The Phantom of the Opera lives under a very famous opera house. There is a mere chorus girl called Christine Daae, who under his guidance becomes a prominent singer with a very beautiful voice. There is also the childhood sweetheart of the young girl; Vicount Raoul de Changy has come into the picture. Christine is haunted by her past and her and her picture seems bleak and uncertain while her present remain undecided. The big question remains: who will win her heart between the handsome childhood sweetheart and the masked angel of music. The Phantom of the opera is a story of murder, romance, sadness and sacrifice, with a riveting and seductive tale that can keep the reader’s emotions high until the end of the story.
With the mask, music and dark mysteries and with tortured and deformed genius who is in need of love, the story The Phantom of the Opera is a story that does not require any explanation. The Gaston Leroux’s novel is full of atmospheric horror, using evocative language to demonstrate sense of gothic mystery. The crown jewel of the story is Erik, the tortured anti-hero who inspires more horror, sympathy and pity than the hero and heroine. The opera house in Paris is haunted by a ghost demanding a reserved box and a huge salary. Despite the fears and sightings of stagehands and ballerinas, the new managers in the opera are determined to eliminate this ridiculous story despite the increasing incidents and threatening letters.
The new song bird, Christine is taking the city of Paris by storm; this is despite the fact that no one knows the person behind her singing skills. When his childhood friend Viscount Raoul de Chagny visits her, she realizes a passionate exchange between Christine and a man, though there is no man there. Christine credits her vocal talents to an angel of music and the self-made angel is the opera ghost. As the phantom of the opera becomes attached to Christine, Viscount establishes that the ghost is a half-mad and horribly deformed genius of music by the name Erik and who when Christine saw the true face of Erik, he made her engaged to him. Viscount and Christine plan to run away from the phantom but Erik, the angel of music is not ready to allow Christine disappear or live him.
In the phantom of the opera, there were odd events such as rumors about the opera ghost that happened when the author started writing about the phantom of the opera. This was credit to his imagination because of his ability to spin the odd facts into heartbreaking and harrowing love triangle based on pity, adoration, obsession and music. This is made exhilarating by the sympathetic and frightening villain.
The style used in the book is a penny dreadful one full of melodrama and overloaded prose. The author drapes the book in an atmosphere full of graveyards, underground labyrinths and dark opera back stages. All these have the presence of Erik hovering around. The plot of the story is slow, with satiny procession towards enviable blow up. The author, however, tinges this with dramatic scenes and shocking action scene with a lot of humor. The astounding description of corpselike appearance of Erick and Erik’s monologue to Christine after they kiss is heartbreakingly phenomenal and captures the mood of the story. In the story, Viscount and Raoul are the flat hero and heroine but Erik is considered the real star. The Phantom of the opera is considered as a story of triumph of horror and atmosphere with memorably sympathetic villains (Leroux, 2008).
References
Leroux, G. (2008). The phantom of the opera. New York, NY; Sterling publishing Company.
