About Phantom of the Operaįirst published in French as a serial in 1909, The Phantom of the Opera is a riveting story that revolves around the young, Swedish Christine Daaé.

What follows is a series of eerie events that cause chaos in the opera house, running alongside the central love story of Christine and her childhood sweetheart Raoul, who hears her triumph at the gala on the night of her old managers’ retirement and seeks to rekindle their flame.īoth a ghost and a love story in equal parts, The Phantom of the Opera is a wonderfully enticing book possessing atmosphere in abundance and is the perfect Parisian read. RELATED: Desert Island Books: Helen Russell He is in love with Christine and has also been extorting money from the Opera’s management for many years, and is also called the “Opera Ghost” by the denizens of the Opera. The Voice, however, belongs to Erik, a physically deformed and mentally disturbed musical genius who was one of the architects who took part in the construction of the opera.

She believes the voice belongs to The Angel of Music – a character from a story she was told as a child – and, having confirmed this, the voice offers her singing lessons. Telling the tale of the Paris Opera House and it’s resident phantom, the novel follows the talented Christine Daae who, shortly after being cast in the opera hears a beautiful, unearthly voice sing to her. And so it was when on a recent holiday to Hvar that I found myself wandering around Split en route back to England that I stumbled across a book shop when exploring the underground market and consequently bought my second copy of Gaston Leroux’s most famous novel. I first bought a copy aged 19 from a used book shop in Koh Phangnan in Thailand, though it inevitably got left on a bus when I was just a chapter or two in travelling north to Chang Mai.

With The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, however, I first watched the film, before seeing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s stage production as a 21st birthday present from my Uncle Rory before only just having read the book many years later after first having come across the Parisian ghost story. While there are rare occasions when I’ve watched a film that lives up to the book on which its based, more often than not they’re a huge disappointment, and I’m left wishing I hadn’t bothered. On the whole, I tend to read books prior to watching their screen adaptations, often avoiding the film altogether.

Phantom of the opera book explained