Phantom of the Opera (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (40 page)

4
(p. 195)
”the siren’s voice”:
In Greek mythology, the sirens lived on an island in the middle of the ocean; their powerful and enchanting singing lured men to their deaths.

5
(p. 199)
What the Persian knew ... shall be told in his own words
...
which I copy
verbatim: The next five chapters will be ”narrated” by the Persian, who begins by recounting in detail his nearly fatal attempt to cross the lake by boat (mysteriously referenced in chapter 20) and then takes the events of the narrative forward from his arrival with Raoul here in the torture chamber.

1
(p. 202)
”Have you forgotten the rosy hours of Mazenderan?”:
This reference to the Persian and Erik’s shared past will later be at least partially explained by the Persian. Mazenderan was a province in Persia (present-day Iran).

2
(p. 203)
above all praise:
As is the case with Madame Giry in chapter 16, the narrator reveals here a plausible explanation for the Persian’s keen interest in Erik and his actions, one that will be further illuminated in the epilogue. Yet, as the narrator indicates here, the Persian’s willingness to risk his own life to save Christine indeed seems born more of a ”noble and generous heart” than self-preservation.

3
(p. 204)
the Communists’ dungeon:
The French term Communards is translated here and later as ”Communists,” which here means one who supported or participated in the Commune of Paris in 1871.

4
(p. 211)
and continued to work by himself when the works were officially suspended, during the war, the siege of Paris and the Commune:
Again, the fantastic is demystified by a plausible, rational (although certainly far-fetched) explanation of how Erik’s house came into existence.

1
(p. 214)
”I want to have a wife like everybody else and to take her out on Sundays”:
It is interesting to note the way in which Erik’s wish for normalcy encompasses the bourgeois ideals of resemblance (”like everybody else”) and distinction (being remarked by others on Sunday strolls). This desire for an ordered and ordinary life serves to humanize him and to highlight the effects of his suffering and isolation all the more; he will refer to it again in chapter 23.

1
(p. 219)
”you had better remember the story of
Blue-Beard”: In Charles Perrault’s seventeenth-century fairy tale, Bluebeard is an ugly tyrant who gives his young wife keys to all the rooms of their castle but forbids her to enter one particular room. When Bluebeard is next away, she enters the room and finds the bodies of all his previous wives. The key becomes stained with blood, and Bluebeard discovers that his wife has disobeyed him.

1
(p. 245)
There are editions of
The Imitation
that look like that:
This is a reference to the
Imitation of Christ,
a fifteenth-century devotional book whose authorship is most often attributed to priest and theologian Thomas à Kempis.

1
(p. 257)
”of the earth”:
Although it is never explicitly stated, it can be inferred by both Erik’s instructions to the Persian and the commentary here that Erik wills himself to die of a broken heart.

Gaston Leroux could not have imagined in 1910 that his novel would become a Hollywood horror epic. But by envisioning the Paris Opera House as a mysterious hall teeming with ghastly spectacles—a flaming chandelier, a disembodied head, a near-drowning incident, a gorgeous singer tormented by a hideously deformed genius—the author generated thrills on a par with any marvel of twenty-first-century cinema. The setting and potential for spectacle help explain why a string of directors starting in 1925 have pounced at the opportunity to adapt Leroux’s novel. The phantom has transcended both his modest basement lair and the text that first brought him to life, haunting numerous big-screen adaptations and one of the most successful Broadway plays in history.

Rupert Julian’s spine-tingling
Phantom of the Opera
of 1925 remains the supreme interpretation of Leroux’s novel and one of the masterpieces of the silent era. The film’s epic quality is realized in part through the use of elaborate set pieces, ornate costumes, and dramatic lights and shadows. Lon Chaney, starring as the phantom, is without peer in his ability to express both horror and psychological complexity through body language. The chilling scene of his unmasking is one of the most memorable moments in the history of cinema. Though lacking the majesty of Julian’s version, the 1943
Phantom of the Opera
nonetheless boasts an impressive “cast of thousands”; directed by Arthur Lubin, the film stars Claude Rains and won Oscars for cinematography and art direction (it was filmed on the same set as the Julian movie). Terence Fisher’s 1962 adaptation moves the tale of the phantom from Paris to Victorian London and places the action in the Wimbledon Theatre. Starring Herbert Lom, the film diverges significantly from the original story but succeeds as entertainment all the same. Also notable is a version by Brian De Palma, director of the horror classic
Carrie,
in 1974 he turned Leroux’s story into a rock opera, the underappreciated
Phantom of the Paradise.
Robert Englund played the phantom in a slasher version released in 1989; many remember Englund as Freddy Krueger from the
Nightmare on Elm Street
film series, and this murder-heavy
Phantom
channels some of the air of Englund’s earlier roles. Noted Italian horror director Dario Argento weighed in on the story in 1998, directing a gory, macabre film version; it starred popular English actor Julian Sands as a phantom raised by rats and Argento’s daughter Asia as Christine. Famed Italian composer Ennio Morricone produced the music for Argento’s
Phantom.

As the 1980s dawned, so too did the age of television movies. Maximilian Schell, Jane Seymour, and Michael York starred in a 1983 television adaptation filmed on location in Budapest. Legendary Shakespeare director Tony Richardson helmed a version of
Phantom
starring Burt Lancaster that was televised in 1990, and Darwin Knight directed another TV movie that appeared the same year; both were based on stage plays.

In 2004 the film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway musical was released, directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Gerard Butler. First produced in London in 1986, Webber’s musical had premiered on Broadway in January 1988 and won seven Tony Awards, earning theater’s highest honor for its achievements in lighting, costumes, and scenic design, as well as the prizes for Best Actor, Best Featured Actress, Best Director, and Best Musical. In 2005 it entered its seventeenth year of continuous performances on Broadway. With a stirring score, including the much-loved song “The Music of the Night,” the play is a landmark in American theater history. It is also the most significant theatrical adaptation of the novel. As the best-known version of
The Phantom of the Opera
in modern times, the play is responsible for much of the public’s perception of the story today. Webber’s version downplays the horror and fright of Leroux’s story and its earlier film adaptations, and turns the story into a sweeping romance. This alteration probably accounts for much of the play’s popularity, but those familiar only with Webber’s incarnation can be surprised to learn of the ghoulish overtones of the original novel and its previous adaptations. Nonetheless, it was the 1988 Broadway musical that propelled the story of the phantom to the mythic status it enjoys today.

The Bobbs-Merrill Company, of Indianapolis, has just published a new book by Gaston Leroux, author of “The Mystery of the Yellow Room,” which created widespread comment last year. His latest volume is entitled “The Phantom of the Opera,” and is by far the best thing ever published from the facile pen of this most imaginative of mystery writers.

It is a most extraordinary, clever, fantastic tale, original in idea and masterly in treatment. The plot deals with the Opera House in Paris, from the lyre of Apollo on top of its seventeen stories to the lake that lies beneath its five cellars, and tells of the weird occurrences in this vast and mysterious building that have made people believe in the presence of a ghost, and with the kidnapping of the prima donna, the startling culmination of these strange events.

It is not a ghost story in the ordinary sense. It is that, but is much more, for, while all of the several persons through whose eyes one successively views the scenes of the story believe the mysterious happenings to be due to an apparition, the reader is let clearly into the secret that they are really the work of a human being. Thus the plot possesses double powers of enthrallment ; it plays upon the imagination uncannily and, at the same time, evokes a deeper human interest in the fate of the several persons prominent in it.

The plot is frankly fantastic, but the skill with which the illusion is established makes it sufficiently credible for all ordinary purposes.

The writing is vivacious throughout, and humor, tragedy, love, and adventure all contribute to make the book a great success. The dramatic suspense is perfectly maintained.

—January 28, 1911

 

It is a long drop from M. Leroux’s “Mystery of the Yellow Room” to this fantastic piece of nonsense. The former was one of the best-constructed and most exciting detective stories of recent years; the present tale is enormously ingenious, but melodramatic
à outrance,
and runs in places pretty close to the ridiculous. A man of great powers, but born diabolically ugly (the old and wearisome
âme damnée
of the romanticists), becomes one of the contractors for building the opera house at Paris, constructs a secret dwelling for himself in the cellars, with all sorts of trap-doors, hidden passages, etc., through the edifice, and there, unseen and unknown, lives and makes himself felt by a thousand mysterious pranks and crimes. Of course, he falls in love with a young singer; in fact, the plot of the story hangs on the combat of this unseen wooer and an ordinary young man for the fair soprano. Despite the incredibility of the whole situation, M. Leroux succeeds in piquing the reader’s curiosity, and the last search for the demon through the dark cellars of the opera is not without moments of what is called “breathless suspense.” The audacity of the writer almost deprives the reader of his judgment. But M. Leroux owes to the world another detective story as good as “The Mystery of the Yellow Room” and better than “The Perfume of the Lady in Black.”

 

—February 9, 1911

New York Times

The wildest and most fantastic of tales is “The Phantom of the Opera,” by Gaston Leroux.... So long as it is a ghost story, it holds the reader as ghost stories do, but when the phantom ceases to be a phantom, and things begin to be accounted for, one’s interest sensibly weakens. It is, moreover, far too long for that literature which the brilliant author of “L’Ame des Anglais” declares to be “a manifestation pure English—the literature of fear.” Poe understood that horror is an emotion which must be quickly captured and as quickly released, and, as our French author recognizes, he is supreme in the “literature of fear.” Mr. Leroux, on the contrary, permits the “gooseflesh” to subside; the blood to resume its normal flow; nay, the reader to become slightly bored, long before the phantom is laid. Moreover, do we ever forgive a writer for cheating us into shudders? If we are introduced to a ghost, let him be a ghost to the end—no less. Despite these faults, however, the book is effective. Its style is picturesque and vivid, and its descriptions of the great Opera House give the story a real value. There is a far cry, however, from the author’s thrilling “Mystery of the Yellow Room” to this elaborately constructed melodrama.