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The Phantom of the Opera is one of those stories that has had such an immense impact on the collective consciousness that I’m not even sure I need to include a summary.  It is, as of right now, the longest running show in Broadway history with its musical adaptation scored by the prolific Andrew Lloyd Weber, and in addition to that, it has its own film released in 2004 staring Gerard Butler as the Phantom and Emmy Rossum as Christine.

 For those of you who have seen neither (I am included in this group), the image of the masked Phantom might come to mind.  The premise is that this Phantom has been haunting the Opera, playing the puppet master behind the scenes, doing things such as extorting a monthly fee out of the Opera directors.  He becomes enamored with Christine Daae, an opera singer who had played the role of the understudy before the prima donna Carlotta fell ill, and begins pulling strings for her.  Although she can only hear him, Christine, however irrationally, listens to him and accepts his advice, as he preys on a story she had heard from her deceased father as a child about an Angel of Music who he would one day send to her to turn her into a music prodigy.  She believes the Phantom is the so-called Angel of Music, and thus heeds any advice he gives and trusts the voice that seems to come from above.

Complications ensue when a childhood friend of Christine’s, Raoul de Chagny, rekindles his old love for her and soon discovers her conversations with the Phantom who, at this point, believes Christine loves him (which she does, to some extent.  This introduces even more complications).  Raoul attempts to keep Christine from the Phantom, and the Phantom attempts to keep Christine from Raoul.

I mentioned earlier that I haven’t seen the musical nor the movie; I had encountered the plot through three means: (1) my mother had described it to me once as a child but I did not recall much other than the male protagonist’s name being Raoul, (2) I read a short story called “The Phantom of the Opera’s Friend” for school, and (3) I had, long ago, read a book in the Thea Stilton series had a similar plot with an Opera Ghost but changed some details, mainly to omit the not-so-kid-friendly parts (the torture chamber, the hangings, etc.).  I remember one thing that fascinated me in the Thea Stilton book, and so fascinates me in this original version, is the inner workings of the theatre.  The trapdoors, the hollow walls, the contraptions that allow the stage to work, the contraptions that allow the Phantom to drop the chandelier— these intricacies interested me in a way that no other book heavily featuring a profession could (I recently read a nautical novel with many, many ship terms.  It was not half as fun).  Leroux utilizes the setting perfectly, allowing it to create magic that abides by the laws of physics and dramatizing it through human perspective.

There’s been debate in the past over whether or not books are better than movies (they are, by the way) and vice versa, but I think that Leroux’s original text serves as an incredible reminder of the fact that any media based off of a pre-existing property—whether it be a movie, a musical, a live action adaptation, or even an amusement park ride—was based off of that property for a reason.  There are some cases in which the new media is better (the Waterworld show at Universal Studios) and some cases in which it is worse (the 2013 Percy Jackson adaptation), and as always, the one that most people view as subjectively the best ends up being better-remembered.  The story of Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera has spawned a life for itself outside of the original text, but it was only able to thrive due to the masterfully crafted plot in Leroux’s 1911 original.

I won’t even lie, I love drama.  I listen to a lot of public domain audiobooks and I’ve never gone wrong with a Jane Austen or a Bronte sister story about upper-class people going about their lives, attempting to find suitors and dealing with high-society problems in the most elegant manner possible.  And The Phantom of the Opera—with its romance, with its mystery, with its horror—plays perfectly on that human want for mere entertainment, to watch characters deal with problems that we’d likely never encounter in our own lives.

I wanted Raoul and Christine to win, to triumph over the menacing Phantom, but at the same time I felt something like sympathy for this grotesque form who had last felt support as a sideshow act.  Despite being a mysterious man of the shadows for most of the novel, I sat, listening in rapture and suspending all disbelief, as the Persian explained the entirety of the Phantom’s backstory.  I felt myself perspire as if in the torture chamber and held my breath during the Phantom’s ultimatum.  This was entertainment in its most excellent form.

Again, I’ve never seen the movie or the musical, so I couldn’t tell you if either are as exciting as this.  However, I’d assume that there is some merit to the success of both: the story that Gaston Leroux has crafted is so captivating that I’d recommend you witness it in any of its forms.  If you’ve already seen them and are curious if reading the original book is worth it, I will tell you that it is.  Leroux uses the tools of writing to craft the narrative in the most compelling way possible, framing the main plot of Christine, Raoul, and the Phantom with gossipy stories of the Phantom’s existence and horrific clues that the rumors are true.

Checkout The Phantom of the Opera from the Newport Beach Public Library.