Christine faces an uncertain future underneath the Opera House with the menacing Phantom. Erik aggressively declares that she is now his prisoner. She sneaks up behind him and tears off the mask to reveal a monstrously disfigured man.Ĭhristine looks on in terror as Erik imposes his frightening features on to her. In the next room, the Phantom is playing his composition. When she awakens, she finds a note from Erik assuring her that she can come and go as she pleases, but under no circumstances must she look under the mask. Christine faints and the masked man carries her to a comfortable suite. The stranger reveals himself as Erik and declares his love for her. A masked man leads Christine, who is semi-conscious, on horseback to the subterranean lake where she is taken on a gondola to the Phantom’s lair. The performance seems to go well until the lights start to flicker as the silhouette of the Phantom loosens the rope of the huge chandelier that falls onto the opera patrons.Ĭhristine runs to her dressing room and is lured by the voice to enter a secret door through the mirror. When she leaves the room, Raoul enters but nobody is there.Ĭarlotta and the management receive notes from the Phantom demanding that Christine continues in her role.ĭespite the threats, Carlotta performs as Marguerite. Standing outside the dressing room, Raoul overhears the voice instructing Christine. Whilst Christine goes on to receive a standing ovation from the audience, behind the scenes worker Simon Buquet finds his dead brother Joseph hanging by the strangler’s noose. She leaves in anger when Raoul tells her that somebody is playing a joke on her.Ĭarlotta becomes ill and Christine performs in her place. The next day, Raoul asks Christine to reconsider his offer of marriage, but she tells him that she is being taught by the “Spirit of Music”. The Phantom’s voice speaks to Christine in her dressing room, telling her that she must think of her career and him.
The ballerinas are naturally suspicious of the stranger and ask stagehand Joseph who reveals to them that he has seen the Phantom’s face.Ĭarlotta angrily tells the new management that she has received a letter from “The Phantom” that Christine must sing the role of Marguerite and that there will be dire consequences if his request has not been granted. The new management is told of the Opera Ghost who occupies box number five.Ī mysterious-looking gentleman wearing a fez, who will later be revealed as Ledoux, frightens the ballerinas in the cellars. She has no intention of throwing away her singing career for romance.ĭespite being the most profitable season in the Opera’s history, the management resigns. Raoul visits Christine in her dressing room to ask her to resign from the opera and marry him, but Christine refuses. Christine is a rising star of opera, having moved up from the chorus to become the understudy of the prima donna, Madame Carlotta.
Comte Phillipe de Chagny and his brother Vicomte Raoul de Chagney watch the presentation, but Raoul wants to hear his sweetheart Christine Daaé sing. The film begins at the opening night of a production of Gounod’s Faust at the Paris Opera House. Production began in mid-October of 1924 and the film was released on November 25, 1925. Laemmle quickly bought the film rights with Lon Chaney to star as the monstrous Erik. Leroux gave Laemmle a copy of his 1910 novel of Le Fantôme de l’Opéra when hearing that Laemmle was an admirer of the Paris Opera House.
The film’s origins had begun in 1923 when the president of Universal Pictures, Carl Laemmle, had met author Gaston Leroux while on vacation in Paris. The film is most famous for Lon Chaney’s astounding performance and grisly makeup. The original 1925 silent film version of The Phantom of the Opera is the most famous version of the Gaston Leroux story of the disfigured and deranged Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House.