This is perhaps the most famous theatrical phantom in the world. According to legend, he is and permanently resides in the Parisian Grand Opera, which until the 1970s was the largest opera house in Europe. It is worth remembering here that once the construction of the theater almost fell through due to the accumulation of underground waters under the foundation of the future building.
For this reason, the builders could not lay the facade in any way. In the end, the architect Charles Garnier came up with a way out - to fence off the basement with a double wall.
It was inside this wall that the writer Gaston Leroux, the author of the novel The Phantom of the Opera, placed his fictional torture room, after which several films and the famous musical were later staged.
In Leroux's book, it turns out that the ghost is a man of flesh and blood, an ugly and terrifying villain Eric. However, most researchers are convinced that this is precisely a mystical entity and that this is by no means fiction.
Who the unfortunate person was during his lifetime is unknown, but, according to legend, a mysterious ghost still appears at the Grand Opera in one of the theater boxes.
In the contracts of theater directors there is always a clause prohibiting spectators from renting box No. 5 in the first tier. They say that the phantom is observed there systematically: it usually appears soon after the start of the performance. And if at this moment someone else is in the box, the consequences can be most dire.
Once, in 1896, the opera was giving Gella by the composer Duvernois. When the actress, diva Rosa Karon, was summoned for an encore, a massive bronze and crystal chandelier suddenly fell from the ceiling. For some unknown reason, one of the counterweights that held this colossus broke. The seven hundred kilogram gram structure collapsed on the heads of the audience.
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Many were wounded, but only one person died - the concierge Madame Chaumette, who specially came to listen to Karon's singing. Of course, in the misfortune that happened, everyone immediately saw a certain mystical sign. Unsurprisingly, this incident was unconditionally attributed to the tricks of the Phantom of the Opera, thanks to which Gaston Leroux made the fall of the chandelier one of the key episodes of his novel.
There is nothing strange in the fact that the phantom is so attached to the theater, because the Parisian opera is located in an obvious anomalous zone. Energy in places where groundwater is bursting out of the ground is always pathogenic. In addition, the building has a difficult history: in 1871, Communards were executed in the local basements, and a year later there was a terrible fire.
I must say that the Grand Opera itself (Theater Garnier) is also a standard of eclectic architecture. The building is striking in its beauty and shocking with the luxury of its interior decoration. It was built by order of Napoleon III in 15 years, but some of its parts remained unfinished. The structure is huge, but most of the visitors do not visit its main part - the dungeons. They are located on several levels and have many corridors.
Currently, half of the basements are destroyed, but the builders are not carrying out restoration work for fear of collapse. It is noteworthy that under the center of the Opera there is a real underground lake: this is one of the "bays" of the Seine, so it is impossible to pump water out of it. In the 19th century, this water reservoir was used for technical purposes.
In 1908, a skeleton of a man with a mutilated skull and a woman's ring on his finger was discovered in the basement of the Grand Opera. According to journalist and passionate theater-goer Garston Leroux, who conducted his own investigation, it belongs to the legendary Phantom of the Opera.
The theater is named after the chief architect, but, according to theatrical legends, Charles Garnier was not the only architect. When workers in the broken wall of the basement discovered a skeleton, powdered with bricks, Leroux was shocked by the contrast between the monstrous deformity of the skull and the presence of a graceful female ring on his finger. He published the image of the ring in all newspapers in the hope that someone would recognize the relic and respond, but there were no such ones.
Judging by the skeleton, the tragedy happened about 30 years ago, so it was still possible to find workers who were building the building. Leroux managed to get several of them to talk. They remembered that one of the architects was a man with a crippled face. To hide the ugliness, he wore a mask, and if he took it off, then even the masons who had seen a lot in their time were frightened and crossed themselves with a cross. Nothing was really known about him, but there were rumors that the unfortunate was born in a French village. His mother conceived him out of wedlock and during pregnancy tried to hide her condition, tightening the belly with a corset, so the child was born disfigured. Then the woman sold the offspring to the gypsies as a curiosity, and the boy traveled with them to eastern countries. Somehow he managed to get into the studio of an architect, undergo training and become a good architect.
After mastering the profession, the young architect came to France and took part in the construction of the Grand Opera. The management provided him with a small apartment in the building itself, like other employees of the theater. When construction was completed, the architect stayed to work at the Opera to maintain the building and settled nearby. At that time, a girl named Dae sang in the opera choir.
The freak fell in love with her, but she did not reciprocate. In addition, Dae had a wealthy patron. Once the architect lured her into his house and kept her in the basement for two weeks. It is not known what he did with her there, but then he released the unfortunate woman, and he disappeared. Rumors began to circulate that he committed suicide in a sophisticated way, walled himself up in the dungeons of the Opera.
It was after this that a ghost began to appear in the corridors of the theater, and he penetrated anywhere, even could pass through the walls. Gaston Leroux, after listening to this story and writing it down, decided to give it a more sinister look. He named the mysterious freak Eric and made him a brilliant composer.
According to him, the "Angel of Music" taught the young chorus girl Christina to sing. He opened the door to the stage with the help of violent crimes. Christine was "given" a noble fiance Raoul de Chagni. This is how the famous thriller "The Phantom of the Opera", published in 1910, appeared.
At first, the general public did not notice the mystical work, but after 4 years its first film adaptation was made. The film was called "The Phantom of the Violin", but the filmmakers did not bother to buy the film rights from the author. Leroux, who was also a lawyer, succeeded in banning the showing of the "pirated" motion picture. The second film adaptation appeared in 1925 with the title "The Man with a Thousand Faces".
This film version is considered the most creepy, but at the same time, the most successful. Lon Cheney, who played the main role in this film, made up himself and managed to create a truly nightmarish mask from his quite pretty face. His "ghost" remained unsurpassed in this regard.
In 1998, the famous Italian director Dario Argento made an erotic thriller out of The Phantom of the Opera. In his version, the ghost deviates somewhat from the classical tradition. He is a misanthrope who kills anyone who dares to enter his underground possessions, just as people kill rats who dare to appear above.
But the story did not end there either. In 2002, filmmaker Joel Schumacher proposed a musical film. At Gaston Leroux, the unfortunate Eric died in the dungeons of the Opera from love and longing, but in the film adaptation of the musical he was given a different fate. A mask was made especially for the musical, covering only part of Eric's face.
The debate about whether a real prototype of the Phantom of the Opera existed is still ongoing. Garston Leroux claimed to exist, and from flesh and blood. Other historians believe the Ghost is a legend. At the time of the Paris Commune, a prison was set up in the basement of the Opera, dozens of people were shot, and the corpses were immured in the walls of the corridors.
Later, workers found these skeletons. Traces of bullets were found in the walls and bones, and on the floor there were brown spots from once spilled blood. Perhaps one of the victims has become the ghost that is now invisibly present in the building and listens to beautiful singing on the spot for guests of honor.
Impressive visitors to the Opera often see a dark figure in a white mask at the back of the fifth box. French theater critic Madame de Weil published the results of her research in 1994. Her many years of research confirm the version of Gaston Leroux.