Page 159 - HandbookMarch1

7
Dorota Babilas
__________________________________________________________________
educated by a wealthy music-lover who discovered her when she was singing at
a country fair. Leroux’s inspiration for this character was the real lyric soprano
Christine Nilsson who never sang in the Palais Garnier, but whose extraordinary
career and repertoire correspond almost perfectly to those of Christine Daaé.
Similarly, Christine’s rival, the tempestuous diva Carlotta, is a somewhat malicious
6
portrait of Nilsson’s contemporary and main competitor, Adelina Patti. The
world of nineteenth-century opera buffs was divided into the supporters of either
Patti or Nilsson, and Leroux takes the side of the latter. His Christine is perhaps
not entirely a positive character, but undoubtedly she is a true artist, contrary to
7
Carlotta who is ‘a mere instrument’ with no heart and soul.
The quasi-Gothic haunting of the opera house is devoid of any supernatural
causes, but again, disasters plaguing the Palais Garnier are based on sensational
journalistic accounts. The famous scene with the chandelier crashing to the ground
during a full-house performance echoes not one, but two similar occurrences. On
May 20, 1896, a heavy weight holding the chandelier in place broke loose during
the performance of Alphonse Duvernoy’s opera Helle and destroyed the ceiling of
a topmost box, killing an elderly lady. Interestingly, a similar, though less tragic,
accident happened on February 2, 1795, in London’s Royal Theatre Haymarket,
when during a concert by Joseph Haydn a chandelier fell down, luckily causing
no injury to anyone and earning one of Haydn’s Symphonies a nickname of ‘The
8
Miracle’. Even the suspicious hanging of Joseph Bouquet in the Opera’s cellar in
the novel had its origin in a real suicide of a stagehand recalled in the memoir of
Charles de Boigne. 9
All these clues lead to an inevitable question regarding the identity of the
notorious Phantom. The first suggestion is given by Leroux in the dedication
of his book to his older brother Joseph, an actor and singer, ‘who, having no

6
See Herman Klein, Great Women Singers of My Time (London: Routledge,
1931), 66-78; and H. Sutherland Edwards, The Prima Donna. Her History and
Surroundings from the 17 to the 19 century (New York: Da Capo Press, 1978),
th
th
135-161.
7 Gaston Leroux, Le Fantôme de l’Opera (Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 1959) , 74 (my
translation).
8
R.G., ‘Haydn Symphonies No. 96 in D major, “Miracle”; No. 99 in E
flat major,’ Gramophone (November 1980). Accessed March 16, 2011,
http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/November%201980/77/754412/
HAYDN.+Symphonies%3A+No.+96+in+D+major,+Miracle+%C2%AE+No.+99+
in+E+flat+major.+Concertgebouw+Orchestra+conducted+by+Bernard+Haitink.
9 Charles de Boigne, Petits Memoirs de l’Opera (Paris: Libraire Nouvelle, 1857),
244-245.