I have a confession to make. Despite living in the New York City metropolitan area, with ready access to Broadway, I have never seen the incredibly successful musical adapted of Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera. No live performance, musical or non. No film or television. Nothing. In fact, I hadn't even read the original novel.
Until now.
My audio review this week on the Classic Mysteries blog is of French author Gaston Leroux's novel, The Phantom of the Opera, written in 1910. The book has just been republished as part of the Haunted Library of Horror Classics, presented by the Horror Writers Association. The publisher is Poisoned Pen Press, and they have sent me an Advance Reader's Copy for my use in writing this review. You can listen to the complete audio review by clicking here.
For those who - like me - may be coming to The Phantom of the Opera for the first time, I will provide only the briefest of plot summaries, because so much of the real pleasure of books such as this one comes from being surprised by unexpected (or, sometimes, expected) plot twists. The action takes place in and around the sprawling Paris Opera House, a large theater existing on many levels, with many trap doors, secret passageways, even an underground lake below its cellars. And it also has what most of the opera's performers and stagehands believe is a ghost, never seen, but capable even of murder to protect its secrets.
After a lengthy opening section, the complicated plot of The Phantom of the Opera resolves itself into a classic love triangle. There is a young woman, a singer named Christine Daaè, who appears to be developing a magnificent voice – through the intervention and teaching of someone she never sees, but who calls himself the Angel of Music. There is a young man, the Viscount Raoul de Chagny, who falls in love with Christine – and, over the course of the book, uncovers many of the deepest secrets of the opera house and the ghostly Angel of Music. And there is that "Angel" himself, a grim and masked presence, a man born hideously ugly, so frightening that his own mother forced him to wear a mask to hide his face, a man named only “Erik,” who is obsessed with Christine and with her voice – but who is also aware that his deformities are not only terrifying to the performers and staff of the opera, but will also terrify Christine.
Those three, then, make up the central triangle of characters, although you could argue that the Opera House itself is a character, for that house (it was a real building, by the way), is home to Erik, offering many quick and easy ways to get between points backstage and through the cellars and trap rooms – and also providing ways for Erik to dispose of his enemies…even commit murders…and, when necessary, to hide Christine to keep her from her would-be rescuers.
An important point, I think, needs to be made: this new, Poisoned Pen Press edition of The Phantom of the Opera is based on the original 1911 English translation. In practice, I’m afraid, that means that some of it feels like a very literal (and rather old) translation with awkward and non-colloquial language. However, I found the story to be so compelling, and the characters so powerfully drawn, that I kept right on reading. It may start slowly, but the pace of events and the powerful characters – especially Erik, the phantom himself – will draw you in and keep you enchanted. Is it a classic? Yes. It should be on your shelves.
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