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An old organ, similar to the one Erik played

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An old organ, similar to the one Erik played

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https://www.pinterest.com/gillmary/pipe-organold-organs/

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Phantom of the Opera Theatre Review London \*\*\*\*\*

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"He asked only to be 'someone,' like everybody else. But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius or use it to play tricks with, when, with an ordinary face, he would have been one of the most distinguished of mankind! He had a heart that could have held the empire of the world; and in the end he had to content himself with a cellar" (261 Leroux).

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Evaluate the ending of this book. Considering how the book unfolded, is it an effective ending? Why or why not?

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Evaluate the ending of this book. Considering how the book unfolded, is it an effective ending? Why or why not?

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I would definitely consider the ending of this novel effective. It perfectly concludes the story. By the time I was reading the epilogue, I was asking myself questions, wondering how Erik managed to do things, like how he had gotten the envelope from the manager's pocket when it was safety-pinned into place. I also found myself wishing I knew more about his past. However, this was explained entirely in the epilogue, and all unknown questions were answered. In the actual last chapter of the novel, I found that the story was concluded perfectly with Erik's death. His final words to the Persian made me much more understanding of his character and more content with his actions, even at the end of the story. I found myself beginning to like him, which was completely different from my thoughts at the beginning of the novel. I was also very happy that the story of Christine and Raoul was concluded enough to leave me without questions. While Leroux admits that he couldn't find them and didn't know everything about them, I was more than satisfied with his explanation on them. I frequently find myself with novels that make you guess the endings and the "what happens next". This one, however, perfectly took away all of those guesses, leaving me only with answers.

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Describe the character or person who changed the most from the beginning of the book to the end of the book. Explain the change and what caused it.

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Describe the character or person who changed the most from the beginning of the book to the end of the book. Explain the change and what caused it.

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The person who changed the most in the Phantom of the Opera was easily Erik, otherwise known as the Phantom himself. However, instead of changing as a character, the reader's views on him changed. At the beginning of the novel, Erik was known for killing people. He was told to be an assassin and he had dropped a chandelier during a performance. He also had stolen Christine, terrifying her and taking her against her will. However, by the end of the novel, the reader finds out about his real past. They learn about how his mother treated him and what he grew up doing (being in a freak show, being exiled, etc). The reader begins to pity him from that. Then, the Phantom admits that he had never been kissed by his mother after he receives a kiss from Christine. He also agrees to let Christine go after seeing her cry, telling her that he will kill himself and let Raoul and her be happy together. This shows the reader the kindness that's truly in his heart. He puts their love above his own and sacrifices his own life for them.

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Choose a sentence starter and write a brief reflection for it

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Choose a sentence starter and write a brief reflection for it

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I noticed that the Phantom is incredibly musically talented. Considering how he lived his life before ever going to the Paris Opera House, it is strange to think that he had learned that musical ability that quickly. He had been an architect in the past as well as been in a freak show. He worked for the Shah of Persia and faked his death. During his time in the freak show, he was noticed for his incredible singing voice. However, I cannot find an explanation behind how his voice would be so strong or so beautiful without any proper training or even music. Furthermore, he is later seen playing a violin with immense skill. As a violinist myself, this, too, makes me question how he was able to gain talent in it so quickly. I also wonder how he learned enough talent in the art of musical theory in order to write an entire opera single-handedly.

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A French Franc - the currency used in the novel.

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A French Franc - the currency used in the novel.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_franc

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A little off topic from the novel, but a murder in 1980 was named after the famous novel. A violinist was murdered during the intermission of a performance. When the murderer was not found on site, he was dubbed "the Phantom".

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http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/ve/fashion/french.jsp

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Faust is the opera in which Christine takes over for Carlotta's lead role when she is sick. This opera also is seen in the novel when the Phantom demands that Christine be put as the lead role and she isn't, leading to Carlotta's famous "co-ack".

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Composer: Charles Gounod

Premiered: March 19, 1859 - Paris, France - Theatre Lyrique

Story of Faust: Gounod's Faust is loosely based on the three part tragedy, , by Goethe.

Setting of Faust: Gounod's opera, Faust takes place during 16th century Germany.

Faust is an aging old scholar, who after spending decades of his life studying, has realized he has achieved nothing, all the while missing his youth and chances at love.

After cursing science and faith, Faust attempts suicide, twice. Each time he's about to drink poison, he hears a choir outside his window and sets the poison back down on the table. Faust, desperate, seeks guidance from the devil, and moments later, the devil, Méphistophélès, appears. Faust tells him of his desires for youth and love. The devil tells Faust that he can have it, but only if he forfeits his soul. Faust struggles with the decision, but the devil tempts him further by showing him a vision of a beautiful young maiden, Marguerite. Faust makes a deal with the devil, and the devil turns the poison into a potion of youth. Faust drinks the potion and transforms into a lovely, young man. The two venture out in search of Marguerite.

Faust and Méphistophélès arrive at a city fair, where townspeople, students, and soldiers celebrate in merriment. A young soldier, Valentin, about to leave for the war, asks his friend Siébel to protect and watch over his sister, Marguerite, in his absence.

Siébel agrees and the crowd begins to sing another song, but is interrupted by Méphistophélès when he begins to sing a song about gold and greed. He causes wine to flow from an old barrel and provides everyone with alcohol. He says a malign toast towards Marguerite, and Valentin intervenes. Valentin draws his sword, but it shatters with Méphistophélès' slight touch.

At that moment Valentin knows who he is dealing with and uses the hilt of his sword as a cross, hoping to get away from the devil. When Méphistophélès is joined by Faust once more, the two lead the villagers in a new round of song. Faust pulls Marguerite aside and tells her that he admires her, but she politely declines his advances.

Siébel leaves a small bouquet of flowers outside of Marguerite's door, as he has taken a liking to her. Faust sees this and sends the devil out to search for a better gift. The devil returns with an ornate box filled with exquisite jewelry. Faust leaves the box outside of her door next to Siébel's flowers. A while later, Marguerite's neighbor arrives and spies the ornate box. She tells Marguerite that she must have an admirer. Marguerite tries on the magnificent jewels and falls in love with them. Faust and the devil make their way into the garden and visit with the two ladies. The devil flirts with Marguerite's neighbor so that Faust can speak to Marguerite alone. The two steal a quick kiss, but she sends him away. The two men leave, but stay close to her house. Inside, Marguerite sings a song, wishing Faust would return. Faust jumps at the chance and knocks on her door.

She greets him, and the devil laughs manically - he knows his plan is working.

Many months have passed, and Marguerite has a child. Meanwhile, Valentin and other soldiers have arrived home from war. Valentin questions Siébel about Marguerite but is unable to get a clear answer. Valentin enters Marguerite's house to check on her. Faust, feeling remorseful for abandoning her, returns with Méphistophélès, unaware that Valentin is there. Outside of her window, Méphistophélès sings a lewd ballad, mocking her. Valentin recognizes the voice and rushes outside with sword in hand. The three men fight. Méphistophélès blocks Valentin's sword, causing Faust to accidentally deliver the fatal blow to Valentin. Méphistophélès pulls Faust away. Marguerite rushes to her brother's aid, but he curses her in his last dying breath.

She runs to the church, seeking forgiveness, but is stopped several times along the way by Méphistophélès. He bombards her with threats of damnation and curses.

Marguerite has been driven insane. She sits in a prison, condemned to death for murdering her own child. Méphistophélès appears with Faust in order to collect her soul. At first, she is happy to see Faust. However, she refuses to go with him, and recalls their first days together and how happy they once were. Méphistophélès becomes irritated and tells Faust to make haste. Faust tells her that they can save her, but again, Marguerite refuses to go with them. She asks the angles for forgiveness and tells Faust that she entrusts her fate to God. Méphistophélès drags Faust to hell as Marguerite heads to the gallows. As she dies, a chorus of angels surrounds her spirit and announces her salvation.

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Faust Synopsis - The Story of Gounod's Opera

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Composer: Charles Gounod Premiered: March 19, 1859 - Paris, France - Theatre Lyrique Story of Faust: Gounod's Faust is loosely based on the three part tragedy, , by Goethe. Setting of Faust : Gounod's opera, Faust takes place during 16th century Germany.

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Erik (the Phantom) writes his own opera in which he titles Don Juan Triumphant. This article explains the meaning behind the "Don Juan" in the title and who he is.

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Don Juan, fictitious character who is a symbol of libertinism. Originating in popular legend, he was first given literary personality in the tragic drama El burlador de Sevilla (1630; "The Seducer of Seville," translated in The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest), attributed to the Spanish dramatist Tirso de Molina. Through Tirso's tragedy, Don Juan became an archetypcal character in the West, as familiar as Don Quixote, Hamlet, and Faust. Subsequently, he became the hero-villain of plays, novels, and poems; his legend was assured enduring popularity through Mozart's opera Don Giovanni (1787), and it would continue to live on, by the 20th century, in movies and other media.

© Photos.com/Jupiterimages

The legend of Don Juan tells how, at the height of his licentious career, he seduced a girl of noble family and killed her father, who had tried to avenge her. Later, seeing a commemorative effigy on the father's tomb, he flippantly invited it to dine with him, and the stone ghost duly arrived for dinner as a harbinger of Don Juan's death. In the original Spanish tragedy, Don Juan's attractive qualities-his vitality, his arrogant courage, and his sense of humour-heighten the dramatic value of the catastrophe. The power of the drama derives from its rapid pace, the impression it gives of cumulative tension as Don Juan's enemies gradually hound him to destruction, and the awareness that the Don is goaded to defy even the ghostly forces of the unknown. In the end he refuses to repent and is eternally damned.

In the 17th century the Don Juan story became known to strolling Italian players, some of whom traveled to France with this theme in their repertoire of pantomime, and by the 19th century many versions of the Don Juan legend existed. Along with Mozart's opera, other famous non-Spanish versions are Molière's play Dom Juan; ou, Le Festin de pierre (first performed 1665; "Don Juan; or, The Stone Feast"), based on earlier French arrangements; and two works dealing with a similar but different Don Juan, Prosper Mérimée's uncharacteristic short story "Les Âmes du Purgatoire" (1834; "Souls in Purgatory") and the drama Don Juan de Marana (1836) by Alexandre Dumas père. Early English versions-such as Thomas Shadwell's The Libertine (1675), for example-are considered uninspired, but the character reappears with a new force in Lord Byron's long satiric poem Don Juan (1819-24) and in George Bernard Shaw's drama Man and Superman (1903). Later Spanish versions retain Don Juan's likable qualities and avoid the calculated cynicism of certain foreign versions.

The highly popular Don Juan Tenorio (1844) of José Zorrilla y Moral, still traditionally performed in Spain at the time of All Saints' Day (November 1) and All Souls' Day (November 2), borrowed lavishly from French sources. Zorrilla's play is said to sentimentalize the legend by furnishing a pious heroine and a serious love interest and by procuring Don Juan's repentance and salvation.

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Don Juan: Don Juan, fictitious character who is a symbol of libertinism. Originating in popular legend, he was first given literary personality in the tragic drama El burlador de Sevilla (1630; "The Seducer of Seville," translated in The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest), attributed to the Spanish

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This article also goes more in depth about how this relates to the Phantom and the realness of the story.

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He says the 'lake' is actually a huge, stone water tank created by the construction team after numerous failed attempts to pump the site dry. 'The pressure of the water in the tank stops any more rising up the through the foundations, and the weight of the tank stabilises the building,' he explains.

Today, the tank (which is covered, except for a small grate) is used by Paris's fire fighters to practise swimming in the dark. And while Vidal concedes that the cellars are large enough to contain a makeshift home, they actually house the building's technical rooms.

Olivia Temple, who looks after the archive of Maria Bjornson (the late designer of Andrew Lloyd Webber's original West End stage production), visited the Palais Garnier's cellars in 2005 and understood immediately how they could have inspired Leroux. 'It was completely convincing that somebody could have lived down there,' she recalls.

'There were alcoves and arches that I'm sure had passageways that very few people would have bothered to explore. And it's bound to stretch out under the streets of Paris and join up with other watery cellars. Somebody like the Phantom could have had the run of it.'

But Temple admits they have lost a lot of their eeriness. 'Because of health and safety rules, there are rather horrid bright lights down there now,' she explains. 'It has definitely washed away the gloom of those netherworld regions and you don't get the feeling of what it must have been like when it was just lit with candles.'

Further inspiration for Leroux's story came in 1896, when the counterweight from the building's grand chandelier fell, killing a construction worker. Leroux wove the incident into the novel's climactic moment, during which Erik (the Phantom) kills an audience member by causing a chandelier to fall during a performance and, in the furore that follows, kidnaps Christine, dragging her down to his underground home.

However, perhaps the most ingenious blending of fact and fiction in The Phantom of the Opera is in the prologue, when Leroux mentions the burying of phonographic recordings in the cellars of the opera house. He explains that, while the cellar is being prepared to house the recordings, a corpse is uncovered that is identified as Erik's.

There may not have been a body, but the burying of recordings did take place. In 1907, the Gramophone Company sealed 24 records in two containers and locked them in the cellars of the opera house, to be opened 100 years later. In 2007, the containers were opened and the records digitised by EMI, which released the collection as Les Urnes de l'Opera.

Today, many remain unsure where the Palais Garnier's history ends and Leroux's story begins, and Vidal regularly receives calls asking him if the story is true. 'We don't like to break the illusion,' he says, 'but nobody has seen a ghost in the opera house. Although we do blame the "Phantom" as a joke if something inexplicable happens.'

There is, however, one element of Leroux's story that holds some truth, and which Temple can bear witness to: the Palais Garnier's water tank is home to a large, white catfish, which is fed by the opera house staff and can be spotted swimming past the open grate from time to time.

The Phantom of the Opera tickets at Telegraph Box Office

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Where the Phantom was born: the Palais Garnier

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He says the 'lake' is actually a huge, stone water tank created by the construction team after numerous failed attempts to pump the site dry. 'The pressure of the water in the tank stops any more rising up the through the foundations, and the weight of the tank stabilises the building,' he explains.

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The Palais Garnier in which the events of the novel take place.

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The Palais Garnier in which the events of the novel take place.

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http://www.thehistoryhub.com/palais-garnier-facts-pictures.htm