This story is rated M for some violence, coarse language, and minor adult themes.
It is not appropriate for readers under the age of 16 and should not be viewed by such.
Disclaimer – This story is the property of Jordan A. Masters and may not be reproduced in any way, shape, or form without express written permission of Jordan A. Masters, which can be obtained through email. It has not been posted for gain or profit. Most of the characters in this story have been specifically crafted for use within this story. Some of the characters have been borrowed from Andrew Lloyd Webber's play and movie, The Phantom of the Opera, and others have been borrowed from Frederick Forsyth's book, The Phantom of Manhattan, and I do not own these borrowed characters. Also, some lyrics have been borrowed from Webber's play, with slight modifications – I do not own these lyrics, even though I have modified them.
The Deathbed Confession of Vicomtesse Christine de Chagny
As recorded by Étienne Chagny, 17 April 1917
They have told me I am dying, and though I feel nothing, they are right. This is not my first taste of death – my first bite came with my marriage to Raoul. No use searching for the priest, Étienne – he has already come to hear my confession. But there is one sin in my life I have never confessed to any priest. For this most grievous error in my life, I do not want forgiveness. It is time for me to tell the story of the sixteen-year-old diva, and the men she loved. Record this all, my son – every word will help you and your line to better understand me when I am gone.
I was orphaned at the age of seven, when my father, Gustave Daaé, died. On his death, Madame Antoinette Giry took me to study ballet at the Opera Populaire. She was very good to me, and after a little more than a year, I began to see her as a mother – and she often said she considered me a daughter. Had my lack of a father been the extent of my problems, I would probably have had a very different life.
But every night, in the small chapel where I prayed for my father, a voice spoke to me, and called itself the Angel of Music. Being only seven, and very naïve, I believed that it was the Angel of Music my father had promised to send me from Heaven. He tutored me to sing in the opera we performed – but of course, I was only seven and not yet old enough to be in the ballet chorus, let alone actually sing the lead. That was up to Carlotta Giudicelli, then only a 28-year-old diva, and her voice still pleasing to the ears.
When I turned fourteen, I was allowed to join the stage ballet chorus, as was Meg, Madame Giry's daughter and my best friend. Meg and I were as close as sisters – we hardly ever went anywhere without one another. We were elated to finally be in the ballet chorus, finally doing something together onstage, ready for the Parisian opera audience's watchful eye.
But the real trouble began when I was sixteen. The owner and manager of the Opera Populaire, Monsieur David Lefèvre, had sold the opera house to two gentlemen who had made a living in the scrap-metal business – Monsieur Richard Firmin and Monsieur Gilles André. Until their first day, the entity we used to call the Opera Ghost had been extremely quiet. However, these new managers made the dreadful error of asking Carlotta to sing for them.
Our production at the time was to be 'Hannibal' by Chalumeau. Carlotta was then only 37, but her voice was now well past its prime. The Opera Ghost had been wreaking havoc on Carlotta for three straight years, though in recent months it had been minor things: missing shoes, dresses, even a girdle – a wig catching fire on her head – a trapdoor in the stage opening under her – and three of her costumes found destroyed the opening night of her operas.
But when she opened her mouth to sing, the sound was such that I wanted to deafen myself before she could. However, fortune spared us. As she reached a high note, her concentration shattered as a backdrop came crashing down from the flies – right upon her frail body, pinning her to the stage. Monsieur Lefèvre was ready to blame it all on the chief of the flies, Joseph Buquet. But Buquet claimed that he had not been there when the backdrop fell.
Carlotta was furious at this most recent attack, and she stormed out, along with Ubaldo Piangi, our leading tenor. While Piangi had an understudy for the role of Hannibal, Carlotta's exit had left the role of Elissa open. She had no understudy.
Madame Giry suddenly spoke out that I could sing the role. The new managers graciously allowed me an informal audition of Elissa's aria in Act Three. They were very impressed with me, and I was given the role of Elissa.
Raoul came to my dressing room after the performance that night. He wished to take me to supper, and obviously did not hear me when I declined the offer.
After Raoul left, a voice spoke to me from behind the mirror. He called himself my Angel of Music – the angel my father had promised to send to me from Heaven. I should have known better at the time, but I was naïve – in reality, this voice belonged to our Opera Ghost. But I believed he was the Angel of Music, and so I allowed him to take me to the basements of the Opera Populaire.
While I was with him, I grew curious, and I somehow found the courage to remove his mask. I saw his full face – if one could truly call it a face. The right side looked as though someone had poured acid on it – the skin was red raw and puckered badly. He screamed at me, cursing me and saying he would never release me. But I pitied him, and I returned the mask to him – and he let me go.
It only got worse from then on. Carlotta was to play the role of the Countess in 'Il Muto.' This was against the demands of the Opera Ghost, and in repayment, he caused Carlotta to croak like a toad onstage, allowing me the opening I needed to take over Carlotta's role. But before I could take the stage, the garrotted body of Joseph Buquet fell to the stage in the midst of the ballerinas, and causing Raoul and I to flee to the roof to escape the eyes of the Opera Ghost. Here, Raoul told me that he loved me…and I told him that I loved him.
Three months later, at our masquerade ball, Raoul proposed to me. I accepted, but knew that I must keep it a secret or risk the rage of the Opera Ghost.
But he (the Opera Ghost) showed at the masquerade ball. Though my engagement ring was on a chain around my neck, he still managed to find it and rip it from my throat. After that, he dropped through a trap door in the center of the stairs – and Raoul jumped in after him, sword drawn. I screamed for him not to go, but in his haste to kill the Opera Ghost, he must not have heard me. And though I knew he would be all right, I did not see him again that night.
The Opera Ghost had left something behind for the managers: an opera that he had written himself, called Don Juan Triumphant. In his instructions to the managers, he demanded that Piangi play the role of Don Juan – and I was to play the role of the heroine, Aminta. I desperately did not want this role, this responsibility. But neither Raoul nor the managers would listen to my pleas – I must play the role of Aminta so that they could capture the Opera Ghost.
Ah, to have it be so easy!
Every time Piangi and I practiced the final scene, I could feel the Opera Ghost's rage. The Opera Ghost loved me, as I had known ever since he had taken me to his basement lair. For Piangi to be that close to me was unbearable to him.
The Opera Ghost did attend the opening of his opera, but he did not watch from Box Five as he often did. When it came time for Don Juan and Aminta's duet, he replaced Piangi onstage, having killed the tenor backstage. We finished the song, but not the opera, together – the police had been summoned to capture the Opera Ghost, and he avoided them by cutting down the chandelier and setting the theatre ablaze. But he kidnapped me from the stage as well, taking me down to the basements once again, and there he told me that I would be forced to stay with him for eternity.
Just as he told me this, Raoul showed up to rescue me. But the Opera Ghost was ready for my Raoul – the moment Raoul entered the Opera Ghost's lair, he nearly fell victim to the Punjab Lasso, the weapon of choice of the Opera Ghost. I was to choose between the two men. I chose Raoul, and the Opera Ghost knew I would, but I still kissed the Opera Ghost to make him let Raoul go. He was a murderer, and I would never have chosen him. Raoul and I left the Opera Ghost's lair, and we were married.
We never saw the Opera Ghost again. Meg Giry came to see me, many months later, to tell me that he had died shortly after the Opera Populaire burned to the ground. The police never caught him, but he had died because of me. I had broken his heart, and never had I felt so low in my life as I did that day.
I am no better a person than our Opera Ghost was. He killed two men for me – and in turn, I killed him by breaking his heart. Everything he ever did, he did for me, and I saw fit to throw it back in his face, Étienne. Do not judge me, I beg of you – I was sixteen and not yet old enough to realize what my actions might bring about. But I admit, here and now on my deathbed, this simple fact. I loved the Opera Ghost. I loved him more than I loved Raoul, but I knew I could never live happily ever after with him. The police would have caught him and killed him. I tried to save his life, but instead I killed him. I go to see my Maker now, Étienne, and there in Heaven I will beg the forgiveness of the Opera Ghost.
Christine Daaé, Vicomtesse de Chagny, died 17 April 1917. She was sixty-three years of age. Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, denied that there was any truth to the story that his wife related on her deathbed. No record of any Opera Ghost was ever found, no record of an opera called Don Juan Triumphant was ever found, except a score of music from such a play, given to the Chagny family by one Monsieur Patrice Reyer. However, despite this obvious lack of proof, I believe that there will one day be born another woman like Christine Daaé, and she will find this Opera Ghost and repair the heart that her namesake so cruelly shattered. – Étienne Raoul Chagny, 17 April 1917
