99 Fun Facts About The Phantom of the Opera

Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera first appeared in 1909 as what?

A newspaper serial in the Paris daily Le Gaulois, which ran it from September 1909 to January 1910; Leroux, a former reporter, framed it as his own investigation into a ghost that 'really existed'.

In Leroux's novel, what name does the Phantom of the Opera go by?

Erik is a name he says he took 'by accident'; the epilogue adds that he was a master-mason's son from near Rouen who ran away as a boy and was exhibited at fairs.

Christine Daaé, the young soprano at the centre of Leroux's novel, comes from which country?

Sweden, near Uppsala, where her father was a village fiddler; his tales of an Angel of Music are what later let the Phantom pose as her heaven-sent singing teacher.

In Leroux's novel, how is the mysterious opera regular who leads Raoul to the Phantom's lair known?

The Persian is a former police chief who once saved the Phantom's life in Persia and followed him to Paris; the musical drops him and hands what he knows to Madame Giry.

Gaston Leroux set The Phantom of the Opera in which real Paris building?

Palais Garnier hides the Phantom's home because, the epilogue reveals, he helped to build it: he won a contract for part of the foundations and walled in a lair for himself.

What is the real underground 'lake' beneath the Paris opera house?

An enormous cistern: the builders hit groundwater that round-the-clock pumping could not drain, so the architect sealed it in a concrete tank under the stage, which doubled as a reservoir in case of fire.

In the 1896 accident behind The Phantom of the Opera's chandelier scene, what actually fell into the Paris Opera auditorium?

A counterweight, one of those that balanced the chandelier, burst through the ceiling and killed a concierge in the audience; the light itself stayed up, but in his novel Leroux brought the whole thing down.

In Leroux's novel, what does the Phantom do to the diva Carlotta in mid-performance?

Turns her voice to a croak: a loud 'co-ack!' escapes her in the middle of Faust, his punishment after the managers ignored his order to give the night's lead to Christine.

The Phantom's letters to the managers demand that which box be kept empty for his personal use?

Box 5 comes with service: in the novel its box-keeper, Madame Giry, hears only a voice politely asking for a footstool, and finds a tip of a few francs left on the shelf afterwards.

What is the Phantom's signature strangling weapon in both Leroux's novel and the musical?

A Punjab lasso, which is why his pursuers are told to keep a hand at the level of their eyes: an arm raised beside the face stops the noose from closing on the throat.

What opera has the Phantom of the Opera composed himself?

Don Juan Triumphant has taken him twenty years, he tells Christine in the novel, and he means to be buried with the score; in the musical he forces the opera house to stage it instead.

At the masked ball, the Phantom of the Opera appears in costume as which figure?

The Red Death comes from Edgar Allan Poe, a writer Leroux revered: in Poe's tale the plague itself walks into a prince's masked ball, and the Phantom's cloak warns 'I am Red Death stalking abroad!'

Who played the title role in the 1925 silent Phantom of the Opera?

Lon Chaney fell out so badly with the director that the cameraman had to carry messages between them, and he is thought to have directed some of his own scenes himself.

What nickname did the star of the 1925 silent Phantom of the Opera earn?

The Man of a Thousand Faces was the hearing son of two deaf parents, and grew up talking with his hands and face, the skill behind his silent acting.

Who devised the Phantom of the Opera's skull-like makeup for the 1925 film?

The lead actor himself: he hid wires under putty to pull his nostrils upward, and the cameraman recalled that they sometimes made him bleed.

Which studio made both the 1925 silent Phantom of the Opera and its 1943 remake?

Universal built a replica of the Paris Opera's interior for the silent film on what it billed as the first steel-and-concrete stage in film history, made strong enough to hold hundreds of extras.

Roughly how long did the opera house set from the 1925 Phantom of the Opera stay standing?

90 years: the set stayed on Stage 28 from 1924 until the stage was pulled down in 2014, and even then the studio moved it into storage rather than scrap it.

How does the Phantom die in the 1925 silent film?

A mob throws him into the Seine only because the first ending failed: as first filmed he died quietly at his organ after Christine's kiss, and the studio ordered a chase instead.

When The Phantom of the Opera was reissued with sound in 1929, its star was under contract to which rival studio?

MGM held his contract by then, and the new talking scenes were made without him; he objected to another voice speaking for his Phantom and threatened to sue.

Who played the violinist who becomes the Phantom in the 1943 Technicolor Phantom of the Opera?

Claude Rains's Phantom is no monster from birth, as in the novel, but a sacked orchestra player scarred when acid is thrown in his face, an origin that later versions kept borrowing.

The 1943 film Phantom of the Opera won Academy Awards in which two categories?

Art Direction and Cinematography, both for colour: the prize-winning sets were partly almost two decades old, because the film reused the opera house interior built for the 1925 silent version.

Which actor played the title role in Hammer's 1962 Phantom of the Opera?

Herbert Lom's Phantom is the film's victim rather than its villain: a composer whose music was stolen by a lord, with the killings done by the dwarf who rescued him.

Who directed the 2004 film of Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera?

Joel Schumacher made it several years after the debacle of his Batman & Robin; his Phantom drew mixed reviews, yet still earned three Oscar nominations.

Phantom of the Paradise (1974), a rock-musical riff on The Phantom of the Opera, was written and directed by whom?

Brian De Palma's film flopped almost everywhere except Winnipeg, where it ran for eighteen weeks and fans bought more than 20,000 copies of the soundtrack.

Which horror star played the Phantom in the gory 1989 film of The Phantom of the Opera?

Robert Englund was cast on the strength of Freddy Krueger, whom he played for the fifth time that same year; his Phantom sews himself a new face from his victims' skin.

In the 1989 Phantom of the Opera film, what ruined the Phantom's face?

A pact with the Devil: a struggling composer named Destler trades his soul for music the world will love, and the melted face he is left with is the price.

Which actor played the Phantom in the 2004 film of Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera?

Gerard Butler had sung only in a rock band as a law student; the director wanted him after seeing Dracula 2000, so he began lessons with a vocal coach to audition.

Who played Christine in the 2004 Phantom of the Opera film after Anne Hathaway dropped out?

Emmy Rossum had sung as a child in the Metropolitan Opera's children's chorus; Hathaway withdrew because the shoot clashed with The Princess Diaries 2, which she was under contract to make.

Which future West End Phantom appears in the 2004 film of the musical only as a portrait of Christine's father?

Ramin Karimloo was playing Raoul in the London show when he posed for the portrait; within a few years he had become the youngest Phantom the West End production had cast.

Which song written for the 2004 film of The Phantom of the Opera earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song?

Learn to Be Lonely plays over the closing credits, sung by Minnie Driver, whose diva Carlotta is dubbed by an opera singer everywhere else in the film.

Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera opened on 9 October 1986 at which London theatre?

Her Majesty's Theatre changes its name with the monarch, so in May 2023, after Charles III came to the throne, it became His Majesty's; the show has stayed put under both names.

Who directed The Phantom of the Opera's original 1986 staging?

Harold Prince's staging outlived him: when he died in 2019, with 21 Tony Awards to his name, his original production was still playing in both London and New York.

Who played the Phantom when Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera opened in the West End in 1986?

Michael Crawford was best known in Britain as the accident-prone Frank Spencer of the sitcom Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em; the Phantom won him both the Olivier and the Tony.

Which British rock singer sang the Phantom on the 1986 hit single, only to lose the stage role?

Steve Harley of Cockney Rebel rehearsed the stage part for five months and was dropped days before the cast was announced; as the score grew more operatic, he agreed he no longer suited it.

Who originated Christine Daaé in Lloyd Webber's musical, a role written for her by her then-husband?

Sarah Brightman met Lloyd Webber when she was cast in one of his earlier shows and married him in 1984; a film version planned around her was shelved when the couple divorced.

Which little-known lyricist rewrote many of Richard Stilgoe's lyrics for The Phantom of the Opera?

Charles Hart was in his early twenties and just out of music college when Lloyd Webber noticed him while judging a prize for new musical-theatre writers, and hired him a year later.

Which songwriter turned down the lyrics for Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera to honour an album commitment?

Jim Steinman chose a Bonnie Tyler album instead and later called it his worst mistake; a decade on, Lloyd Webber came back to him for the lyrics of Whistle Down the Wind.

Who designed the sets, costumes and half-mask for the original stage Phantom of the Opera?

Maria Björnson was born in Paris, and the real Opéra's underground glamour inspired her misty lake and gilded proscenium; her sets and her costumes each won a Tony.

Why was the full-face mask first planned for the stage Phantom cut down to a half-mask?

It hampered the actor: he could not see well in the full mask, and by other accounts it muffled his voice and hid his expressions, so the designer halved it, and an unmasking scene was added.

In Lloyd Webber's musical, which song does Christine sing at her triumphant debut, replacing the diva Carlotta?

Think of Me is the aria Carlotta walks out on when a backdrop crashes down beside her in rehearsal; Christine, a chorus girl, sings it that night and Raoul recognises her from the audience.

The Phantom of the Opera played at which Broadway theatre for its entire 35-year run?

The Majestic was altered for the show before it opened: its roof was strengthened to carry the famous falling prop, and a pit was dug beneath the stage for the scenery.

The Phantom of the Opera beat which Sondheim show to the 1988 Best Musical Tony?

Into the Woods won the awards for its score and its book that night, but Phantom took Best Musical and seven Tonys in all, more than any other show.

In January 2006 The Phantom of the Opera overtook which musical to become Broadway's longest-running show?

Cats had held the record since 1997; Phantom passed it with performance number 7,486 and was still the title-holder when it closed in April 2023, after 35 years.

Which later-knighted producer staged The Phantom of the Opera with Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group?

Cameron Mackintosh announced in July 2020 that the pandemic had permanently shut the original London staging after 33 years, adding that he and Lloyd Webber were determined to bring the show back.

Which musical overtook The Phantom of the Opera in 2014 as history's top box-office earner?

The Lion King passed $6.2 billion worldwide that September, edging out Phantom's $6 billion; both stage shows had by then out-earned every film ever released, Avatar included.

Roger Waters accused The Phantom of the Opera's title song of copying which Pink Floyd track?

Echoes, he said, shares its time signature, its structure and its notes with the song's opening; he thought the likeness probably actionable but decided life was too long to spend it suing.

The 25th-anniversary performances of The Phantom of the Opera in October 2011 were staged at which venue?

The Royal Albert Hall sold out all three performances within five hours, so the last one was relayed live to cinemas around the world.

Which American soprano played Christine at the 25th-anniversary concert of The Phantom of the Opera and in its sequel?

Sierra Boggess first sang Christine in a Las Vegas production in 2006, then left to create Ariel in Broadway's The Little Mermaid before returning to the part for both.

What is the title of Lloyd Webber's 2010 sequel to The Phantom of the Opera?

Love Never Dies moves the Phantom to a Coney Island fairground in 1907; months after opening it shut for four days of rewrites, and its planned Broadway production was cancelled.

In Leroux's novel, the Phantom of the Opera's skull-like face is missing which feature altogether?

His nose is simply absent, in a face of sallow skin stretched tight over the bones. When he ventures into the streets he wears a pasteboard one with a moustache attached.

In Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, which animal sits atop the music box sold at auction?

A monkey figurine tops the papier-mâché music box, which the elderly Raoul buys in the opening scene. It reappears in the Phantom's lair, playing as Christine wakes.

In The Phantom of the Opera, Christine takes her unseen tutor for which spirit her dying father promised?

The Angel of Music came from her father's stories as a spirit that visits gifted children. The Phantom borrows the legend so he can coach her through her dressing-room wall.

How did the Phantom of the Opera come to know the opera house's cellars so well in Leroux's novel?

He helped build it, winning a contract for part of the foundations and quietly adding a hidden home and secret passages. When war halted the official work, he carried on alone.

The Phantom of the Opera steals César from the opera house in Leroux's novel; what kind of animal is César?

A horse: César is the white stage horse kept in the stables under the opera. The Phantom uses him to carry the dazed Christine down through the cellars.

Which musical is the only one to have run longer in London's West End than The Phantom of the Opera?

Les Misérables reached London in 1985, a year ahead of the Phantom. Among West End shows of any kind, only the play The Mousetrap has run longer than both.

At the auction that opens Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, the chandelier is which lot number?

666 is the lot number of the broken chandelier, now wired for electric light. As the overture plays it flickers to life and rises to the ceiling, carrying the story back in time.

Which fictional detective meets the Phantom of the Opera in Nicholas Meyer's 1993 novel The Canary Trainer?

Sherlock Holmes, lying low while the world believes him dead, takes a job as a violinist at the Paris Opera and is drawn into the hunt for its ghost. Meyer also wrote The Seven-Per-Cent Solution.

Which British heavy metal band put a seven-minute song called Phantom of the Opera on its 1980 debut album?

Iron Maiden put the track on their self-titled first album. The band's bassist, who wrote it, counts it among his own favourites.

Christine is first drawn to the Phantom of the Opera's lair through what in her dressing room?

The mirror swings round on a pivot, moved by a counterweight hidden behind the wall. In Lloyd Webber's musical she walks through it as if hypnotised.

As a boy in The Phantom of the Opera, Raoul first meets Christine by running into the sea to rescue what?

Her scarf had been blown into the waves by a high wind, and the boy waded in fully dressed to fetch it. Years later he reintroduces himself to the grown singer as the child who rescued it.

Before writing The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux made his name in which globe-trotting profession?

Journalism took him from the Paris law courts to Russia, where he covered the 1905 revolution at first hand. That reporter's habit shapes the novel, which is told as an investigation.

In both novel and musical, what is the origin of the Phantom of the Opera's disfigured face?

A birth defect: he was born that way, and in the novel his own mother gave him his first mask so she need not look at him. The acid that scars him on screen was a 1943 invention.

Which opera is on stage when the chandelier falls in Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera?

Faust is the opera the Phantom threatens to curse if his orders are ignored, and the chandelier falls that same night. He later snatches Christine from the stage during another performance of it.

Leroux's managers are Richard and Moncharmin; what are they called in Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera?

Firmin and André take over the opera house in the musical's opening rehearsal scene. One name is borrowed from the novel, where the first of the managers is Firmin Richard.

At which instrument is Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera composing when Christine lifts his mask?

An organ stands in his lair beneath the opera house, and he is bent over its keys when she slips up behind him. He rails at her prying, then ruefully confesses how much he longs for affection.

Lloyd Webber's 2010 sequel to The Phantom of the Opera moves the Phantom to which American amusement resort?

Coney Island is where he runs a fairground attraction called Phantasma, ten years after leaving Paris. Lloyd Webber chose it after seeing a television documentary about the old funfair.

Leroux's novel claims the Phantom of the Opera's skeleton was found when workmen buried what in the cellars?

Phonograph records of singers' voices were being buried under the opera, the narrator says, when the diggers laid bare a corpse. He insists it was the Phantom, not a casualty of the 1871 Commune.

Which stagehand is found hanged beneath the stage early in Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera?

Buquet, the head scene-shifter, had told anyone who would listen what the ghost's face looked like. When they go to cut him down, the rope around his neck has vanished.

In Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, Christine's childhood sweetheart Raoul de Chagny holds which noble title?

Viscount, or vicomte, is how both the novel and the musical style him. In the book he is also a young naval cadet, just back from a training voyage round the world.

In Lloyd Webber's stage musical, the Phantom of the Opera's white half-mask covers which part of his face?

The right side is where the stage make-up places his deformity, from a warped cheek to a gash across his balding scalp. The show's logo instead shows a mask covering nearly the whole face.

In Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, Raoul comes to the opera house in which official capacity?

Its new patron is how he arrives, and from his seat that evening he recognises the young soprano on stage as his childhood playmate.

Which fictional grand opera is in rehearsal as the story of Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera begins?

Hannibal is one of three operas invented for the show, each a pastiche of a real style. Its rehearsal collapses when a backdrop crashes down beside the leading soprano.

Who finds the Phantom of the Opera's abandoned mask in the final moment of Lloyd Webber's stage musical?

Meg Giry, the young dancer, reaches the lair ahead of the search party. She pulls the cloak from his throne and finds nothing beneath it but the mask.

Which French ruler commissioned the Paris opera house where Leroux set The Phantom of the Opera?

Napoleon III ordered it built, but his empire fell in 1870 and the house opened five years later without him.

Which painter's 1964 ceiling surrounds the great chandelier in the Paris opera house of The Phantom of the Opera?

Marc Chagall painted it on a removable frame fitted over the 19th-century original, which survives underneath. It shows scenes from the operas of fourteen composers.

What gesture from Christine moves Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera to free Raoul in the finale?

A kiss, given after she tells him he is not alone, is the first kindness he has ever known. He frees his rival and sends the couple away before the search party arrives.

Christine's father in The Phantom of the Opera is buried at Perros-Guirec, a seaside village in which region?

Brittany is where the family spent its summers, because the sea there reminded her father of home. The Phantom follows Christine to the churchyard and plays the violin to her by night.

In Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, which bronze figure must Christine turn to accept the Phantom's proposal?

The scorpion meant yes; the grasshopper beside it meant no, with terrible consequences for everyone in the building above. Both were Japanese bronzes kept in little caskets on his mantelpiece.

In The Phantom of the Opera, Raoul escapes the torture chamber into a cellar stacked with barrels of what?

Gunpowder, enough to destroy the opera house and the audience above, was the Phantom's threat if Christine refused him. Raoul and his guide had been hoping the barrels held something to drink.

In Leroux's novel, what does the Phantom of the Opera give Christine that she must bury with him when he dies?

A gold ring, plain as a wedding band, is the price of her first release from his lair. She keeps her word and slips it on his finger when she returns to bury him.

In Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, which relative of Raoul is found dead beside the underground lake?

His elder brother, Count Philippe, had rushed into the cellars to find him and drowned in the Phantom's lake. Twenty years the senior, he had overseen the boy's upbringing.

The Phantom of the Opera's go-between is a ballet mistress on stage; what is her job in Leroux's novel?

A box-keeper, she shows patrons to their seats, brings the unseen ghost his footstool and collects his tips. She serves him because he promised her daughter would one day be an empress.

Carlotta is Italian in Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera; which country is she from in Leroux's novel?

Spain is her homeland in the book, where she curses in her native tongue when the ghost's warning letter arrives. Lloyd Webber gave her the surname Giudicelli and moved her to Italy.

In Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, Christine confides in Raoul on the roof beneath a statue of which god?

Apollo, lifting his lyre above the rooftops, gives the chapter its title. The couple believe they are alone up there, but the Phantom has followed them and hears every word.

What bold claim does the narrator make in the first line of Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera?

The ghost really existed, he insists, and he presents the whole story as an inquiry pieced together from a manager's memoirs, the opera's archives and surviving witnesses.

Phantom of the Opera author Gaston Leroux also wrote which landmark impossible-crime detective novel?

The Mystery of the Yellow Room introduced his young sleuth Rouletabille and has been voted one of the finest puzzles of its kind. Agatha Christie had Hercule Poirot sing its praises in one of her own novels.

In Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, the young naval officer Raoul is due to sail on a rescue mission to where?

The Arctic was the destination of the Requin, sent to look for an expedition missing for three years. His looming departure is why he and Christine believe they have only weeks together.

Which bestselling novelist wrote The Phantom of Manhattan, a 1999 sequel to The Phantom of the Opera?

Frederick Forsyth, a thriller writer by trade, wrote it after agreeing to work with Lloyd Webber on a stage sequel. The book follows the Phantom after his escape from Paris.

Which Irish singer played the Phantom at Lloyd Webber's 1985 Sydmonton preview and later opened the show in Toronto?

Colm Wilkinson tried out the role at the composer's country house, opposite a heroine then spelled Kristin. He finally wore the mask for the Canadian premiere in 1989.

Who in 2014 became the first African-American actor to play the Phantom in Broadway's The Phantom of the Opera?

Norm Lewis took over the mask on Broadway in May 2014, in the show's 27th year there. Robert Guillaume had played the role in Los Angeles in 1990.

A 95-minute version of Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera opened in 2006 at which Las Vegas resort?

The Venetian built a theatre specially for the show, modelled on the Paris opera house. The shortened staging played straight through without an interval.

Which veteran Broadway lyricist joined The Phantom of the Opera team but had to withdraw when he fell seriously ill?

Alan Jay Lerner, who wrote My Fair Lady, died in June 1986, four months before the London opening. None of his work on the show is credited.

Whose earlier stage musical of The Phantom of the Opera, seen in east London in 1984, helped inspire Lloyd Webber's?

Ken Hill fitted his own lyrics to real opera tunes by Verdi, Offenbach and Mozart. Lloyd Webber saw the show at Stratford East and at first offered to produce a bigger version of it.

Which tenor does Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera murder and replace on stage in the final opera?

Piangi is found strangled backstage after Christine realises that the cloaked figure singing opposite her is the Phantom himself. The discovery sends the whole theatre into panic.

Leroux's epilogue says the Phantom of the Opera was born in a small town near which Norman city?

Rouen is the nearest city to the birthplace he fled as a boy to escape his parents' horror of him. He then drifted from fair to fair across Europe as a sideshow attraction.

In The Phantom of the Opera, the title 'daroga' shows the Phantom's old acquaintance once held which post?

Chief of police was his rank in Mazenderan, where he was ordered to have the Phantom executed and instead helped him escape. The mercy cost him his property and earned him permanent banishment.

In Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, what does the Phantom breathe through while lurking underwater as 'the siren'?

A long reed lets him stay hidden beneath the surface, a trick he says he learned from river pirates in Tonkin. From there he sings to lure intruders, then drags them under.

In Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, how do the managers try to secure the Phantom's banknotes inside a coat pocket?

With a safety pin, one manager fastens the envelope into his partner's coat-tail and sits watching it. The money vanishes regardless, thanks to a small trapdoor beside the office desk.

Which Phantom of the Opera choreographer became the first non-royal woman to have a West End theatre named after her?

Gillian Lynne, once a Sadler's Wells ballerina, devised the show's dances and musical staging in 1986. The New London Theatre was renamed after her in 2018, the year she died at 92.