📖 Christine Daaé and Christina Nilsson — Fact Behind Fiction?

In Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera, Christine Daaé is introduced as a Swedish-born soprano. After her mother’s early death, she traveled with her father, a violinist, singing at village fairs while he played. Eventually, a wealthy couple — Professor Valérius and his wife — took them to Paris and supported Christine’s training at the Conservatoire.

This fictional backstory closely echoes the life of Christina Nilsson (1843–1921), a celebrated 19th-century Swedish soprano. Nilsson was born into poverty in rural Sweden, sang in marketplaces while her father accompanied her on the violin, and was discovered by wealthy patrons — including a man named Valerius. She went on to an international operatic career, acclaimed for roles such as Marguerite in Faust — the very role Christine performs in Leroux’s novel.

Despite these parallels, Nilsson never sang at the Paris Opéra Garnier, and the dramatic events of The Phantom of the Opera are wholly fictional. Still, Leroux later claimed Nilsson as the model for Christine, just as he insisted Erik, the Phantom, was real. Most biographers view these assertions as part of his playful blurring of fact and invention. Whether Leroux believed his own embellishments or simply relished building a legend, his novel endures as a vivid fusion of reality and imagination.

Nilsson was often compared to fellow Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, the famed “Swedish Nightingale,” remembered today through her association with The Greatest Showman.