🕯 Operas Within The Phantom of the Opera – Leroux vs. Webber

📖 In Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel, real operas frame the drama. Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello opens the story, with the infamous chandelier accident (based on the real 1896 incident at the Palais Garnier) occurring during its performance. Charles Gounod’s Faust dominates much of the plot: Christine sings as Marguerite, the innocent tempted by darkness, while the Phantom insists she replace Carlotta — a parallel to Christine’s own struggle between purity, temptation, and manipulation. These operas ground the novel in cultural reality while reinforcing its gothic tension.

🎭 In Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 musical, fictional operas are created for theatrical function. Hannibal provides the rehearsal setting where Christine takes over for Carlotta; Il Muto becomes the stage of Carlotta’s infamous croak; and Don Juan Triumphant, composed by the Phantom himself, is staged in Act II as a reflection of his artistic extremism and obsessive love.

✨ Whether drawn from real 19th-century opera or invented for dramatic purpose, both versions use staged performance as a mirror of the story’s central themes — love, obsession, art, and control.