The Phantom of the Opera: Music For Halloween
/The Phantom of the Opera was originally a book from 1909 by Gaston Leroux, published a few chapters at a time in the French magazine Le Gaulois. The tale takes place at the Palais Garnier when a mysterious figure who lives in tunnels surrounding a lake beneath the opera house begins to terrorize the performers and managers. Some of his antics include sabotaging the lead soprano in an upcoming production by mysteriously affecting her voice to make her croak like a frog so her young understudy, Christine, can take her place. At one point, the phantom cuts the rope holding up the large chandelier sending it crashing into the audience. Of course, there is a love story where the Phantom and Rauol compete for Christine’s love. Christine ends up with Raoul, but not without feeling compassion for the mysterious Phantom.
To create a powerful and dramatic overture, Andrew Lloyd Webber uses a pipe organ in a style similar to Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor to set the scene as the mystery unfolds before the audience. Take note of the descending chromatic lines. When composers desire to create an atmosphere, they consider what has been done before and often adapt elements of it to fit their work.
INTERESTING FACT: Some of the events in the story are true. There is a lake beneath the opera house, and the chandelier falling into the audience killed a patron in the late 1800s. There is also speculation that the skeleton of a deceased ballet student was used to frighten stage performers in an 1841 production of the opera Der Freischütz. Also, author Gaston Leroux claims that the existence of a phantom at the Paris Opera House was true until he died in 1927.
I visited and toured the famous location in 1996, but no ghost or phantom presented himself during the tour. To enhance your listening as Halloween grows closer, I have included the Overture, the title song from the 1986 musical, and J.S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for comparison. Enjoy.