Reading this novel from the book directly is indeed boring without the sights and sounds that the audience enjoyed in a film or musical. Although the publisher of the book claimed that with these movies and stage musicals of this novel, nothing can arouse such mounting dread as the original novel, I doubt anyone in modern day would be interested to read from the book. As I read the first 2 chapters, I noticed that the author used long sentences to describe the appearances, sights and sounds of the various settings. In some instances, I even had problem understanding what the author was trying to convey. Perhaps the reason for these poor clarity sentences is the result of the difficulties in translating from French to English. It was after-all a French novel and the true meaning could probably only be understood in French context. You may have wondered why I wanted to torture myself to read this novel when I had actually seen the musical. My original intention of reading this novel was to compare the differences in the story-line between the novel and musical version. However, the thing that really aroused my attention comes from the Prologue section of the book. In fact, the first 2 sentences in the Prologue was "The opera ghost really existed. He was not, as was long 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. ". All the while, we all believe that the story of the Phantom of the Opera is a friction and none of the characters including the Phantom himself existed. Why did the author strongly insisted that the Phantom existed even at his death-bed? Could he had written the story based on some facts and imaginations? If this was the case, which are the facts and which are his imaginations? This are the things I am interested to find out. Upon doing some research by searching on Google, I had found sufficient information to clear my doubts.
The story of the Phantom of the Opera was written by Gaston Leroux (a French journalist and author of detective friction). When it was first published in 1911. it was so unpopular that it went out of print. Only after this novel was made into films and rode on the success of the popular Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical, it became so well-known not only to the English speaking world but many parts of the world. Experts who researched into this subject found several aspects of the story ( as mentioned below) are true.
The Place
The setting of the story took place in the Paris Garnier, an majestic opera house built between 1861 to 1875. It was believed that before the construction, a seemingly endless flow of water bubbled up from the swampy, newly cleared ground. Since the construction team failed to pump the site dry, a huge, stone water tank (know as the "lake") had to be built underneath the opera house. The weight of this water tank helps to stabilise the building. The opera house underground consists of alcoves, arches and passageways which joins up with other watery cellars under the street of Paris. Experts believed that Leroux had probably used this underground network of drainage (below the opera house) as an inspiration for the place which the Phantom lived in. People who had visited the place were convinced that someone could have lived there. This is a logical conclusion since it was not surprising to find many homeless people in Paris during those days. The mishap of a chandelier in the opera house that fell and killed a construction worker gave Leroux further inspiration to have the Phantom causing chandelier to fall and kill an audience.
The Phantom
The word "Phantom" is a term for French ghost. However, there were probably no ghost existed in the Paris Garnier. The Phantom is based upon a man named Erik who was born with a horribly disfigured face. Erik was abandoned by his parents at a young age. He eventually became an architect’s assistant which gave him the opportunity to design and built several harems. He was later appointed as one of the contractors of the Paris Garnier where he earned enough money to lead a comfortable life. Just as in the story, Erik wore a dress suit, a cloak, a large felt hat and a mask to hide his deformed face. Erik also had a personal "Box 5" at the opera house. He indeed fell in love with one of the opera singers but was rejected by her. Erik kidnapped the opera singer and eventually became so heartbroken that he locked himself up and died of starvation in his underground home.
In his book, Leroux mentioned in the prologue about that a corpse was uncovered when the opera house cellar was being prepared to house phonographic recordings and the corpse was believed to be Erik because of the gold ring which he was known to wear. There was no evidence to support the discovery of the corpse but the burying of recording indeed took place in 1907. In 2007, these records were dug up and digitised by EMI.
At the time when Leroux was writing the story, the Paris Garnier was believed to be haunted probably because people mistook Erik as a ghost due to the way he dressed and his discreet behaviour or because of the death of Erik after the kidnap incident.
Christine Daae
The lead character of Christine Daae in the story was believed to be based on a famous soprano singer, Christina Nilsson who inspired Leroux due to her incredible vocal range, lovely figure and clear blue eyes. Christina Nilsson's background had many similarities with Christine Daae that supported this claim.
Raoul
Another lead character, Raoul together with his romance with Christine Daae appears to be purely frictional. Leroux mentioned about the disappearance of Vicomte (French term for a noble of varying status) de Chagny and the death of his brother, Count Philippe whose body was found on the bank of the lake that exist in the lower cellars of the Paris Garnier. The magistrate that investigated this case believed that the two brothers had tried to kill each other and there was nothing related to Erik's kidnapping of the soprano singer. There was also no evidence to suggest that the two brothers were related to the Phantom or Paris Garnier in any way. The famous Chagny case had probably led Leroux to include the fantasy of the romance between Christine and Raoul in the story to make it more interesting.
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If you are an avid fan of the Phantom like me, I recommend you to visit Paris Garnier and watch a performance in Box 5 where the Phantom used to occupy. Only after you have an experience of the view from Box 5, you probably could understand why the Phantom chose this box.
References
https://seeksghosts.blogspot.sg/2014/01/the-phantom-of-opera-fact-or-fiction.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/7244338/Where-the-Phantom-was-born-the-Palais-Garnier.html
http://www.messynessychic.com/2014/08/26/unmasking-the-parisian-phantom-of-the-opera/
