Compassion or Condemnation? Le Phantôme de l'Opéra de Gaston Leroux

28 October 2026

When I was about twelve years old, in the dead of winter, my father took my sister and me to see The Phantom of the Opera onstage in Toronto (yes, that’s beyond Lake Ontario from our home in Rochester, NY—perhaps a three-hour drive). What I recall best of that trip were the leather gloves he purchased to keep my hands warm, people skating amongst Christmas Trees in Nathan Philip Square, bone-rattling organ music, and a crashing chandelier.

My father purchased me a copy of the Original Cast CD in the foyer on our way out of Pantages theater, and for the better part of a year I played it nonstop, learned every lyric, and determined that like Christine, I too could achieve an E6—and I although I only ever attempted it in private, I was probably not wrong; over the years I’d be part of many honors choirs and even my undergrad college’s chapel choir.

While the recognition of this story’s setting meant little to me at age twelve, it nestled somewhere into my core worldview, perhaps to the depth of my marrow. When I was 20, in March 2001, six months before the Towers collapsed, during my semester studying French abroad in Paris, I stood with my best friend and dorm mate, Becky, at the cashier window of the Palais Garnier, where we purchased same-day nosebleed tickets to a ballet for a flat 14 Francs each (the equivalent of $2). Side note: At that time, all arts and museums in Paris were available to the public for next to nothing if you had no money—especially if you were a student. This is the way it should be.

When we walked into the Palais Garnier’s grand foyer, I was struck by its familiarity. Something in my marrow had returned home. Still, its grandeur and the intricate details of its decoration were remarkable and new. I yearned to see everything, touch everything, explore every last nook and cranny like in the first-person POV videogame Wolfenstein 3D. I wanted to absorb and discover all the building’s mysteries. But there was no time. We were funneled up to our seats in the rafters—where, in fact, our view of the stage was about 1/3 obstructed by a rafter. They say people have complained about Garnier’s chandelier because from the higher seats it obstructs the view of the stage and from lower seats it obstructs the view of the ceiling; I cannot attest to this, per se. From my seat, I regretted not having opera glasses and Xray vision. But I was happy. So happy. The ballet was so grand that we returned once more toward the end of the semester for another.

Over time, the story and the setting faded in memory. When the movie came out on the big screen in 2004, I was nonplussed. I watched it once, thought little of it, and did not return to rewatch. Somehow, even during my Gothic Lit class for my MA in Literature, I never thought of The Phantom of the Opera or Palais Garnier. It never dawned on me that this story was Gothic literature—perhaps because it came to me first as a musical.

On 1 January 2022, I took my daughter to see The Phantom of the Opera at Majestic Theater on Broadway and was reminded of the bone-rattling organ music and crashing chandelier—things the movie could not capture. They brought tears to my eyes.

But it wasn’t until about two weeks ago, when I was bored and alone in a hotel room, doomscrolling shorts on YouTube, that I came across a video of Emmy Rossum singing Think of Me along with a YouTuber’s comment that she had been a trained opera singer before receiving that part in the 2004 movie. Something stuttered in my brain. Waitaminute. Emmy Rossum, the oldest sister from Shameless, was Christine in the 2004 movie adaptation?

I immediately purchased the movie and rewatched it. Then re-rewatched it. Then watched it again.

It wasn’t as good as the musical, that was certain, but it had something I’d missed back in 2004. What was it? First of all, it takes place in the Theâtre Populaire—not Palais Garnier. Weird. Confusing. Didn’t sit quite right. Then something about Christine’s character felt flat right up until her performance in Don Juan Triumphant—and then—what?? And something about the Phantom’s character was endearing—maybe too endearing to make it make sense that she wouldn’t want to be with him. In any case, there was a mystery here that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, so I kept rewatching.

I mentioned this new obsession to a friend who suggested I watch the sequel, Love Never Dies. So I rented that—and it was awful. It was awful. I could not get past the first half hour. What a waste of $4! The Phantom’s character was flat (there was no mystery about him anymore—no fear of him), the plot was too overtly contrived, the setting (now in the US) held no intrigue or personality, and the music was—meh. Maybe worse than meh.

It was at that moment dear reader, at my ripe age of 46, that it finally dawned on me: the original musical must be based on a piece of literature. It simply must be. Love Never Dies was written by Andrew Lloyd Weber and three other unknown authors and its story was quite obviously sub-par. Weber could never have written the original story himself; he’s a composer—a musician. So who wrote The Phantom of the Opera? And what makes it so much better than its horrid sequel?

Now, here we are.

Le Phantôme de l’Opéra was written by Gaston Leroux and released serially in Le Gaulois between 1909 and 1910. It is a classic work of Gothic fiction, even though it comes at the tail end of that era. But let’s be real: the Gothic never dies. We all know this. The story opens with descriptions of the machinations of a mysterious Opera Ghost—who, because of their superstitious nature, cast members believe to be a spirit, not an actual man. Then there is the young singer, Christine Daaé, who receives tutoring from a mysterious Angel of Music she believes to have been sent to her by her dead violinist father. It is not clear to anyone, at first, that these two are one and the same. Over the course of the story, the Phantom, who it turns out is a disfigured man from Rouen by the name of Erik, wreaks havoc about the theater, abducts Christine to his subterranean lair upon a lake, and ultimately coerces her to marry him. The Viscount Raoul de Chagny, who is also in love with Christine, embarks upon a deadly mission down into the lower, booby-trapped depths of the theater to save her from the Phantom. The ending here is a bit different from either the musical or the movie, so I will not spoil it.

But guys. Stop. STAHP. Stop. It!

The novel was written surrounding many real-life events that occurred at the very real Palais Garnier (not some stupid, fictitious Theâtre Populaire). For example, Leroux’s descriptions of the theater are founded upon the theater’s actual blueprints from Garnier himself. Also, there really was a fire in the theater that melted some struts and caused the chandelier to fall, killing someone. Also, there was originally some subterranean water that was removed into cisterns—although not a river and full lake as Leroux dreamed up. Every last piece of real-life information Leroux used to inspire his story fascinated me more. And more. And more.

Because what in this world is better than learning one of your favorite, most terrifying stories is practically—or could literally be—real?? Ok. It’s not real. But the idea that it could be sizzles and delights, doesn’t it? Leroux took some facts, some people, some rumors, and a very real setting, and like a fisherman exaggerating his catch (here’s looking at you, Hemingway), drew it out into a drama of epic proportions.

Let’s talk just a little bit more about setting for a moment. Any student of Gothic literature is aware that setting is so important to this genre it almost becomes its own character. The Palais Garnier is, perhaps (well, with the exception of Nôtre Dame herself in The Hunchback of Nôtre Dame), the most iconic example of Gothic-setting-qua-character. The theater, with its 17 levels—five of which are subterranean—is replete with dim corners, dark passages, trap doors, pulleys, stage displays, cisterns, a gas organ, failed stagehands, unhomed peoples, and the ubiquitous Gothic “ghost.”

And in these innumerably mysterious details, the theater directly represents The Phantom, Erik’s, character. We learn Erik’s background at the end of the novel. He was born, physically disfigured and missing a nose, in Rouen but traveled across eastern Europe all the way to Iran. He is a composer and musician, yes, but he is also a genius architect, magician, ventriloquist, illusionist, and more. When Garnier’s new theater broke ground, Erik took part in its construction. He designed many elements of the theater, including secret passages, trap doors, a mirrored torture chamber, a subterranean vault full of gunpowder (which he might ignite to blow the whole place to smithereens), and a clandestine homey lake-side retreat supplied by his own mother’s old furniture.

Palais Garnier’s mysteries are Erik’s mysteries. The man is the palace, and the palace is the man.

As I read and read and read and sometimes took a break to rewatch the movie yet again, one question hounded me: why does the musical work where the movie does not? I mean, the movie works well enough, I suppose (IMDB rates it a 7.2/10), but not nearly as well as the musical and the novel. And its critics’ reviews were/are terrible (32% rotten!). So what happened there?

The novel can stand on its own—now that I’ve read it. Its complex depictions of characters, plot, and setting do well to keep the reader engaged. Yet still, somehow it was possible for me to reach 46 years on this earth before I realized the novel even existed.

And the movie was uninspiring to me after having seen the musical. What is it about the musical?

I’ve determined it’s two things that a novel and movie cannot provide: music and a chandelier.

The first of these is obvious. To a sensitive like me, the opening organ notes imprint upon one’s bones—for life. No novel has ever shaken my bones, and none ever will. Andrew Lloyd Weber’s composition for the stage production is masterful in its emotionally evocative mix of traditional opera and 20^th Century synthesized pop. And as an audience member in a theater, you are surrounded by this music such that you become a fish in its sea, and you swim. This music exists in the movie, but it is not the same because it hides behind a screen. It is not live. It is not all-consuming. And it does not exist at all in the novel—except by verbal description.

The second sets the musical apart even more: the chandelier. Certainly, in the book the chandelier falls and kills the woman hired to replace Mme Giry. It’s terrifying. The same for the 2004 movie adaptation—although, in this case nobody dies. But as for the novel, the reader, if terrified, might close the pages and walk away. As for the movie, the horror is contained within the world of the screen; again, the audience is untouchable and untouched.

In the musical, however, the chandelier crashes down upon the stage right before the audience. There is no escape. There is no closing the book or pausing the movie. There is only a chandelier hurtling toward the theater’s first few rows of spectators. The stage offers a visceral experience of the horror that the novel and movie cannot. In later years, it is my understanding that there developed a movement to turn stage theater into more ostentatious spectacles like this. And although spectacle on the stage is nothing new (a-hem, check evidence from Leroux’s Palais Garnier), with this emphasis, spectacle alone began to outshine music, story, craft, and the art of the performance. Weber’s actual falling chandelier, though, seems to have predated any overblown theatrical spectacle; it is grand and thrilling and inescapable, but it does not eclipse the music or the story. In that, it is perfect.

But back to the novel for just a moment because without the novel, the musical would never exist. It is a pity to me that I was not aware of the novel until this month. How silly. The novel, like any other book that precedes a musical or movie, contains so much greater depth and detail than could ever be portrayed in two-and-a-half hours’ time on a stage or screen, and it should be taught in a Gothic Lit class like the one I took for my MA.

One of the things the novel gets better than the stage production or movie is Christine’s agency. Part of the reason I wanted to read the novel was my deep disappointment in Christine’ character in the movie. Anytime the Phantom sings, she essentially goes limp. Half the time she’s carried around by one male character and rescued by another. Essentially, to me, she felt like an object. A prop. A cog in the gears of the plot. A puppet. I hated it. I refused to believe this was the original author’s intention—and I was right. As with many other pieces of Gothic fiction (Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Goblin Market, Barozzi, Manfroné, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, etc.), Christine’s character does exhibit agency and does act on her own (and sometimes others’!) behalf. This is an aspect of the Gothic tradition that I deeply appreciate. These women don’t exhibit the same agency that they might in modern literary fiction, yet they were never puppets like Weber’s Christine.

My absolute favorite aspect of Gothic fiction in general is its exploration of the shadow self; the depravity of human nature; and cultural, moral, and ethical standards. Leroux’s story provides an ideal example of these themes. By the final line of the novel, readers are made to understand that Leroux is narrating this story as an appeal to have Erik’s skeleton (which had just been discovered in one of the subterranean vaults) relocated and reburied in the archives of the National Academy of Music because, “After all, these are no ordinary bones” (282). As justification for this, Leroux pleads,

Poor, poor unhappy Erik! Should we pity him or should we curse him? He simply longed to be ‘someone’, someone normal. But his hideous appearance would not allow it! And he had to hide his genius or squander it on tricks, whereas, with an ordinary face, he would have risen to greatness among his fellow-men! He had a big heart, large enough to embrace the entire world; but, in the end, he had to confine himself to a dismal cellar. Yes, all in all, the Phantom of the Opera deserves our pity. (282)

And my thoughts here swirl. What to make of this? This man, Erik, deceived, seduced, sedated, and abducted a young woman. True, he did not physically harm her. True, he never actually sexually assaulted her (at least this is never explicitly mentioned in the book). True, he was not without compassion when it came to rescuing Raoul and the Persian. True, even, that many of the murders attributed to him were mere coincidence and accident. Still. Deception, seduction, sedation, abduction—psychological abuse—these things are actual crimes for which my personal experience has me primed to empathize with the victim.

Is this yet another illustration of the necessity of separating the art from the artist?

Leroux puts this conundrum to the National Academy of Music in a manner of putting it to you, the reader. How would you decide? Are you able to hold onto two truths at once: that Erik was a monster but that he was also a genius to be pitied? What do you say? How should we remember him? With compassion or condemnation? Can it be both?