The Phantom of the Opera

The ghastly, masked Erik in love with beautiful songtress Christine is familiar to theatre and cinema audiences but the original thriller that inspired the 1922 movie and later Andrew Lloyd Webber, remains largely unread. Written in 1911 it has all the markings of a sensational novel. In the opening pages the stage-hand Buquet is found swinging silently from a rope between two panels of scenery; the dancers twitter excitedly and rumours fly about the eerie sightings of the Opera 'ghost-head' and disembodied voices heard in Box 5. To the final page the story is narrated with agitated sincerity as the complex hold Christine and Erik have over one another is gradually revealed. A master of concealment, foresaken by society and left to depend to his keen wits and ingenuity Erik plays on the fears and vanities of Paris society and ultimately the novel is more tragedy than thriller.