The Phantom of the Opera Trivia
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This Phantom of the Opera trivia quiz has 99 free questions with answers and covers the whole story of the Opera Ghost, not just the musical. You will start with Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel, the real Paris opera house it was set in and the genuine 1896 chandelier accident that inspired it, then move through Lon Chaney's 1925 silent film, the 1943, 1962, 1974 and 1989 screen versions, and the 2004 film with Gerard Butler. The bulk of the questions are about Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical: the original London and Broadway casts, how the half-mask came about, the show's Tonys and Oliviers, its record-breaking Broadway run and closing, the 25th-anniversary concert and the sequel. Songs are referred to by title only. It is written for musical-theatre fans, book lovers and horror-film buffs alike, with a mix of easy, medium and genuinely hard questions. Every answer was checked against a reference page (mostly Wikipedia's articles on the novel, the films and the musical) and each question links to its source, so you can trust what you learn here.
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Q 01Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera first appeared in 1909 as what?
A newspaper serial
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'.
Q 02In Leroux's novel, what name does the Phantom of the Opera go by?
Erik
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.
Q 03Christine Daaé, the young soprano at the centre of Leroux's novel, comes from which country?
Sweden
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.
Q 04In Leroux's novel, how is the mysterious opera regular who leads Raoul to the Phantom's lair known?
The Persian
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.
Q 05Gaston Leroux set The Phantom of the Opera in which real Paris building?
Palais Garnier
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.
Q 06What is the real underground 'lake' beneath the Paris opera house?
An enormous cistern
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.
Q 07In the 1896 accident behind The Phantom of the Opera's chandelier scene, what actually fell into the Paris Opera auditorium?
A counterweight
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.
Q 08In Leroux's novel, what does the Phantom do to the diva Carlotta in mid-performance?
Turns her voice to a croak
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.
Q 09The Phantom's letters to the managers demand that which box be kept empty for his personal use?
Box 5
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.
Q 10What is the Phantom's signature strangling weapon in both Leroux's novel and the musical?
A Punjab lasso
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.
Q 11What opera has the Phantom of the Opera composed himself?
Don Juan Triumphant
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.
Q 12At the masked ball, the Phantom of the Opera appears in costume as which figure?
The Red Death
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!'
Q 13Who played the title role in the 1925 silent Phantom of the Opera?
Lon Chaney
Q 21The 1943 film Phantom of the Opera won Academy Awards in which two categories?
Art Direction and Cinematography
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.
Q 22Which actor played the title role in Hammer's 1962 Phantom of the Opera?
Herbert Lom
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.
Q 23Who directed the 2004 film of Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera?
Joel Schumacher
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.
Q 14What nickname did the star of the 1925 silent Phantom of the Opera earn?
The Man of a Thousand Faces
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.
Q 15Who devised the Phantom of the Opera's skull-like makeup for the 1925 film?
The lead actor himself
The lead actor himself: he hid wires under putty to pull his nostrils upward, and the cameraman recalled that they sometimes made him bleed.
Q 16Which studio made both the 1925 silent Phantom of the Opera and its 1943 remake?
Universal
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.
Q 17Roughly how long did the opera house set from the 1925 Phantom of the Opera stay standing?
90 years
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.
Q 18How does the Phantom die in the 1925 silent film?
A mob throws him into the Seine
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.
Q 19When The Phantom of the Opera was reissued with sound in 1929, its star was under contract to which rival studio?
MGM
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.
Q 20Who played the violinist who becomes the Phantom in the 1943 Technicolor Phantom of the Opera?
Claude Rains
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.
Joel Schumacher made it several years after the debacle of his Batman & Robin; his Phantom drew mixed reviews, yet still earned three Oscar nominations.
Q 24Phantom of the Paradise (1974), a rock-musical riff on The Phantom of the Opera, was written and directed by whom?
Brian De Palma
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.
Q 25Which horror star played the Phantom in the gory 1989 film of The Phantom of the Opera?
Robert Englund
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.
Q 26In the 1989 Phantom of the Opera film, what ruined the Phantom's face?
A pact with the Devil
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.
Q 27Which actor played the Phantom in the 2004 film of Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera?
Gerard Butler
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.
Q 28Who played Christine in the 2004 Phantom of the Opera film after Anne Hathaway dropped out?
Emmy Rossum
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.
Q 29Which future West End Phantom appears in the 2004 film of the musical only as a portrait of Christine's father?
Ramin Karimloo
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.
Q 30Which song written for the 2004 film of The Phantom of the Opera earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song?
Learn to Be Lonely
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.