🎭 The Auction Scene – Epilogue of Memory in The Phantom of the Opera

📦 The auction scene frames The Phantom of the Opera as both prologue and epilogue, with characters bidding on relics of the opera house’s past — most notably Madame Giry and Raoul.

📜 According to a manuscript edition in private ownership, the auction is set in 1911, with Raoul described as nearly 60. That would make Madame Giry in her mid-70s, reinforcing the sense of nostalgia and loss.

📅 Timeline references vary:
🗞️ June 2005 Broadway Playbill – auction set in 1911 (matching the manuscript)
🗞️ August 2022 Playbill – date revised to 1905, though character ages remain the same
🌐 Wikipedia and summaries – sometimes list 1919, but sourcing is inconsistent

🧭 These discrepancies show that the timeline is flexibly interpreted by directors and writers. Regardless of the year, the auction functions as a symbolic prologue and epilogue, evoking themes of memory, loss, and legacy.

🇰🇷 In the Korean licensed production, the auction is staged conventionally, but the first edition of the 2023 official program book omits any mention of the prologue in its synopsis. Even Raoul’s short lament (“Little Lotte…”) is performed but not credited as a musical number — most likely an editorial oversight.

👤 Madame Giry, once ballet mistress and the Phantom’s reluctant ally, appears perhaps to reclaim or safeguard artifacts tied to the Phantom — especially the monkey music box.

💔 Raoul, Christine’s former fiancé (and later husband), returns broken with grief and longing, haunted by memory.

🎩 Other attendees — patrons, collectors, and the curious — give the auction the feeling of a symbolic closing act, where private histories and public legacy converge only to dissolve into the past.