User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Persons who are visited by the Angel quiver with a thrill unknown to the rest of mankind. And they cannot touch an instrument or open their mouths to sing, without producing sounds that put all other human sounds to shame.
Erik, AKA The Phantom of the Opera, is Paris's Heathcliff. This book is a dark tale of a man's descent into violence and madness, and the woman who forms the obsession at the centre of his life.
I should probably confess: I am a shameless lover of
The Phantom of the Opera musical, which I have seen many and not enough times, as well as the 2004 movie version starring Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum. I think the story, the setting, and the music make up one of the most beautiful displays of love and loneliness that I have ever seen. It can also be incredibly sexy, but that might have a little something to do with Mr Butler.
The musical version is truly wonderful. If you're curious, watch this wonderful scene from the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t75ST... There's just so much love and sadness wrapped up in just a two and a half minute reprise. Honestly, this story is one of the few things that thaws my cold, unromantic heart.
♪ Christine: In the night there was music in my mind
And through music my soul began to soar
And I heard like I've never heard before
Raoul: What you heard was a dream and nothing more.
Christine: Yet in his eyes, all the sadness in the world ♪
I couldn't help but compare this book to my favourite book of all time - Wuthering Heights. I felt myself drawing so many parallels between the two stories, even though one is a rough and wild story set on the Yorkshire moors and the other is set amid all the finest luxury of nineteenth-century Parisian high society. Both stories create complex villains that earn our pity as well as our disgust. Neither Erik nor Heathcliff is meant to be excused, or even forgiven, for their violent and cruel behaviour; they are not romantic heroes despite the love and passion that fuels both stories.
As with Wuthering Heights, this book is about a man who has lived his whole life with nothing but cruelty and hatred from others (in this case, due to his facial disfigurement). His own mother presented him with a mask so she didn't have to look upon his face. Erik becomes obsessed with Christine Daae - the object of his love and desire - and makes her the centre of his universe. But no man or phantom or angel of music can suffer through a loveless childhood and years of being a freakshow attraction without developing some serious issues. And the phantom, quite frankly, is as messed up as he is a musical genius.
Erik manipulates, terrorizes and even kills to fulfill his mission of furthering Christine Daae's career in the Opera House. He really is the best kind of character - twisted, complex, angry and evil, but I don't think we ever really hate him. I like how this book doesn't turn into something akin to a modern day YA romance where the heroine falls for the bad dude anyway because it's TRU WUV; that isn't the story being told here. Erik is not a hero, but a monster. And this is the monster's story.
It is the monster's deep, unrequited love that makes him human to the reader. I don't want Christine to be with him, that would weaken the true power of the story... but nevertheless, I had to fight back tears when he says:
"And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself. If you loved me, I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased."
The *almost* ending scene is my favourite in the musical, in the movie, and now in the book too. The movie's sad reprise of the song
Masquerade sung by the phantom just hits me in the heart every time:
Masquerade...
Paper faces on parade
Masquerade...
Hide your face so the world will never find you.
A beautiful book.
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Rating: really liked it
The Phantom’s greatest tragedy in life is the fact that he came so close to gaining the heart of the girl he loved, a sense of acceptance he has wanted for an entire lifetime, but because of his scarred and damaged soul he did nothing but terrify her; ultimately, shattering the initial allure and glamour she felt in his presence.
In the vein of Frankenstein and Heathcliff, Erik’s shattered visage, his ruined face, permeates his soul. Society, humanity, perceives his appearance as evil and twisted; thus, he takes on these traits in a cruel mockery of what is expected of him: he becomes the very thing he is branded as. And it becomes his most powerful weapon and it also becomes his downfall. He is beyond bitter. He is beyond twisted. His heart oozes with venom for a world that has always shunned him and left him an outcast in the darkness.
The Phantom of the Opera is a tragedy in every sense of the word. All the Phantom ever wanted was love and when he finally finds it, it practically destroys him. It pushes him out of the shadows and makes him bold; it makes him yearn for what he thought impossible. And he acts. He sees his chance, the very essence of what has brought his voice and his soul back to life is before him, and he seizes it albeit too forcefully. He becomes vicious, demanding and overwhelming. The loneliness of his soul dominates his faculties. He loses the cold, practical, cunning that has kept him alive for so long and follows the unthinking possessive whims of his heart.
"And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself. If you loved me, I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased." 
Such words are uttered with the utmost truth and geniality. Erik comes forth into the light. In this moment he casts aside the guise of The Phantom and reveals his vulnerability and his ability to rejuvenate to Christine. He puts his heart out there, but like everything is his life love is illusory. In his misguided state he drastically misunderstands the situation and his erratic behaviour destroys any chance he ever could have had. His love has power, but he fails to understand that not everybody is as painfully desperate as he.
Leroux clearly loved opera houses and his phantom is beautifully dark concept. His descriptions of the theatre are vivid and verging on the enchanting. His prose is smooth and faultless, though his pacing is poor and the plot is weighed down with many non-essential characters that over complicate the situation. I love the story here, though the execution falls short of the faultlessness you would expect when you consider the sheer strength that surrounds the central plot and characters.
For me, the Phantom will always be better on the stage. The true pain of Erik’s soul pours out of the music and wrenches the hearts of the audience. The final scenes, the reality of the ending, place the story on the fringes of the modernist movement and show that romance is not always storybook despite how our hearts may yearn otherwise.
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Rating: really liked it
Excellent, marvelous. A phantasmagorical (ha ha!) PERFECTION. NO JOKE. This is one true House of Horrors, perhaps the best one ever orchestrated (maybe discounting Poe). Yes, EVER. The prose is so simple, so readable, that the barest of essentials are there, in all their power & glory: the haunted house, the victim-lover, the victimizer/lover, the clandestine meetings, the haunted past, the switch-over of protagonists, the uncertainty caused by one elegant overflow of optical illusions, the Victorian conventions all intended to spook the hell out of a reader that's totally in awe of the way a classic story can be so expertly conveyed. Both this & "Dracula" are revolutionary in that uberentertaining way in which the plot is given to us: through letters & witness accounts. Yes, the only way to be frightened is to have the monster in the backdrop, a perpetual threat that's under the velvet curtain. It is truly, TRULY (I want to scream out my window!) delicious-- how nobody from the Paris Opera knows exactly what the phantom looks like, how they all put up their own fears projected unto the myth (who, I must admit, is a true turn-of-the-century bad-ass-- a Micheal Myers combined with Hannibal Lecter... you must meet this version-- he's a more maniacal and romantic phantom than the musicals!). I could not ask for more in a book, its brevity is bittersweet (you wish there were more details, more certainties... this effect, of course, is genius); its use of freak show conventions are all aligned beautifully. This is a masterpiece to be savored! (Read it to your cool kid or niece/nephew!)
UPDATE: just caught the show this last Wednesday night (9/7/16) at the Buell. No musical is as technically rich as this one (which is SO like the Phantom himself). It IS the decade of the 80s-its very opulent (quint)essence! And this is the decade of my birth...
UPDATE: Second time, with the first black Phantom on tour at the Buell! (11/6/19)
Rating: really liked it
Le Fantôme de l'Opéra = The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston LerouxThe Phantom of the Opera is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published in volume form in late March 1910 by Pierre Lafitte.
In Paris in the 1880's, 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.
A stagehand named Joseph Buquet is found hanged and the rope around his neck goes missing.
At a gala performance for the retirement of the opera house's two managers, a young little-known Swedish soprano, Christine Daaé, is called upon to sing in the place of the Opera's leading soprano, Carlotta, who is ill, and her performance is an astonishing success.
The Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, who was present at the performance, recognizes her as his childhood playmate and recalls his love for her.
He attempts to visit her backstage, where he hears a man complimenting her from inside her dressing room. He investigates the room once Christine leaves, only to find it empty.
At Perros-Guirec, Christine meets with Raoul, who confronts her about the voice he heard in her room.
Christine tells him she has been tutored by the Angel of Music, whom her father used to tell them 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 it but is attacked 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 ignore his demands as a prank, resulting in disastrous consequences: Carlotta ends up croaking like a toad, and the chandelier suddenly 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 keep her in his lair with him for a few days, but she causes him to change his plans when she unmasks him and, to the horror of both, beholds his noseless, lipless, sunken-eyed face, which resembles a skull dried up by the centuries, covered in yellowed dead flesh.
Fearing that she will leave him, he decides to keep her with him forever, but 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 a place where Erik can never find her, even if she resists.
Raoul tells Christine he will act on his promise the next day, to which she agrees. However, Christine sympathizes with Erik and decides to sing for him one last time as a means of saying goodbye. Unbeknownst to Christine and Raoul, Erik has been 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 regular known as "The Persian" into Erik's secret lair deep in the bowels of the opera house, but 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.
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, but Christine begs and offers to be his "living bride", promising him not to kill herself after becoming his bride, as she had both contemplated and attempted earlier in the book.
Erik eventually 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 given a kiss back. Erik reveals that he has never received a kiss, not even from his own mother, nor has been allowed to give one and is overcome with emotion.
He and Christine then cry together and their tears "mingle". Erik later says that he has never felt so close to another human being. 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 gold 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 and will die "of love". Indeed, sometime later Christine returns to Erik's lair, buries him somewhere he will never be found (by Erik's request) and returns the gold ring.
Afterward, a local newspaper runs the simple note: "Erik is dead".
Christine and Raoul (who finds out that Erik has killed his older brother) elope together, never to return. Passages narrated directly by the Persian and the final chapter piece together Erik's life: the son of a construction business owner deformed from birth, he ran away from his native Normandy to work in fairs and in caravans, schooling himself in the arts of the circus across Europe and Asia, and eventually building trick palaces in Persia and Turkey.
Eventually, he returned to France and, wearing a mask, started his own construction business. After being subcontracted to work on the foundations of the Palais Garnier, Erik had discreetly built himself a lair to disappear in, complete with hidden passages and other tricks that allowed him to spy on the managers.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش ماه جولای سال 2003میلادی
عنوان: شبح اپرا؛ نویسنده: گاستون لورو؛ مترجم: مرتضی آجودانی؛ تهران، کتابهای جیبی، 1343، در 368ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، علمی فرهنگی؛ سال1394؛ در هفده و 491ص؛ شابک: 9786001215285؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان فرانسه - سده 20م
عنوان: شبح اپرا؛ نویسنده: گاستون لورو؛ برگردان: آرش حجازی؛ مهدی حریری؛ تهران، کاروان، 1381؛ در 443ص؛ شابک: 9647033389؛ چاپ دوم 1382؛ چاپ پنجم 1385؛
نخستین بار فیلم را چند بار دیدم؛ سپس گشتم و ترجمه ی جناب آقای «آجودانی» را یافتم؛ رمان «شبح اپرا»؛ داستان دل انگیزی در دل خویش نهان دارد؛ خوانشگر، و بینشگر، هرگزی داستان و صحنه های فیلم، و یا واژه های کتاب، از یادشان به جای دیگر کوچ نمیکنند، و نمیروند؛ یادم مانده که آن دخترک «کریستین»، چگونه به آن فرشته ی موسیقی دل باخت؛ همان فرشته، یا شبح خوفناک، که در سردابه های ساختمان اپرا، مسکن گزیده بود، و تنها برای شنیدن موسیقی به کنار صحنه میآمد؛ نیز نام فیلمی موزیکال هم هست که بسیار دیدنی ست، در نوشته های دیگری در باره ی شبح و اینکه او کی بوده، بسیار نوشته، و از ایران و دوران ناصری هم یاد کرده اند؛
هشدار برای کسانیکه میخواهند خود این داستان را بخوانند؛ چکیده داستان را افشا میکندچکیده داستان: فیلم در سال 1919میلادی و به صورت سیاه و سفید آغاز میشود؛ بخشی از اموال اپرای پاریس به حراج گذارده شده و از جمله شرکت کنندگان در حراج، مرد سالخورده ای است که با عنوان «ویکونت رائول دو شانی» معرفی میشود؛ نخستین مورد حراجی عروسک میمونی است که سنج میزند، و «ویکونت» آن را میخرد؛ پس از آن نوبت به حراج چلچراغ عظیم اپرای پاریس میرسد، که با پرده ای پوشانده شده است؛ برای نمایش آن پرده را کنار کشیده، و چلچراغ را به بالا میکشند؛ با بالارفتن چلچراغ زمان به عقب و سال 1870میلادی یعنی دوران رونق سالن اپرای پاریس برمیگردد و فیلم رنگی میشود؛ نمایشی عظیم قرار است اجرا شود، و بازیگران مشغول تمرین هستند؛ ناگهان پرده ی پشت صحنه، به شدت در نزدیکی «بانو کارلوتا»، بازیگر نقش اصلی فرو میافتد؛ بازیگران میگویند که این کار شبح اپرا است، و «کارلوتا» به حالت قهر آنجا را ترک میکند؛ گردانندگان اپرا که بازیگر اصلی خود را از دست داده اند، به تعطیل کردن نمایش میاندیشند، اما «مادام ژیری»، «کریستین» را به عنوان جایگزین «کارلوتا» معرفی میکند؛ از «کریستین» خواسته میشود تا آوازی را بخواند، و او به زیبایی آن را اجرا میکند، اما از گفتن نام کسی که آوازخواندن را به او آموخته خودداری میکند؛ نقش به «کریستین» داده میشود، و در شب افتتاحیه، «رائول - ویکونت شانی» که در جمع مهمانان است، درمییابد که «کریستین» همان دوست دوران کودکی اوست، و پس از اجرای نمایش به پیش او میآید؛ «کریستین» که از دیدن «رائول» زیباروی، بسیار شادمان شده مدتی را به گفتگو با او سپری میکند
در پشت صحنه گلهای فراوانی برای کریستین فرستاده شده اما در میان آنها یک رز سرخ قرار دارد که روبانی سیاه به آن بسته شده است؛ فرستندهٔ آن گل کسی نیست به جز «شبح اپرا»، یک نابغه ی موسیقی که به دلیل نقص مادرزادی ای که در چهره اش دارد، خود را در زیرزمین اپرای پاریس پنهان کرده، و نقابی بر چهره گذاشته است؛ شبح عاشق «کریستین» است، و اوست که آوازخواندن را به «کریستین» آموخته، و در ازای آن میخواهد که «کریستین» برای همیشه با او بماند؛ او همچنین تمام تلاش خود را بکار میبندد تا «کریستین» ستارهٔ اصلی نمایشهای اپرای پاریس باشد، و با ارسال نامه ای به گردانندگان سالن اپرا، آنها را تهدید میکند، در صورتی که نقش اصلی نمایش بعدی به «کریستین» سپرده نشود، باید منتظر عواقب بدی باشند؛ اما آنان به این تهدید توجهی نکرده، و برای دلجویی از «بانو کارلوتا»، نقش اصلی را به او میسپارند؛ شبح که از این موضوع ناراحت شده، با عوض کردن افشرهٔ صاف کنندهه س صدای او، باعث گرفتگی صدای «کارلوتا» شده، و به ناچار «کریستین» جایگزین او میشود؛ اما شبح تنها به همین کار اکتفا نکرده و مسئول تغییر پرده های نمایش را با طنابی دار زده و در برابر چشمان تماشاگران آویزان میکند
کریستین که عاشق «رائول» شده به او میگوید، که از شبح میترسد، و رائول با خواندن آوازی به او میگوید، که همواره در کنارش خواهد بود، و از او مراقبت خواهد کرد، و «کریستین» با بر زمین انداختن گل سرخی که شبح اپرا برایش فرستاده، به «رائول» میپیوندد؛ آنها نمیدانند که شبح اپرا شاهد دیدار آنهاست و او که قلبش شکسته، به فکر کشتن «رائول» و نگاه داشتن «کریستین» برای خود میافتد؛ دو مرد هنگامی که «کریستین» بر سر مزار پدر خود رفته است، با یکدیگر رودرو شده، و بر روی هم شمشیر میکشند، اما پیروزی از آن «رائول» است و تنها نفرت برای شبح باقی میماند
نمایش «دون خوان» در حال اجراست، و «رائول» نگهبانانی مسلح را در سالن اپرا مستقر کرده است؛ با این وجود شبح با کشتن یکی از بازیگران مرد، خود به جای او وارد صحنه میشود؛ او در کنار «کریستین» شروع به خواندن میکند، ولی «کریستین» ناگهان نقاب از چهره ی او برمیکشد، و صورت بدشکل شبح نمایان میشود؛ شبح که غافلگیر شده، طنابی که چلچراغ عظیم سالن اپرا را نگهداشته، پاره میکند؛ چلچراغ بر روی جمعیت که در حال فرار هستند میافتد، و شبح در حالیکه «کریستین» را در آغوش گرفته، ناپدید میشود؛ «رائول» از «مادام ژیری» که تنها کسی است که راه مخفیگاه شبح را میداند، میخواهد که به او یاری کند؛ «مادام ژیری» راه را به او نشان میدهد، و «رائول» برای نجات «کریستین» میرود؛ اما شبح او را گیر انداخته، و به «کریستین» میگوید که نجات جان «رائول» به گزینش او بستگی دارد؛ «کریستین» که درمانده شده است، شبح را میبوسد؛ شبح که احساساتش تحریک شده، به «کریستین» و «رائول» میگوید، که از آنجا بروند، و خود شروع به شکستن تمامی آینه های موجود در مخفیگاهش میکند؛ نگهبانان و کارکنان، به مخفیگاه شبح میرسند، اما به جز نقاب او، و اسباب بازی میمونی که سنج میزند چیزی نمییابند
ویکونت شانی، که یادمانهای گذشته را به یاد میآورد، سوار بر ماشین، به سوی گورستانی میرود؛ در آنجا «کریستین» آرمیده است، و او عروسک میمون سنجزن را، که از حراجی اپرای پاریس خریداری کرده است، بر سر مزار «کریستین» میگذارد؛ اما به هنگام بازگشت متوجهٔ شاخه گل سرخرنگی میشود، که روبانی سیاه به آن بسته شده، و در کنار سنگ مزار «کریستین» گذارده شده است
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 30/06/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 21/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Rating: really liked it
Before we start off, let me clarify something: because I can't be bothered to create a "the Broadway stage adaptation is better" shelf, my "the movie is better" shelf will have to suffice here.
The Phantom of the Opera, the show, is a giant, absurd, bombastic display of every bad misconception of theater, and is the main reason Andrew Lloyd Weber is able to fall asleep on a bed made of money every night. It's not my favorite show, is what I'm saying - in fact, I don't even really
like the show, come to think of it (which begs the question of why I read this book in the first place, but whatever). So, with all that in mind, Madeline Reviews Inc now presents:
Why
The Phantom of the Opera the Book Is, Somehow, Worse Than The Stage Show And Every Movie Version Released So Far
-Everyone in the book is a moron. Like, even more than they are in the show. I got about halfway through the book when I realized, "Wait a minute, was I supposed to be
surprised by the revelation that the Phantom and Christine's tutor are the same guy? Haven't we known that from, like, page twenty?" Even if I hadn't seen any other versions, I feel sure I would have figured it out - come on, the story is about people trying to learn the identity of a mysterious, invisible guy and the
title of the book is The Phantom of the Opera. Were Gaston Leroux's readers really that stupid?
-Annoying characters from the show are even more annoying here. Christine is still a useless twit, and in this version comes upgraded with zero observation skills and a seriously misguided sense of priorities. When she admits to Raoul (after like two months of bullshit) that the Phantom scares the hell out of her and she wants to escape him, Raoul makes the very sensible point that maybe she should stop wearing the ring the Phantom gave her. Christine's response: "That would be deceitful." GAAAAAAHHHHH.
Raoul is even worse. In the show, he's simply a well-meaning schmuck who fails spectacularly at saving Christine every opportunity he gets. In the book, he's a selfish dick. This is a paraphrased account of an interaction between him and Christine:
Raoul: "Christine, I know there's something super weird going on with this guy you're running off to see, and I want you to tell me what's up because I love you and want to protect you."
Christine: "It's too dangerous, I can't tell you."
Raoul: "OMG YOU'RE IN LOVE WITH HIM AREN'T YOU? WELL FINE, I DON'T CARE. I HOPE YOU DIE, YOU LYING WHORE."
-We never get to see anything from Christine's perspective. This is important, because in the book she spends at least two months as the Phantom's prisoner, and all we get is her description, later, of what it was like. Instead of seeing the Phantom through Christine's eyes, where he might have been a more compelling character, we just get to watch Raoul follow her around like a creeper and then listen to Christine give lengthy expositional speeches after events happen.
-The Phantom isn't actually that cool. He's always bursting into tears and begging Christine to love him, and the rest of the time he's so incredibly misguided about his relationship with Christine that it's almost funny. He comes off sounding like one of those perverts on cop shows who insists that he and the ten-year-old locked in his basement actually have a very special and loving relationship, while the cops are just looking at him like, that's nice, man, but your ass is still going to jail.
-There are way more characters than we need, and a lot of them are different (read: worse) than they are in the show. Madame Giry, last seen as a cool, commanding ballet mistress, is merely a crazy old woman who works for the Phantom because he deceived her with the most idiotic lie ever. The book also features The Persian, a guy who literally hangs around the Opera and shows up whenever it's thematically necessary. He might as well have been named Deus Ex Machina.
-Leroux's pacing
sucks. Any drama is instantly ruined by his digressions or abrupt scene-changing, and all momentum is lost. When the Phantom kidnaps Christine after her final performance, the story is going along well, everyone's freaking out and trying to find her, and
then Leroux pops up. "Hey!" he says, "You guys remember how on page 20 I told you that the new managers have to pay the Phantom 20,000 francs once a month? I bet you guys are wondering how that's going, huh? Let's check in with them quick." And before you can say, no, Gaston, I actually wasn't wondering that
at all, he makes you slog through
two goddamn chapters about the new managers trying to figure out how the Phantom collects their money.
Similarly, once Raoul and the Persian have gone after the Phantom and are almost at his lair (a journey that takes way, way too long) they get locked in his torture chamber (which involves torture so stupid I won't even describe it) and the plot comes to a damn
standstill as Raoul and the Persian spends hours trapped there. It made me actually long for the show, where everything skips along at a fast clip and the worst digressions are five-minute love songs.
-The ending is stupid. Christine gets the Phantom to release her and Raoul (after a lengthy imprisonment that, again, we only get to
hear about rather than see), not by having a sexy quick makeout session with him, but by crying with him. That's it. The Phantom kisses her (on the forehead), bursts into tears, and Christine cries with him. This somehow convinces the Phantom that she loves Raoul and that he should let them go, and that's how the Phantom is defeated. I am in no way joking.
In the interest of fairness, the book has two good things going for it:
One, Leroux's portrayal of the opera house as a sprawling, complex maze that's a contained city is pretty incredible, and he's at his best when he's describing all the intricacies and hidden secrets of the opera house.
And two, at least in the book, we are never subjected to a performance of
Don Juan Triumphant. Thank you, Jesus.
Rating: really liked it
This was better as a musical!!!! Which I didn't even know existed until about a week ago!!Oh Erik you simp.
Raoul you suck.
Christine you deserve better than both of these idiots.
Watch our full liveshow here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuGHj...
2.5 STARSTwitter | Bookstagram | Youtube |
Rating: really liked it
The emo kid to Incel pipeline.
Rating: really liked it
I fell in love with
The Phantom of the Opera after watching the 2004 movie adaptation. Since then I have wanted to read the book. I never knew what a surprise was in store for me. The movie was simply a love triangle between Raoul, Christine, and Erik - the "opera ghost" and nothing more. But the book is none of that. It is a gothic horror story; quite different from the movie and very dark. Reading the book reversed my perspective on the story and its characters.
The "Poor Erik" of the movie was not so "poor" after all. He is not so much the wronged, unlucky man as I thought him to be. He is a monster who kills, injures, blackmails, and kidnaps to achieve his desires in life. Just when I thought I have read the darkest classical character in Heathcliff, Leroux presents me with a more sinister Erik! He terrorizes the whole of the opera house with his brutality especially the young and innocent Christine Dae. Erik is nothing but a villain who deserves no sympathy. And Raoul is no hero. He is more suited for a fool with his doubting heart, his childish actions, his short sight, and impatience. Leroux's heroine is Christine. For one so young, she has a surprising strength to undergo the brutality of Erik and is of a mature mind to do what is best for the others even at her peril.
The story is a dark tale of a man with an unnatural and wicked mind. The horrifying drama his actions bring about and the fright they arouse leave you quite frantic. However, Leroux injects a little humor to assuage the grim atmosphere. So despite the gravity and shocking wickedness so nakedly portrayed, I had quite a laugh too.
Although the book was not what I expected, it was nevertheless an interesting read. Irrespective of the dark subject matter, I did enjoy the story pretty much. And on reflection, I think I'm glad that this is a gothic horror story and not a simple love triangle.
Rating: really liked it
Sorelli, a principal dancer in the beautiful, new, and fabulous Paris Opera House ( circa 1880) is angry, her dressing - room has been invaded, by half a dozen hysterical young ladies, ballet dancers. The frightened performers have seen the legendary Phantom (Ghost), claiming to have noticed a very ugly man, but well dressed in the passageway. The superstitious but brave woman, opens the door quiet slowly and takes a careful peek. The shadowy in gaslight, reddish walls give a strange ambiance, but there is nothing around, the door is quickly shut ...The new managers don't take seriously the old ones, MM. Debienne and Poligny, warnings of the Phantom, receiving them as a joke to amuse Armand Moncharmin, and Firmin Richard, such distinguished gentlemen, playing silly childish games. The duo will be sorry they did not take their advise . Christine Daae, a young Swedish singer, gives an awe inspiring performance when La Carlotta, the spoiled prima donna, lead soprano singer, at the Opera House, through illness, missed her engagement . And the "man" in box five, falls madly in love with Christine, he is the Phantom ( call him Erik) and can help her achieve stardom, maybe not with a gentle touch. Many sightings of this phantom, but he is never caught after all, how can you stop a ghost? Trapped doors, secret passageways, magic mirrors, voices inside walls from empty rooms, a lake under the opera house the intelligent Phantom, knows everything about the gigantic building. A stagehand is found hanging , lifeless below in the cellars, he had seen a flaming head no body though, flying by people , thought he was drunk; a heavy chandelier crushes a woman in the audience during a performance, and at the farewell dinner for the old managers, this man with a death mask sits down at the table. No one talks to the weird, would you ... unnerving stranger, he tells the gentlemen that Joseph Bouqet, the dead man didn't commit suicide. And vanishes as fast as he had arrived ... Raoul Vicomte de Chagny, 20, a person who knew Christine, when both were children loves her too, not surprisingly the jealous Phantom, is not happy indeed. Neither is Phillippe , the Comte de Chagny, and snobbish older brother of Raoul, isn't pleased at all either. Erik kidnaps Christine, descends deep down, under the dungeon like cellars, the monster has a house on the eerie lake. He plays on a organ, his opera that he is writing for Christine, a beautiful voice comes out of his grotesque head. Christine is curious, when the fiend is playing with his back to her, she lifts the death mask ... a hideous, unbelievable repellent, repugnant, revolting face, she faints away. Meanwhile the frantic Raoul , meets the Persian, a person everyone knows but nobody can say who he is. But immediately, Raoul trust him, trust him he must, he knows where Christine is. The Persian gives him a revolver, takes another and they walk down, into the vast, darkness of the opera house basement, to rescue Christine, first seeing a shadow moving near them, but the Phantom it is not. Then a flying face all a blazed, thundering noises rising coming closer and closer, they reach the wall and can't go any further , the strange face approaches, the sound deafening ... thousands of rats, from the blackness, the pair, await their doom... A good old-fashioned tale for people that don't take it seriously and like the atmosphere of an amusing adventure too enjoyable to be real.
Rating: really liked it
“And, despite the care which she took to look behind her at every moment, she failed to see a shadow which followed her like her own shadow, which stopped when she stopped, which started again when she did and which made no more noise than a well-conducted shadow should.” Gaston Leroux - who popularized an entire sub-genre of detective fiction called ‘
locked room mystery’ through his works like '
The Mystery of the Yellow Room' and his fictional amateur sleuth,
Joseph Rouletabille - is most renowned for his suspense/ romance/ drama novel '
The Phantom of the Opera'; easily one among the most adapted novels in literary history. Originally published as a series in French daily newspaper ‘
Le Gaulois’ between 1909 and 1910, this terrific tale of suspense and maniacal passion was published as a novel in 1910.
This romantic drama with a dark angle narrates the love triangle between the key characters of
Christine, an opera singer;
Erik, a man with a horrible facial deformity and who is living unknown to others in the Opera house, introduces himself just as a ‘voice’ to her initially and trains her in fine tuning her singing; and
Raoul, her childhood friend who is in love with her. The passion and possessiveness arising from the love and a string of violent and terrifying events that happen in an Opera house in which the legend of an ‘
Opera Ghost’ is thriving drives this story forward.
Erik, who had been never loved –
even by his mother due to his physical deformities – finds love in
Christine and this lonely man becomes so mad and jealous with his obsessive love for Christine that through his character
Leroux portrays the infinite capacity of human mind in generating evil and his tale is an inspection at the depths of darkness that a soul can possess. This is a Gothic tale of mad passions and the setting of the underground rooms of the Opera house matches the chilling atmosphere that the tale exudes.
I will not go much into the story-line in this review, as it will spoil the experience of reading this book but I can assure the prospective reader one thing, the anti-hero characterization of Erik is one of among the best; the terror, the evil, the fear and the malice that he generates all is brilliantly balanced with the pity and sadness that the reader feel towards him further into the book.
The illustratorIt was a decade and half ago that I read ‘
The Phantom of Opera’ for the first time, but recently I came across a 1911 first US edition copy of this title published by
Bobbs-Merrill. When the book was originally published in 1910 titled
Le Fantôme de l'Opéra in French, it was accompanied by five oil paintings by French illustrator and artist
André Castaigne. The US edition of 1911 had three of these original five oil paintings reproduced on art paper plates and these paintings capture the eerie atmosphere of the story brilliantly.
The French artist and engraver Jean André Castaigne, who was the original illustrator for the first edition of The Phantom of the Opera. This is an anonymous Portrait of Castaigne from ‘The Charcoal Club’ in Baltimore, USA, 1893André Castaigne was a master illustrator and painter who drew humans, animals, architecture and landscapes with equal flair and illustrated extensively for both French and American publications.
One of the oil paintings that Castaigne did for the original 1910 first edition, depicting the below scene from novel "He said to you, 'Christine, you must love me!'"
At these words, a deathly pallor spread over Christine's face, dark rings formed round her eyes, she staggered and seemed on the point of swooning. Raoul darted forward, with arms outstretched, but Christine had overcome her passing faintness and said, in a low voice: "Go on! Go on! Tell me all you heard! "
At an utter loss to understand, Raoul answered: "I heard him reply, when you said you had given him your soul, 'Your soul is a beautiful thing, child, and I thank you. No emperor ever received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight.'"
The Phantom of Opera - A clever blend of fact and fictionGaston Leroux in a clever manner infused real locations and actual events from history to make his novel more credible and more mysterious, and fact and fiction overlaps in this novel to form an atmosphere of misty unknown. Let’s inspect a few such elements that Leroux took from actuality to fuel his imagination.
Gaston Leroux used the ‘
Palais Garnier’ opera house as the setting for his novel and some of the rumors and architectural elements associated with this real life monument allowed Leroux to infuse a sense of authority or reality to his fictional work.
Uncovered facade of the Palais Garnier on 15 August 1867 "The house broke into a wild tumult. The two managers collapsed in their chairs and dared not even turn round; they had not the strength; the ghost was chuckling behind their backs! And, at last, they distinctly heard his voice in their right ears, the impossible voice, the mouthless voice, saying:
'SHE IS SINGING TO-NIGHT TO BRING THE CHANDELIER DOWN! '
With one accord, they raised their eyes to the ceiling and uttered a terrible cry. The chandelier, the immense mass of the chandelier was slipping down, coming toward them, at the call of that fiendish voice. Released from its hook, it plunged from the ceiling and came smashing into the middle of the stalls, amid a thousand shouts of terror. A wild rush for the doors followed.
The papers of the day state that there were numbers wounded and one killed. "
An Engraving of the main auditorium chandelier of the Paris Opera's Palais Garnier; The design was by Charles Garnier and the engraving is believed to be by J. Bénard and C. LapiauteOn 20 May 1896, one of the counterweights that keep this 7-ton bronze and crystal chandelier stable broke free and burst through the ceiling into the auditorium, killing a member of the audience. Gaston Leroux was inspired by this tragic accident to create one of the most famous scenes in the novel.
The concept of the subterranean lake under the Opera House is also based on some truth as when the site was excavated in 1862, the groundwater level was found unexpectedly high and despite some heavy duty attempts in draining this water from the swampy work site, the site was not dried up completely and a special double foundation had to be designed to take care of this groundwater seepage.
The subterranean water body underneath Palais Garnier, taken from Google Street view. You can Inspect this in detail here: https://goo.gl/maps/NocxbwxPV2zAn enormous concrete cistern, which was built to take control of this situation, formed a reservoir of water and Gaston Leroux was inspired by the rumor, which soon spread around Paris stating that there is an enormous underground lake beneath the Palais Garnier. And the large cellars that act as the technical rooms of the building along with its alcoves and arches could have inspired him into creating the plot element that the phantom lived underneath the Opera house.
The Numerous AdaptationsChristine: "You. You are the Phantom!"
The Phantom: "If I am the Phantom, it is because man's hatred has made me so. If I shall be saved, it will be because your love redeems me."
There have been a multitude of adaptations for ‘
The Phantom of the Opera’ – into both adult and children’s literature, dramas, musicals, movies, television shows and comic books – and I would wish to inspect two specific adaptations here; the 1925 movie adaptation and the famous
Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on the novel.
In 1925,
Rupert Julian, the New Zealand cinema actor, director, writer and producer directed a movie adaptation starring
Lon Chaney, Sr as Phantom and
Mary Philbin as Christine.
Lon Chaney Sr. and Mary Philbin in "The Phantom of the Opera", 1925 FilmThis was a faithful adaptation of the book with some plot differences only and was a box office success. I chose this adaptation for mention because of the famous ‘
unmasking’ scene -
the scene in which while Erik is playing the organ, Christine creeps up behind him to snatch his mask off – a movie scene, which can be easily stated as one of the
most memorable moments in the history of films.
The famous unmasking the phantom sceneSince the movie is on the public domain you can watch this scene from YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa3bH....
When it came out in 1925, this scene was the apex of horror and the make up that was used on
Lon Chaney was much acclaimed and frightening. It is also one of the closest characterizations of Phantom, based on the book. From today’s standard this scene may not have even the slightest iota of horror in it as we have outgrown fear for such visuals with over exposure but at that time this scene when watched in a dark movie house could have been quiet startling and one of the promotional tricks that the movie used was that the theaters were asked to keep smelling salts ready in case someone from the audience watching the scene actually fainted.
A publicity photo of Steve Barton and Sarah Brightman in the final scene of ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ musical.Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical adaptation opened in London's West End in 1986, and on Broadway in 1988 and is the
longest running show in Broadway history with over 10,000 Broadway performances and a worldwide total gross collection of over $5.6 billion.
‘
The Phantom of the Opera’ may feel overemotional from a modern perspective, but this is a classic mystery and suspense story from a whole different time period, and if as a reader you can have a bit of patience and can take account of this difference in the time-frames, then this work from Leroux can be a satisfying experience.
Written - October 31, 2015
Rating: really liked it
Well, that was melodramatic.
Because I quit a book last week, I forced myself to finish this one. I can finish anything on audio, thought I. I am not a quitter, thought I. But after struggling to focus on this and backtracking 2 hours because I realized I had been daydreaming the entire time, I have come to the realization that the DNF review is not so bad a thing.
This read was torture. Pure torture. I finished it but did not have a good time.
“You don’t love me. But you will.” Sorry Erik but no. No I won’t. Feel free to keep trying.
“You must know that I am made of death, from head to foot, and it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!” Hmmm, slightly tempting. But no. And here’s why:
This story has the lovely gothic trappings that one would expect; an opera “ghost” who hides in the shadows, a helpless damsel and loads of secret passageways and hidden rooms where ominous things happen. But . . .
It was boring .There, I said it. It’s rather a dry read, goes off on tedious tangents about missing money for hours (felt like hours anyway) and the narration was a wee bit on the stuffy side, making it easy for me to doze off. It also features a love triangle between Christine the beauty, Erik the mentally unstable phantom and Raoul a weepy, boy-man who dissolved into a fit of tears whenever he thought Christine might not share in his insta-love. Note to Raoul: toughen up, man! Your tears are a perfectly good waste of suffering (thank you Clive Barker) and they are not attractive. Poor Christine. She would’ve been better off getting a dog than marrying either of these two.
This did not go down well for me. It was a struggle from beginning to end. I was very much expecting to become immersed in the world but instead I couldn’t wait to flee from it.
“I am dying of love. “ Erik
Rating: really liked it
I'll admit that I first saw the broadway show, then the 2004 film, and read the book afterwards. The book was a fairly different animal then its other incarnations, but I enjoyed it a great deal, especially the ending, which was much different. I felt that Erik was a tragic character, but you understood his pain enough to dislike him at times, but not hate him. I also very much loved when the phantom appears at the farewell ceremony to the opera managers, towards the beginning of the book. That stuck out to me a great deal, and set the tone for the remainder of the story. Highly recommend!
Rating: really liked it
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is a fantastic ghostly tale of love with
so much more depth
(and evil) to the storyline than I remember from either the play or "old" movie.
Be prepared for murder by hanging, frequent cries of terror from malicious "accidents", and suicide for just a smidgeon of what will "materialize". But, it's the mysterious Opera Ghost who lurks in the shadows using tricks and illusions to work his many evils behind a mask of horror and smell of death that will grab your attention throughout these pages.
This great classic (first published in 1909) is a wonderful haunting read with a dual love story and satisfying ending......oh that first kiss.
Note: "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. 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." ...........From the author's Prologue.
Rating: really liked it
I didn’t love it. I don’t even know what I feel. So I’ll leave it at 3 stars!
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
Rating: really liked it
"He is extraordinarily thin and his dress-coat hangs on a skeleton frame. His eyes are so deep that you can hardly see the fixed pupils. You just see two big black holes, as in a dead man’s skull. His skin, which is stretched across his bones like a drumhead, is not white, but a nasty yellow. His nose is so little worth talking about that you can’t see it side-face; and the absence of that nose is a horrible thing to look at. All the hair he has is three or four long dark locks on his forehead and behind his ears." Sounds deliciously creepy, right? Well, no doubt the Opera ghost would have scared the hell out of me if I had ever crossed paths with him! And he was scary; in fact he was downright evil. More evil than I recall from attending a live performance of the musical by the same name many, many years ago. All the elements of a gothic mystery were there; I was intrigued by the corpse-like apparition that was said to haunt the Paris Opera House. Unfortunately, I was more amused than I was terrified while reading this book. I didn’t experience the allure of the gothic atmosphere.
The plot was interesting enough and kept me turning the pages. Christine, trained by the Angel of Music, becomes a sensation at the opera house and falls in love with a young man from her past. Raoul has been smitten with Christine since he was a child.
One day, a little boy, who was out with his governess, made her take a longer walk than he intended, for he could not tear himself from the little girl whose pure, sweet voice seemed to bind him to her." But the Opera ghost is infatuated with her as well, and will stop at almost nothing to make her his bride. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the phantom. At times I abhorred him; he seemed to have no conscience. The next moment I felt pity towards this unloved and lonely outcast of society. It’s a bit of an adventure in the underbelly of the Opera House and I did enjoy all the literal twists and turns there. The melodrama and the unpolished dialogue disappointed me, however. The characters felt flat, with the exception of the phantom himself. The Persian was a bit intriguing as well. Essentially, it’s a tragic story with an engaging plot, and it’s quite readable. Just not the remarkable story I was looking for, but I’m getting a bit particular about my gothic mysteries.
"He asked only to be ‘someone,’ like everybody else."
