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Episode 346: 'The Phantom of the Opera' by Gaston Leroux
00:31:10
John J. Miller is joined by Faith Moore to discuss 'The Phantom of the Opera,' by Gaston Leroux.
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- [00:07]
John J. Miller
Hello and welcome to the Great Books Podcast. Today we'll talk about the Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. I'm your host, John J. Miller of National Review, and you're listening to a production of National Review. Our guest is Faith Moore, a writer and editor who is the author of the novel Christmas Carol, that's Carol with a K, as well as the nonfiction book Saving Cinderella, what Feminists Get Wrong About Disney Princesses and How to Set It Right. Her podcast is Story Time for Grownups, and she's podcasted with us previously on Matilda by Raul Dahl. She joins us by zoom as we record from Hillsdale College's campus radio station, WRFH in Michigan. Faith, welcome back to the Great Books Podcast.
- [00:50]
Faith Moore
Thank you so much for having me back. It's a pleasure to be here.
- [00:53]
John J. Miller
Why is the Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux a great book?
- [00:58]
Faith Moore
Oh, my gosh, I think it's a great book because it really has something for everyone. I mean, the first thing about it is that it's so much fun. It's just like a rip roaring good time. And if you read it, it's really just kind of like eating candy. At least that's my experience of it. It's just kind of like I'm having fun the whole way through as I'm turning pages. It's not a kind of like dusty tome, even though it's old and it's a classic and all of these things. It's so exciting and scary and funny and all of these things. But it also combines a bunch of different genres, which means that it has a kind of wide reach, I think. First of all, it's a mystery. You know, Gaston Leroux was a detective novelist and so he frames this story as a mystery. There are several questions at the beginning. Who killed. There's a body on the lake under the Paris Opera House. Who killed the Comte de Chilipe? The Comte de Chagny? Where are Christine Daae, this opera singer, and Philip's brother, the Vicomte de Chagny? Raoul? Where are they? They've disappeared. There was a skeleton under. You know, there's all these kind of questions. What's going on here? And it's framed as this mystery that the book is going to uncover. So if you like mysteries, you're in. There's also all kinds of gothic horror going on in this book. It's called the Phantom of the Opera. There's the opera ghost, but is he a ghost? Is he a man? And there's. There are murders, there's a torture chamber at one point. And there's all kind creepy scenes and creepy characters, especially everybody that you meet under the Paris Opera House in the cellars. So there's mystery, there's gothic horror, and then of course there's romance. At the center of this story is this kind of love triangle between Christine Daae, this opera singer, and Raoul, the Vicomte de Chany, who she's disappeared with, apparently, and the Phantom Eric, who is this very kind of strange and perhaps psychotic character. But she's kind of pulled between these two. So you've got mystery, you've got horror, you've got. You've got the gothic and it's just a. It's a wild ride. So that is what makes it great.
- [03:03]
John J. Miller
We are going to talk about all of that. The story of the Phantom of the Opera, the amazing title character, the other characters, the mystery, the ghost, the romance, also the movie and the musical, the legacy of this novel in pop culture. But let's jump right into the novel itself. Phantom of the Opera, written in 1910, published in 1910. It starts with a prologue which is a part of the fictional story. Because in it, Larue, our author, poses as an investigator or a kind of journalist in describing what went on. He writes, quote, the opera ghost really existed, unquote. So we know we're in for a kind of ghost story. But then he says the ghost existed, quote, in flesh and blood, unquote, and merely had the appearance of a ghost. What's the author Larue, doing here?
- [03:56]
Faith Moore
So this is fantastic because I've actually seen online people who believe that this is in some way a true story. Because the frame of this story is that, as you say, Leroux has uncovered the mystery. The answer to the mystery of who is the opera ghost. Is there a ghost in the Paris Opera house or not? And so the frame is that he's kind of gone around and he's uncovered all these different journals and these letters and these different documents in this very kind of detective type way to tell us that he feels that he has discovered who this is. So that's kind of the frame. And he wants to tell us that even though there is this kind of mythology at the opera house, of the ghost and that there's all these stories of there's this ghost here. In fact, he would like to reveal to us that in fact it was not a ghost, it was a man. And that this is the story of that man and what happened with him and how it relates to all of these other Things that he is going to tell us that probably he feels people know about. You know, like the falling of the chandelier in the opera house, and, you know, the lake under the opera house. There's all of these things that he sort of says people must know about because they've been in the news, and the disappearance of Christine and Raoul, all of these things. And he's now going to say that all of these things come together because there really was a man who was not a ghost, but was a real person. He's going to tell us this guy's story.
- [05:27]
John J. Miller
Is that a little bit of a letdown? Because we're going to jump into chapter one in a second, where there is a mystery of a ghost. Is there a ghost? We aren't really supposed to know at that point, but in the prologue, he's telling us it's not a ghost, it's a guy, Right?
- [05:39]
Faith Moore
So I actually think it's not a letdown at all, because what we are going to discover is that even though this guy is not a ghost, he's a real guy. He performs feats that really only a ghost could do. He does these things that incredibly supernatural, like talking when he's not there, talking out of walls, opening, you know, passageways to places that you couldn't possibly be, taking things out of people's pockets when he's not there. He does all of these things. And the idea is that only a ghost could do it. But then, of course, the book goes on to show us how in this kind of fantastical way. But if all of this was true, then a man could actually do it. If he was this kind of very, very strange, very, very out there kind of man, he could do it. And so I think it's actually better almost than if it really were a ghost.
- [06:32]
John J. Miller
So in the prologue to the Phantom of the Opera, we learn actually there is no phantom. It's a dude. And then we jump into chapter one. This is where the story proper begins. And it starts. We're backstage at the Opera house in Paris, the real opera house, the one that's actually there. And a bunch of ballet dancers have gathered in confusion, and one of the ladies cries out, it's the ghost. So what's going on here? We're back to, is there a ghost? Is it a phantom? How does this story begin in chapter one?
- [07:05]
Faith Moore
Right. So we're sort of dropped into this world of the opera house, and it really is a world. It's a whole kind of enclosed space that is filled with all kinds of People. And we are dropped into the kind of dancers section of this. The opera dancers have seen the opera ghost. And they're all kind of running into the dressing room of the main dancer. And they're these little girls, you know, they're like 15 or so, and they're sort of freaking out because they've seen him. And there's one particular little girl who's kind of feistier than the others. And she's like, yeah, I've seen the ghost. He looks like a skeleton. He's kind of like a head, a skull head and a skeleton body. And he's walking around and everyone is freaking out. And this all kind of culminates in the revelation that actually also someone has been killed. There is a man hanging. Joseph Buquet, one of the kind of scene. The guys that shifts the scenes in the operas, is hanged, is hanging behind the scenes in the lower floors. And so what is going on? Is this the ghost? You know, the ghost has been seen. Everybody knows about the ghost. And now there's been a death. I guess it could be a suicide or a murder. There's a death. What is going on? And that kind of launches us into this story of here. Is this place, this opera house, filled with all these various people and there's a ghost? Or is it a ghost?
- [08:31]
John J. Miller
So that's chapter one, chapter two. Then we meet our heroine, Christine Daae. Who is she?
- [08:38]
Faith Moore
Right. So Christine Daa is an opera singer, but she's not the star. She's not the main opera singer of the opera. That would be Carlotta. She's the. The prima donna of. But Christine is a kind of minor singer, but she. On the night of this kind of gala performance, the old opera managers of the opera house are retiring. New managers are coming in. They're having this gala performance. And on this night, Christine Daa sings in place of Carlotta, who is kind of mysteriously ill. And it is a kind of virtuoso performance. And so she kind of bursts into the scene, but she's really kind of this nobody from nowhere, really. She's from Sweden. Her father has died, but he was this kind of strange sort of folk violinist. And she has made her way after his death with her kind of elderly keeper, her sort of friend, an elderly, like, aide kind of to Paris, where she has joined the opera house. But we meet her on this night of nights for her when suddenly she reveals that she has this kind of spectacular talent.
- [09:48]
John J. Miller
And in the audience is an important gu. Who's that?
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Faith Moore
So in the audience is Raoul The Vicomte de Chagny. So he's this kind of nobleman. He's the second son. His brother is Philip, the Comte de Chagny. So for us, this is like the count and the viscount. He remembers Christine from childhood. When they were children, they played together in a sort of countryside, kind of idyllic place, when Christine lived there with her father. And he is kind of in love with her. He's this kind of little boy. Honestly, he's sort of a teenager. He's very kind of romantic and kind of weepy. And he remembers her from their childhood. And he believes that he's in love with her. And he has this sort of passion for her.
- [10:35]
John J. Miller
And he's like a groupie at a rock show. He wants to go backstage after the performance.
- [10:40]
Faith Moore
That's right, exactly. So he feels that he's entitled to do this, both because he remembers her from childhood and also because he's kind of this fancy guy. He's a member of the peerage. And so off he goes to her dressing room, which was a kind of normal thing to do. You might have gone back to somebody's dressing room and congratulated them. So he goes back there, but he hears that there's actually already a man in her dressing room. The doors close and he hears a man's voice. And the man's voice is saying, you must love me. And so he becomes incredibly jealous, and he's devastated because he thought he could be her lover. And there's already somebody in there. But eventually he goes in there and there's nobody there. Christine is gone, the voice is gone, there's nobody there. And he was watching the door the whole time.
- [11:27]
John J. Miller
So it's a mystery, and we don't know what the voice is and what happens next.
- [11:33]
Faith Moore
So Raoul and Christine kind of do meet up eventually. And she kind of gets him to come with her back to this place that they were as children. She feels that she can't talk to him in the opera house. And she gets him out there and she reveals to him that the man was not a man. It was the angel of Music that her father. When he said that when he died and he has died, he was going to send her the angel of Music. And she says, it's true. The angel of Music has visited me. And in fact, while they are there. And so she can't. She says she can't be with him. You know, the angel of Music is very kind of demanding, and he gives her music lessons and all of these things. And she's not allowed to have relationships with. With other people. So this is all very confusing to Raoul. He doesn't understand what this means. And in fact, he witnesses a strange situation. The somebody plays Christine's father's violin in the graveyard where he's buried. And then Raoul is kind of knocked out, and he doesn't remember anything else. He's following somebody. He sees a kind of death's head image, and then he's knocked out. So he now feels that something very strange is going on. He's worried that there's some actual man who's trying to abduct her or kind of brainwash her in some way. And he feels he has to know more, but he doesn't know what's going on.
- [12:57]
John J. Miller
And meantime, Christine feels like she owes an awful lot to the angel of Music. This is the cause of her success, the fact that this angel of Music is her teacher. She's getting tutored by this mysterious entity.
- [13:13]
Faith Moore
That's right. He comes to her dressing room each night and he gives her these music lessons that somehow cause her. I've always wondered, like, what happens in these music lessons, like, what is going on there? Because, you know, he talks her through the walls, and suddenly she becomes this virtuoso opera singer. But I guess this is what happened. And so, yeah, she feels very much that she can't give up on it. Not only because it has turned her into this, but also because she believes that this supernatural being has been sent to her by her dead father, who she loved very much and who she's grieving for. So she very much feels that she needs to obey him.
- [13:48]
John J. Miller
So it's a conundrum. She finds herself in quite a pickle what to do here. And I suppose it'll surprise nobody to reveal who is the angel of Music at this point. But tell us, Faith, who is the angel of Music? How does the Phantom now come into the story?
- [14:05]
Faith Moore
Exactly. So the angel of Music and the Phantom of the Opera are the same entity. And both of these people are not supernatural beings at all. They are a man, a man named Eric. This is not his real name. We don't actually ever know his real name, but this is the name he's given himself is Eric. And he is a man who has been deformed since birth and currently lives underneath the Paris Opera House in a lovely little house that he's built for himself across the lake, which is under the opera house. Very, very deep down below the lowest cellar. And he lives down there. He is kind of this. This genius. He. In various ways, he is a master builder. And he was, in fact, we learned later, he was hired to help build the opera house. And this is why he's been able to kind of construct these various passages and trapdoors and his little house and all of these things. So he's a master builder. He's a musical genius. He's working on his great work down there under the opera house. He's a ventriloquist. He can make his voice go wherever. This is how he's able to talk to her through the wall and how he's able to make other people think that he's there when he's not. And he has all of these strange and often kind of deadly and psychotic things going on in the opera house. And he has fallen in love with Christine. He saw her. He heard her sing. He's fallen in love with her, and he's trying to get her to fall in love with him. Even though he knows that if she was ever to see his face, she would not. And so this is why he has come to her in the guise of the angel of Music.
- [15:45]
John J. Miller
Do we feel sorry for this guy? I mean, he has this deformity that is not his fault. When we get a description of him, we learn he has this corpse. Like, look, he's missing a nose. He has these deep eye sockets, patchy hair. You can just kind of imagine this figure. Do we feel sorry for him or not?
- [16:07]
Faith Moore
Right. I mean, this is the huge kind of question, I think when we get to the various adaptations. I think they make different decisions about this in the book. It's tricky. He is a bad guy. He has killed people. Many, many people. He kills people in the book. He has tortured people. He kidnaps. He's not a good guy. Like, if you met this guy in real life, I don't think there's any way that you could feel like you could know him or be his friend. And you would probably call the police. But as you say, his life has kind of trained him somehow into this situation. He, you know, we learn that even his mother couldn't bear to look at him. That she made him wear a mask and she wouldn't kiss him and would give him no love. And he got, you know, he couldn't love her, she couldn't love him. And, you know, what he's looking for, we learn, is just to be loved for himself, to be loved as he is. And as you say, he's essentially a living corpse, a living skeleton. He even smells like death. He sleeps in a coffin, we learn. And so he's someone who. You can see that it's his circumstances that have turned him this way and that he's. I mean, he's not a seen person, and so you can pity him for that as well. So I think. And Christine certainly pities him. That's part of the draw of him. Once she learns, she eventually learns that he's not in fact an angel, but is this man. And when she learns that, she's afraid of him, but also she pities him. And that's the draw for her, is that she sees what a horrible life he must have led. A horrible. And completely alone. You know, he's totally alone and he lives underground. So I. I think we are meant to feel that there is an element of pity, that we can pity him, but also that he's kind of beyond help, that he's gone so far down the road of evil that we can pity his situation, but not really. That he can't really be redeemed.
- [18:14]
John J. Miller
A central event in the book is the chandelier crash, which Eric, the Phantom is behind. And it contributes to what we think of this guy. What is that scene? What happens? Why is it so famous?
- [18:28]
Faith Moore
One interesting thing about it is it is in fact based on a true thing which happened. And this is kind of the genius of that frame story that we were talking about before, which is that the sense that we get that this is real comes from the fact that actually there are certain real things. So there was an actual incident in which it wasn't the chandelier itself, it was the counterweight to the chandelier did actually fall through the ceiling of the Paris Opera House at one point, injuring people and killing one person. So in the story, the chandelier falls because the Phantom has requested that Christine should sing in the title role of this current opera that's going on. But the managers put Carlotta, the prima donna in, and during the performance, Carlotta begins to sing like a toad. She makes the sound of a toad. And it's all very scary and frightening. And all of this culminates with the giant chandelier that hangs above the audience in the oper swinging down and crashing into the audience. And it injures several people and kills one person. The kind of door, the lady that guards the door, I think, is killed. And it's all very frightening. And it is done by Eric, the Phantom, because he is angry at Christine for being in love with Raul.
- [19:50]
John J. Miller
So we've got our love triangle now. Christine is our love interest. She has two suitors, Raul this childhood friend. And then the Phantom Eric, this deformed musical genius. Maybe we pity him, but we also know he's willing to knock chandeliers into audiences and hurt people. So he's not a great guy. Love triangle. But is this also faith? Is this also basically a Beauty and the Beast story?
- [20:16]
Faith Moore
Yeah, I think it is. But I also think that it's really playing with the idea of a Beauty and the Beast story. Because, you know, the main kind of central idea of a Beauty and the Beast story is redemption. You know, that the beast has been transformed. A prince of some kind has been transformed into a beast. Because he's done some beastly thing. And then through the love of a woman who is worthy of love, he transforms back into a prince and is, in fact, then princely in his demeanor. Right? So that's kind of the idea. But here we. And so, of course, there's a supernatural element to that, which is that there is a magical physical transformation that mirrors the internal transformation. So here we have a guy who can never actually physically transform. So that's a problem when we're in a Beauty and the Beast narrative. And we also have a beauty character, the Christine character, who actually isn't really that strong. She's not kind of the main character that we want in a Beauty and the Beast story. Because she goes back and forth right between. Should she love him, should she pity him, does she hate him, is he horrible? Should she run away from him entirely? And that kind of person can't really inspire the sort of love in the man that causes him to completely change. So I really think the story is actually playing with these different things. But of course, Eric is a kind of beast character. He has this face that causes it to be difficult for him to be loved. And he believes that he can't be loved. But all he wants in the world is to be loved for his own sake. He wants the love that a beast character wants. And he has inside of him this thing that is, in fact, sublime, which is his music. So his music is sublime, but his face is hideous. That's a beast character. But then his kind of transformation at the end. And there is a sort of transformation, but it's not a full transformation. Because one, there's no supernatural. The whole thing of this story is there's nothing supernatural going on. So he can't be physically transformed. And also, it's sort of too late for him to be transformed enough to enter into the world. You know, he's transformed because Christine ultimately pities him and loves him. But he's still done all these horrible things, so he can't really be the kind of prince that we want him to be. If this was a real Beauty and.
- [22:37]
John J. Miller
The Beast narrative, this is one of the stories that a lot of readers will know before they encounter the book. They'll know some of the elements of this story very often because they've seen the musical, the Andrew Lloyd weber musical from 1986, but, you know, now and forever. Right. And also there's a very famous movie from 1925 starring Lon Chaney. And so it's. It's kind of like Dracula or Frankenstein or some of these classic monster movies. And I doubt there are very many readers who approach this book having absolutely no idea what the story is about. We're always hearing the claim that the book is better than movie. But is this a case where the. The movie and the musical maybe are better than the book?
- [23:24]
Faith Moore
I don't think so. I think they're just different. I actually think a lot of people don't know that it's based on the book. I think that people, these, as you say, these things, the musical especially, but also there have been various adaptations, but the Lon Chaney one is the most famous movie. One are so huge in our culture that I think people think they just stand alone, that there is no book. So I think there's that piece. And I don't think that the movies and the musical are better. I think they just pull different parts out of the story and maybe kind of put them on display in interesting ways. As you say, the. The silent film with Lon Chaney is actually. The Phantom of the Opera is actually one of the universal monsters. You know, there are all these monsters, Dracula, Frankenstein, werewolf, all these wolfman, all these guys, and the Phantom of the Opera is one of them. So that movie really kind of hones in on the monstrous element, the horror element of the character. And he is a really a true monster in that story. And then, of course, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical pulls out. You know, you were asking, should we pity him? Should we. Is he the beast? You know, all these things they really pull out that. The kind of very schmaltzy, sort of romantic aspect to it, and they make him a guy that you do kind of wonder, well, should. Should she end up with the Phantom at the end? You know, I don't know. And people are sort of team Phantom or Team Raul. And so it pulls out that the kind of passionate love, music, art, you know, all of that kind of thing. So I think Each adaptation, just something that really is in the book out and kind of magnifies it.
- [24:54]
John J. Miller
I can't think of this story without imagining Lon Chaney. I just have that picture of him in my mind, famous picture. And he was the actor who played the Phantom, but he was also a makeup artist, and so he did his own makeup to kind of an amazing performance and legacy. Of course, the musical, I think, is wildly popular. A lot of people have seen that. People, as you say, don't even know there's a book and maybe not even know there's Lon Chaney or any of that. Why do you think this story has had such a hold on the popular imagination?
- [25:28]
Faith Moore
I think the same reason that any monster love story has a hold on the imagination. We love a good monster romance. We love a good Beauty and the Beast story. And I think, you know, that the musical in particular really kind of pulls out. What the musical does so beautifully is it. It presents kind of pure, safe, almost sort of chaste love in the form of Raul. The sort of safety of living in the light, living in the world, and having this kind of quote unquote, normal situation and the kind of bad boy passion, like roiling emotion and deep, kind of like sexual love of the Phantom. And I think that's what the Beauty and the Beast story is about. It's about this kind of, like, masculine energy and this kind of more tame, more sort of princely energy. And this is a story that kind of separates. The Beauty and the Beast story has both in one person, and this separates it into these two guys. And she has to choose. And that's really kind of devastating for us, I think. So we're very drawn to it.
- [26:24]
John J. Miller
And that's not quite how the novel finishes, though, is it?
- [26:28]
Faith Moore
No, I mean, it sort of is, but it's not with such. It's not with such flair, you know, the novel finishes with Eric, the Phantom, the opera ghost, letting everybody go. I mean, he's. Raoul has dropped into this kind of torture chamber. He's being. Everything is going wrong. And Christine is being asked to choose between marrying the Phantom or killing Raoul and all of this stuff. And eventually he does kind of let them all go because Christine kisses him not on the mouth, as happens in the musical in this sort of big, explosive scene, but just on the forehead with his mask off. She kisses him on the forehead and allows him to kiss her on the forehead. And this is the first kiss of any kind that the Phantom has had. And. And he feels that this is what he has always Wanted. He is now loved for his own sake. And so in doing that, he kind of finds within him some level of humanity that allows him to let her go. And he lets her go. And he says, just when you hear that I am dead, come back. Return my ring. He's given her a ring. Return my ring and bury me, and that will be enough. And he lets her go. So it's kind of the same ending as in the musical, but the musical has kind of amped it up to 5,000 or whatever.
- [27:50]
John J. Miller
So in the end, is Eric the Phantom? Is he just a monster who needs love? Is that a satisfying finish?
- [27:56]
Faith Moore
I think so. I think, yeah. I think he's a man who has become a monster because he wasn't loved.
- [28:03]
John J. Miller
Faith, let's wrap up with a couple questions about you and how you came to love this novel. How did you discover it? Was it the book first or the movie first or the musical first? What is your story as a reader or a viewer of the Phantom of the Opera?
- [28:19]
Faith Moore
Well, I think the very first time that I ever knew that there was such a thing as the Phantom of the Opera is. I think I was about 6 years old, and I pulled a copy of the Phantom of the Opera down off of the mantelpiece. We were staying in a house for the summer, and I. I just. There was a book up there, and I thought, oh, I wonder what that is. And I pulled it down, and it had on its cover, Lon Chaney's face as the Phantom of the Opera. And. And I was so frightened, I, like, screamed. I dropped the book on the floor. I ran out of the room, and I was devastated. I had to check under my bed for several weeks for the Phantom of the Opera. And so the next time I encountered it was the musical, which I was very frightened to see because I remembered this book cover that I had seen. But my grandparents were always taking me to the theater on Broadway, and they were like, you know, you're gonna like this. It's gonna be fine. It's not really that scary. And I went. I think I was probably at that point, like 12 or something, and I just. I fell in love. I'm just a sucker for a Beauty and the Beast story. And that's what it was. And I just. I cannot tell you now. This is very embarrassing. But I have now seen this show so many times. And so that really was what brought this story into my consciousness, which is kind of true for me in a lot of stories. I often see an adaptation first because I sometimes I struggle with reading, you know, and some of these books are dense and hard. So eventually I was like, you know, I love this musical so much, I've got to read the book that it came from. And I picked it up and I realized this is not hard at all. This is magical. This is like, as I said, it's like eating candy. And so I came to it very late because I didn't really know. I didn't really know much about it, as I think a lot of people don't.
- [29:56]
John J. Miller
What's the case for reading it now? Why should one of our listeners pick up this book Today in the 2000 and 20s and read the Phantom of the Opera?
- [30:05]
Faith Moore
We don't necessarily know that much about it, and it looks like a sort of weird old French book from the early 1900s. Why would we read this? But it's just a great time. So I think, you know, why not read a book that is going to be super duper fun? I think we all need a fun read. And why not read one that is actually also a classic? And I think also, you know, this, this story, the musical and all of these movie adaptations is such a huge part of our culture and we all kind of know about that. So it's always a good idea to read the book where it all came from.
- [30:42]
John J. Miller
Faith Moore, thanks so much for joining us and telling us all about the Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux.
- [30:48]
Faith Moore
It is my pleasure. Thank you so much.
- [30:50]
John J. Miller
You've just listened to the Great Books Podcast, a production of National Review. Please subscribe to the Great Books podcast and leave reviews of the show that helps us keep this podcast going. Send me your ideas for future episodes. You can reach me through our website website@heymiller.com on Twitter. My handle is at hey Miller. And last of all, special thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week, an episode of the Great Books Podcast.