Page 158 - HandbookMarch1

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Dorota Babilas
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completes the ‘totality’ of Garnier’s creation by providing it with a myth – in a
similar way Victor Hugo had given a myth to the Notre-Dame. The opera house
has replaced the cathedral as the sanctus sanctorum of a modern city. The novel
is a Gothic romance with elements of a rational detective story, set against a
colourful background of operatic performances; it links the reality of theatre life
with the fictitiousness of the spectacle. On the one hand, the story is devoid of
any supernatural elements; on the other, Erik, the title anti-hero, is a larger-than-
life character related to great operatic villains such as Don Juan, Faust or Othello,
combining the menacing mind of Hugo’s Frollo with the monstrous looks of
Quasimodo. However, whereas later adaptations focused on the horror elements
or, more recently, on the dark romance, Leroux’s novel offers, very importantly,
one of literature’s great city-scapes – a vision situated between the reality of the
nineteenth-century Paris and the haunted realm of Gothic imagination. The author,
himself an abonné of the Opera, demonstrates his thorough knowledge of the
edifice, its employees, repertoire, and operatic conventions in general. The Palais
Garnier, without ever losing its brick and mortar reality, is transformed into an
eerie haunted house in which historical characters coexist with fictional creations.
The guided tour of the Opera, which Leroux offers his readers, takes them
to places unreachable for an ordinary spectator. They are invited to offices and
dressing-rooms – all with meticulously described furniture and fittings. The
backstage atmosphere has nothing to do with the exultation of high art and
resembles the visions of carnal pleasures expected by the Opera’s rich patrons.
The annual masquerade, an important scene in the novel, offers the writer an
opportunity to observe members of high society liberated by masks and costumes
from the necessity of behaviour appropriate to their position. Later, when the hero,
Raoul de Chagny, undertakes to rescue the soprano Christine Daaé, abducted from
the stage by the Phantom, Leroux provides accurate and detailed descriptions
of the undergrounds of the edifice, especially the complicated machinery for
manipulating elaborate sets. The atmosphere of the Palais Garnier is also created
by the people. Beside the managers, musicians, divas and ballerinas there is a
wealth of information on the technical and supporting staff of the nineteenth-
century Opera: all the artisans making costumes, sets and props, lighting operators,
firemen, horse grooms and even a rat-catcher. One of the important secondary
characters, Madame Giry, is an ouvreuse, an employee responsible for letting the
audience into their hired boxes and providing them with printed programmes.
Whereas Erik’s underground lair is the work of Leroux’s literary imagination,
early readers perceived the novel as a roman à clef with hidden references to
artistic celebrities. Many of the singers mentioned in the novel are real persons,
e.g. Gabrielle Krauss, Jean-Baptiste Faure, Carolus Fonta or Pedro Gailhard. The
main heroine, Christine Daaé, is a Swedish soprano of very poor background,