Welcome to a new Scary Tuesday, tiktakers!
Today we'll be delving into one of Europe's most famous stories: The tale of the Phantom
of the Opera, which has been depicted in many different books, movies, and other mediums.
Are you familiar with it?
The tale of the Phantom of the Opera takes place in Paris, during the 19th century.
More specifically, in a luxurious building known as the Garnier Opera House.
It was built on top of a subterranean lake, and has many passages within.
In this majestic place, amazing pieces are represented and interpreted, and the talent
seen on stage is known by everyone.
This is in part thanks to the one in charge of composing and carrying out the musical
arrangements.
Few know him personally, and almost nobody had managed to see him up close.
He is a strange man who always wears some sort of mask.
He is Erik, the Phantom of the Opera.
Knowing how valuable he is to the place, Erik convinces the managers to permanently reserve
one of the balconies for him.
And in that same opera house he had been working for a while with Christine, a beautiful young
woman who quickly managed to steal the phantom's heart.
At the time, the head singer at the opera house was a woman named Carlotta.
However, several tragedies mysteriously start occurring to her: Among them, that a huge
curtain falls on her in the middle of the stage.
This results in Carlotta having to stay at home, and Christine is ordered to take her
place…
leading to an amazing performance which catapults Christine into fame.
In a short time, the beautiful lady manages to win the hearts of the entire public, specially
her old friend, the viscount Raoul de Chagny.
That relationship ignites Erik's fury once more.
Seeing that those old friends have rekindled their friendship, terrible things start happening
at the opera house once more.
Meanwhile, Christine really shows appreciation towards Erik for all the musical advice he
gives her, and thus, Erik invites her to his quarters under the opera house.
And once there, he decides to show her his true face… however, seeing his deformed
figure, she cries in distress, and rudely moves away.
However, he has her locked in his quarters, and will only free her once she promises to
visit him again, out of her own will.
She accepts, and manages to get out… but she doesn't stop thinking about how Erik might
be the one responsible for the deaths and tragedies seizing the opera house.
Christine then decides to marry Raoul in secret, and when the phantom discovers this, he kidnaps
her again in the middle of her performance, to the surprise of everyone present.
Will Christine be able to escape the phantom?
Tiktakers, we'd rather have you discover the ending by yourselves.
And the thing is that there are many different versions of what happens next – almost as
many as the many movies inspired by this tale.
Now, what we do know is that the original novel that all subsequent works are based
on, was itself inspired by many real events.
The author of the novel was Gaston Leroux, who decided to investigate a series of strange
events that took place at the real-life Garnier opera house in Paris.
Here are some of them:
- A ballerina died after falling from the 13th step at the big hall of the building.
- In 1896, during a representation of the Hellé Opera, the spectator sitting at the
13th seat lost his life when one of the counter-weights of the big chandelier fell on him.
- A scene shifter mysteriously appeared hanged, right inside the building.
- And in 1907, a construction worker found a corpse after digging the soil under the
opera house… and people say that is the corpse of the Phantom of the Opera…
As you can see, there were many events which inspired Gaston to create this character,
who is now famous all over the world.
And there are also different versions that describe the origins of Erik the phantom.
One of them says that in 1870 he was a young and promising pianist, and he was deeply in
love with the woman he would marry… however, his plans were torn apart after a fire in
1873 completely destroyed the opera house Le Peletier.
Many people died… among them, his dear fiancee…
And Erik, although he survived, ended up getting terrible burns on his face.
He lost it all: The love of his life, his happiness, and his good looks.
Everyone who knew him, thought that the pianist had died along with his fiancee… but no.
He survived.
And people would look at him as if he was a monster.
Thus, he decided to take refuge under the opera house that was built after the fire,
and decided to spend the rest of his existence down there.
And who knows tiktakers… maybe he is still wandering around
the opera's underground…