Summary: Christine Daaé is a deformed gypsy girl living underneath the Opera Populaire. She haunts the opera house, sending the managers detailed notes on how her opera house is to be run, and when her demands are not met, shocking disasters occur. Her only two friends are the Girys. When Erik Destler joins to company, Christine becomes immediately infatuated with him, and secretly teaches him to become an exceptional singer, who soon becomes a famous and renowned. But where fame leads, people follow. . . The ballet girls, the cast members and all the women of Paris fight to be his. But still, his Angel of Music is the only person he is interested in. Until Lily Desselle becomes the new leading soprano, that is. . . Love is a dangerous game, but with a beautiful singer and an obsessed Phantomness both in love with the same man, madness is certain to ensue. . .
Prologue
Paris 1881
Lefevre's POV
Dear Monsieur Lefevre, 26th October 1871
So far I have sent you two notes of the most amiable nature, detailing how my opera house shall be run. I have requested so far that Box Five should be kept open for my viewing pleasure, and that I expect, on the first day of every month, a salary of 20,000 francs, which will be made payable through my competent counterpart of your world, Madame Antoinette Giry. I would prefer the money be in cash and placed in a white envelope; then you must hand it to Mme Giry who will, in turn, deliver it to my hand in an assured manner – the mechanics of such a manoeuvre do not concern you in the slightest. And please do something about that despicable scene-changer Christophe Moreau. As I'm not sure you're aware, I feel it my duty to inform you, the leering leech is taking advantage of the corps de ballet girls, ogling them from the above platform and through an almost invisible hole in the wall, something I came across in my travels inside the opera house. I feel it is appalling that you let some monster take advantage of your employees for such a long time. If you do not obey my orders, a disaster beyond your imagination will occur.
I remain, gentlemen, your obedient servant−
"O.G.," Monsieur Firmin breathed in disbelief.
"And what, may I ask, does that stand for?" questioned Monsieur Andre.
"And, more importantly, who is that?" fired Monsieur Firmin, his voice loud and impatient.
"Gentlemen, please; let us be calm here. I shall explain everything," I replied, trying to make my tone as calm as the words I had just spoken, when in actual fact, I felt anything but. I took the yellowed piece of paper from M. Firmin and placed it carefully on my desk. I inhaled and exhaled sharply, before beginning my story:
"When I came to work here, ten years ago, the manager before me, warned me, as I am now presently, warned me about the strange affair of the "Opera Ghost", a mysterious figure living deep beneath the opera house, in a lair of darkness. The Opera Ghost, he told me, was a musical genius, and had composed some of the greatest operas ever performed here at the Opera Populaire. Naturally, I remained incredulous, and laughed off the matter, until this strange note, the one I showed you, made its way to me.
"I read it cautiously, as imaginable, and discovered that this "Opera Ghost" had already sent me two notes. Now, gentlemen, you can do what you may with that information what you will: who knows what happened to those other notes? But at the time I did not care in the slightest. I thought it a prank brought to reality by someone who hated Christophe Moreau: after all, the writer named him a "leering leech". Therefore, I did not act upon the notes instructions. What was the need? After all, I was the manager; the higher power. I do not give in easily, gentlemen. I do not act upon unauthorized instructions.
"Now, gentlemen, exactly one day later, I was in the theatre watching rehearsals for Il Muto. Everything was going smashingly well, until Christophe Moreau shouted frantically from his post that there was 'a figure in black darting between the various posts', and, 'I tried to follow them, Monsieur Lefevre, really I did: but they vanished in to thin air!' I called back, 'Don't be absurd, Moreau, there cannot possibly be someone up there! Now get back to your job!' And that was that. Until of course. . ."
I sighed heavily, thinking back to the shocking ill-fated, disastrous incident that had occurred. And all because of my arrogant naivety. I should've believed. . . I should have been cautious. . .
"Well? What then?" Firmin's curiosity had been piqued and he leaned forward as he said, "What happened?"
His gruff voice snapped me out of my thoughts, and I blinked a few times, reminding myself of my present situation. "Oh sorry, gentlemen; how mindless of me to leave you in the dark. If you allow me, I shall carry on."
Neither of the men before me objected, so I carried on:
"Well, approximately a quarter of an hour after Moreau's 'apparent' run-in with this ghost-like apparition, he complained that he could hear a 'rustling noise', one reminiscent of someone 'cutting a rope'. I repeated my stern words from earlier and he seemed to quieten down. . . But then Henri Boudreaux, another scene-changer notified me of the noise too; another followed suit. Soon, all the men up in the rafters had said something other, about the noise or the so-called 'phantom'. It was then I decided to go and investigate.
"I had literally just gone from sitting down to a standing up position when I heard a rumbling sound, quite a loud one at that. I started anxiously, desperate to find the phenomenon that was causing that strange sound – so were everyone around. The orchestra had stop playing their various instruments, the ballet teacher had stopped shouting instructions for the corps de ballet girls to 'balançoire' and 'plié', the cast members on stage stopped rehearsing to look, to stare, to glare at everything and everyone around them, worrying thoughts increasing by the second.
"It wasn't so much as everyone saw it shaking and advancing before it fell; no, it was much more of everyone saw it as it fell. We were all in the dark until some shrewd, observant ballerina – or perhaps she was just lucky to have looked in that direction at the right time – for she shouted: 'Look! The chandelier's falling!' Her clear words captured everyone's attention, and at the precise moment she had finished speaking, before we all saw, the chandelier's ropes finally broke away from its reins and progressed towards us rapidly. We all thought our ends were near; we had all frozen to our spots in shock. Yes, frozen. There was nothing we could do to stop it.
"I honestly thought I was going to die that day. Luckily, by some peculiar twist of fate, the chandelier hurtled down on the right side of the theatre; I, gentlemen, was fortunately on the left. Coincidentally, so were most people. Yet the chandelier did not go down without taking some with it. Three corps de ballet girls, the ballet mistress, some of the cast and stage-hands died either at the impact of the chandelier crashing down or in the aftermath: the opera house burned down. It took three fire departments to sort it out, and we would have been ruined if the generous Toussaint family had not kindly taken on to be our patrons. The opera house was rebuilt, and that was that. . . Except it wasn't, I suppose. . . Somehow, miraculously, the 'ghost' responsible for the catastrophic accident had survived, and started to send me more notes, detailing what must be done to stop something of that ilk ever happening again. This malevolent 'O.G.' demanded Box Five, twenty-thousand francs and for Christophe Moreau to be gone. Within a day of the new opera house opening, the note was sent, and this time, the instructions were followed. And it has been like that ever since; we live in fear of another accident. For the Opera Ghost had even sent me a note saying, 'There are worse things than a shattered chandelier'."
"Well then, why don't you just get the gendarmes to track down 'O.G.' and put them in prison, where someone as malicious as that belongs?" Andre spat angrily.
"Believe me, I had tried – you act as if I have not; I assure you, I have done everything humanely possible to stop this atrocities from happening," I replied calmly. "Every time a note came, I arranged for the gendarmes to track down the murderer, had search parties arranged, had Madame Giry taken in for questioning –?"
"Did she enlighten you in any way to the reasons behind the 'Opera Ghost' and their actions?" interrupted Andre sharply.
"She only commented that she did what she had to do, and that was it."
"That's all?"
"Yes; I'm afraid so – we have done everything in our power to find the allusive Opera Ghost; so far, all the attempts have failed."
There was an impenetrable silence as us three gentlemen digested the information I provided them with, until I decided that it was time I should go and introduce M. Firmin and M. Andre to everyone else at the Opera Populaire. I spoke my thoughts to them and they both agreed.
"Yes," said Firmin, "we should get going."
"Hmmm, I suppose so," conceded Andre.
We all got up out of our chairs and started towards the door. I was first, and had just exited the room when I heard Firmin whisper to Andre, "What a ridiculous person this 'O.G.' is! We, Andre, shall be the managers to capture this 'ghost' and put end to his reign of terror!"
"I'm afraid that's impossible, gentlemen; no one can capture the Opera Ghost," I said. I carried on walking, before suddenly stopping, realizing that there is one more piece of information I must tell them about the Opera Ghost.
"Oh, gentlemen, I'm sorry, I forget to tell you: the Opera Ghost is not a 'he'. O.G. is in fact, after all, a 'she'."
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