Ghost at the Garnier

Opera’s famous phantom

Not all ghostly goings-on at the opera are confined to the stage. Several opera houses across the globe boast their own ghosts, from the wailing presence at Beijing’s 1807 Huguang Guild Hall to the brick- and bolt-throwing phantom reported during the Royal Opera House’s renovation in the late-1990s.

Most famous of all is the ghost at Paris’s Palais Garnier, which inspired Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera. Leroux had his imagination sparked by several incidents at this grandest of venues during his time as a reporter for Le Matin, not least in May 1896 when the counterweight for a chandelier came crashing down from the ceiling during a performance, killing a concierge – caused, in fact, by a supporting wire having melted. Leroux also made several visits to the building’s cellars, and was aware of the rumour of a pianist who, disfigured by a fire at the Palais Garnier in 1873, continued to live there in secrecy until eventually succumbing to his injuries.

Leroux’s novel became a major hit when made into a film starring Lon Chaney in 1925. Further popularity came, of course, with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 West End musical.