik initially tries to drown Raoul and the Persian, using the water which would have been used to douse the explosives. Still, Christine begs, promising him not to kill herself after becoming his bride. Erik releases Raoul and 'the Persian' from his torture chamber.

When Erik is alone with Christine, he lifts his mask to kiss her on her forehead and is eventually given a kiss back. Erik reveals he has never kissed anyone, including his own mother, who would run away if he ever tried to kiss her. Moved, he and Christine cry together. She also holds his hand and says, "Poor, unhappy Erik", which reduces him to "a dog ready to die for her".

He allows 'the Persian' and Raoul to escape, though not before making Christine promise that she will visit him on his death day and return the ring he gave her. He also makes 'the Persian' promise that afterward, he will go to the newspaper and report his death, as he will die soon "of love."

The epilogue reveals that Erik was born deformed, and the son of a construction business owner. He ran away from his native Normandy to work in fairs and caravans, schooling himself in the circus arts across Europe and Asia, and eventually building trick palaces in Persia and Turkey.

Returning to France, he started his own construction business. After being subcontracted to work on the Palais Garnier's foundations, Erik discreetly built his secret lair, complete with hidden passages and other tricks that allowed him to spy on the managers.

Leroux uses the operatic setting in The Phantom of the Opera to use music as a device for foreshadowing.[8] Ribire makes note that Leroux was once a theatre critic and his brother was a musician, so he was knowledgeable about music and how to use it as a framing device. She uses the example of how Leroux introduces Danse macabre which means "dance of death" in the gala scene which foreshadows the graveyard scene that comes later where the Phantom plays the fiddle for Christine and attacks Raoul when he tries to intervene.

Drumright points out that music is evident throughout the novel in that it is the basis for Christine and Erik's relationship. Christine sees Erik as her Angel of Music that her father promised would come to her one day. The Phantom sees Christine as his musical protg, and he uses his passion for music to teach her everything he knows.[9]

The novel is styled as a mystery novel, as its frame is narrated by a detective acquiring his information through various investigations.[10] The mystery under investigation is the identity and motive of 'the Phantom' who lurks through the opera house, seemingly appearing out of nowhere as if by magic in inaccessible places. But, it seems that the mystery novel frame story is a faade for the genre being more a Gothic romance.[11]

In his article, Fitzpatrick compares the Phantom to other monsters featured in Gothic horror novels such as Frankenstein's monster, Dr. Jekyll, Dorian Gray, and Count Dracula. The Phantom has a torture chamber where he kidnaps and kills people, and the walls of the chapel in the graveyard are lined with human bones.[11] Drumright notes that The Phantom of the Opera checks off every trope necessary to have a Gothic novel according to the Encyclopedia of Literature's description which says, "Such novels were expected to be dark and tempestuous and full of ghosts, madness, outrage,superstition, and revenge."[12] Although the Phantom is really just a deformed man, he has ghost-like qualities in that no one can ever find him or his lair and he is seen as a monster. People are frightened by him because of his deformities and the acts of violence he commits.[9]

The novel features a love triangle between the Phantom, Christine, and Raoul. Raoul is seen as Christine's childhood love whom she is familiar with and has affection for. He is rich and therefore offers her security as well as a wholesome, Christian marriage. The Phantom, on the other hand, is not familiar. He is dark, ugly and dangerous, and therefore represents the forbidden love. However, Christine is drawn to him because she sees him as her Angel of Music, and she pities his existence of loneliness and darkness.[9]

By the time Leroux published The Phantom of the Opera, he had already gained credibility as a crime mystery author in both French- and English-speaking countries. He had written six novels prior, two of which had garnered substantial popularity within their first year of publication: The Mystery of the Yellow Room and The Perfume of the Lady in Black.[8] Although previous commentators have asserted that The Phantom of the Opera did not attain as much success as these previous novels, being particularly unpopular in France where it was first published,[13] recent research into the novel's early reception and sales has indicated the contrary.[14] One book review from the New York Times expressed disappointment in the way the phantom was portrayed, saying that the feeling of suspense and horror is lost once it is found out that the phantom is just a man.[15] The majority of the notability that the novel acquired early on was due to its publication in a series of installments in French, American, and English newspapers. This serialized version of the story became important when it was read and sought out by Universal Pictures to be adapted into a movie in 1925.[13] Leroux did not live to see all the success from his novel and its subsequent critical re-evaluation; he died in April 1927.[16]

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