The Mystery of the Opera Phantom

2/1/2025

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
The writer Gaston Leroux appears to have been inspired by several events that occurred during his lifetime when he wrote the dark, gothic story The Phantom of the Opera which appeared in 1910.

Gaston Leroux (1868-1927) was a French journalist and author of detective fiction. He is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera.

The Paris Opera was commissioned by Emperor Napoleon III in 1861. In order to start building, the land was cleared but workers were unable to commence as a steady stream of water would bubble up.

In 1874, Le Palais Garnier was completed with rumors of a vast fish-filled lake that was said to exist underneath the opera house, which was fed by an underground river called Grange-Batelière.

According to the Palais Garnier Museum and Library, the lake is only a huge, stone water tank created by the construction workers in order to stop the rising water, and stabilize the building. It is indeed full of white catfish which are fed by the staff, and is presently used by the Parisian police department for underwater training.

The story which was the nexus of the phantom character was an event that took place in May, 1873. The Opera House in the Rue le Peletier caught fire, and was burned to the ground. It had been there since 1821, and this was the third time the opera house had been lost to fire.

The only death was a fireman who fell into the flames, but an urban myth grew out of the tragedy where it was told that a pianist named Ernest was disfigured and his fiancée, a ballerina died in the fire.

After this event he supposedly started living underground in the shadowy lairs of the l'Opera Garnier.

One of the five watercolors by André Castaigne illustrating the first American edition of the Phantom of the Opera c.1911

There were other tragic events that took place, which Leroux wove into his storyline. On May 21, 1896 a concierge who visited the opera house was killed by a chandelier counter weight which fell on her head.

Another tragedy took place in May 1897, when there was a fire at a Charity Bazaar on the Rue Jean Goujon, where over a hundred were burned to death, and many others injured. Many of the victims were aristocratic ladies who had organized the charity event.

The character of Christine Daaé appeared to be inspired by Christine Nilsson, a Swedish soprano, whose own personal life dovetailed the events of the fictional Christine. She was famous for her performances in the operas Hamlet and Faust.

Christina Nilsson, Countess de Casa Miranda (1843-1921) was a Swedish soprano who enjoyed a 20-year career until 1888 when she retired.

Christine Nilsson

She was born Christina Jonasdotter, the youngest of seven children born to Jonas Nilsson, a poor peasant. She was discovered at age 14 when performing at a market, and a judge became her patron which allowed her to take vocal training. She eventually went to Paris for further instruction, and would go on to tour across Europe and the United States.

In 1872, she married Auguste Rouzaud a French banker. The groom's family boycotted the wedding held at Westminster Abbey in London. Christina became a widow in 1882, when her husband became ill and died at the age of 45. Five years later she married Don Angel Ramon Maria Vallejo y Miranda, Count de Casa Miranda. They had been involved in a relationship since the death of her first husband.

Nilsson is also mentioned in two major literary works: Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.

Opera house under construction c.1870

There was also an apocryphal tale concerning the use of a former ballet pupil's skeleton in an 1841 production of Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz.

Underneath the opera house there are passageways that possibly stretch out to other cellars in Paris, and no doubt Leroux was also inspired by Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre-Dame. In that story the disfigured Quasimodo has fallen in love with the gypsy girl Esmeralda. This story also shares a beauty and the beast theme.

Another event that he blended into his story was when the Gramophone Company sealed 24 recordings of the greatest opera singers in a vault in the cellars underneath the Paris Opera in 1907.

According to Leroux the body of a disfigured architect named Erik was unearthed during the process. While this story is suspect as being true, it seems that bodies were found during the time he was writing The Phantom of the Opera (1907-1910), which were thought to be victims of the Commune, which were held prisoner in the cellars of the Palais Garnier.

The recordings were opened in 2007, as it was intended and the recordings were digitized.

The destruction of the Old Opera House c.1873

In the prologue of The Phantom of the Opera, Leroux wrote that the ghost was not a jilted older woman as many claimed, or an invention of heightened imagination or superstition of the managers. According to him 30 years previously there had been two brothers in love with the same woman. The two had fought, and the elder brother had died, and it was his ghost which haunted the cellars of the opera house.

In explanation he wrote the following:

SIR:
I can not urge you too strongly to publish the results of your inquiry. I remember perfectly that, a few weeks before the disappearance of that great singer, Christine Daae, and the tragedy which threw the whole of the Faubourg Saint-Germain into mourning, there was a great deal of talk, in the foyer of the ballet, on the subject of the "ghost;" and I believe that it only ceased to be discussed in consequence of the later affair that excited us all so greatly. But, if it be possible—as, after hearing you, I believe—to explain the tragedy through the ghost, then I beg you sir, to talk to us about the ghost again.

Mysterious though the ghost may at first appear, he will always be more easily explained than the dismal story in which malevolent people have tried to picture two brothers killing each other who had worshiped each other all their lives.
Believe me, etc.

Lastly, with my bundle of papers in hand, I once more went over the ghost's vast domain, the huge building which he had made his kingdom. All that my eyes saw, all that my mind perceived, corroborated the Persian's documents precisely; and a wonderful discovery crowned my labors in a very definite fashion. It will be remembered that, later, when digging in the substructure of the Opera, before burying the phonographic records of the artist's voice, the workmen laid bare a corpse. Well, I was at once able to prove that this corpse was that of the Opera ghost. I made the acting-manager put this proof to the test with his own hand; and it is now a matter of supreme indifference to me if the papers pretend that the body was that of a victim of the Commune.

The wretches who were massacred, under the Commune, in the cellars of the Opera, were not buried on this side; I will tell where their skeletons can be found in a spot not very far from that immense crypt which was stocked during the siege with all sorts of provisions. I came upon this track just when I was looking for the remains of the Opera ghost, which I should never have discovered but for the unheard-of chance described above.

But we will return to the corpse and what ought to be done with it. For the present, I must conclude this very necessary introduction by thanking M. Mifroid (who was the commissary of police called in for the first investigations after the disappearance of Christine Daae), M. Remy, the late secretary, M. Mercier, the late acting-manager, M. Gabriel, the late chorus-master, and more particularly Mme. la Baronne de Castelot-Barbezac, who was once the "little Meg" of the story (and who is not ashamed of it), the most charming star of our admirable corps de ballet, the eldest daughter of the worthy Mme. Giry, now deceased, who had charge of the ghost's private box. All these were of the greatest assistance to me; and, thanks to them, I shall be able to reproduce those hours of sheer love and terror, in their smallest details, before the reader's eyes.

And I should be ungrateful indeed if I omitted, while standing on the threshold of this dreadful and veracious story, to thank the present management the Opera, which has so kindly assisted me in all my inquiries, and M. Messager in particular, together with M. Gabion, the acting-manager, and that most amiable of men, the architect intrusted with the preservation of the building, who did not hesitate to lend me the works of Charles Garnier, although he was almost sure that I would never return them to him. Lastly, I must pay a public tribute to the generosity of my friend and former collaborator, M. J. Le Croze, who allowed me to dip into his splendid theatrical library and to borrow the rarest editions of books by which he set great store.

GASTON LEROUX.

The Phantom of the Opera has been 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

In 1925, The Phantom of the Opera was released as a silent horror film adaption of Leroux's novel. Lon Chaney played the title tole of the Phantom, and the film became famous for Chaney's horrible, self-devised make-up, which was kept a studio secret until the film's premiere.

He had been afforded this liberty to create his own makeup due to his success in the film The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923).

Chaney's make up was the closest to the depiction of the novel in which the Phantom is described as having a skull-like face, with a few wisps of black hair on top of his hair. Like the story, he was born with these deformities, and had not been disfigured by fire or acid.

The Phantom of the Opera was the longest running show in Broadway history, and celebrated its 10,000th performance in February 2012, becoming the first Broadway production in history to do so.

That the Paris Opera is haunted, most probably, but not by a disfigured genius, but possibly by more than one ghost of one of the thousands that lived, loved and suffered inside the walls of the Opera House. Even a dressmaker could have suffered from a broken love affair, no doubt there were ballerinas or chorus girls who had their hopes dashed in their attempts to reach fame. Were there any janitors who looked with longing eyes to a beautiful singer who was unaware of his existence?

All of these human dramas are the fodder of earthbound spirits that seek redemption, love or forgiveness within the place where they experienced the most poignant moments of their lives.