The Phantom of the Opera (French: Le
Fantôme de l'Opéra) is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialisation in Le Gaulois from
September 23, 1909, to January 8, 1910. It was published in volume form in
April 1910 by Pierre Lafitte. The novel is partly
inspired by historical events at the Paris Opera during the nineteenth
century and an apocryphal tale concerning the use of a former ballet pupil's
skeleton in Carl Maria von Weber's 1841 production of Der Freischütz. Nowadays, it is
overshadowed by the success of its various stage and film adaptations. The most
notable of these are the 1925 film depiction featuring Lon Chaney and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical.
Christine Daaé is a fictional character and the female protagonist of Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera and of the various adaptations of the work. She is a young singer with whom the title character Erik, the Phantom of the Opera falls in love.
Christine Daaé was born in a town near Uppsala, Sweden. Her mother died when she was six. Raised by her father, they constantly travel to fairs where he plays the violin and she sings. They are discovered at one of these fairs by Professor Valérius, who takes them to Gothenburg and then to Paris, providing for Christine's education.
Christine is extremely close to her father, who tells her Scandinavian fairy-tales; the tale of the "Angel of Music" is her favourite. Christine enters the Paris Conservatoire and trains for four years to become an opera singer to please her father and Mamma Valérius, the bedridden wife of the late Professor. However, by the end of the four years, she has lost her passion for singing.
When Christine arrives at the Opéra Garnier, she is described as "sounding like a rusty hinge", but one person finds the beauty hidden in her voice. When Erik, the Phantom of the Opera begins to tutor her, he tells her that he is the "Angel of Music" of whom her father had spoken (Erik tells her this because he has fallen in love with her). She believes him, and he inspires her soul back into her voice. Christine debuts at a gala at the opera in place of the singer Carlotta, who has fallen ill. Christine's singing is described as "seraphic".
Christine becomes torn between her loyalty for her mentor, Erik, and her love for her childhood friend Viscount Raoul de Chagny.
In the Lofficier translation of the novel, Christine's age is given as 15 years old. However, this is a mistranslation of a passage that says her heart was "as pure as that of a 15 year old". The evidence of Christine's childhood friendship with Raoul, and her studies at the Paris Conservatoire, put her age at 20.
Erik does so with the Persian, but Raoul was
kept "a hostage" and was "locked up comfortably, properly
chained" in the dungeon under the opera. When he returns, he finds
Christine waiting for him, like "a real living wife" and he swore she
tilted her forehead toward him, and he kissed it. Then he says he was so happy
that he fell at her feet, crying, and she cries with him, calling him
"poor, unhappy Erik" and taking his hand. At this point, he is
"just a poor dog ready to die for her" and he returns to her the ring
she had lost and said that she was free to go and marry Raoul.
Erik
frees Raoul who then leaves with Christine. But before they do, Erik makes
Christine promise that when he dies she will come back and bury him. Then she
kisses Erik's forehead. Erik dies three weeks later, but not before he goes to
visit the Persian and tells him everything, and promises to send him Erik's
dearest possessions: the papers that Christine wrote about everything that had
happened with her "Angel of Music" and some things that had belonged
to her. Christine keeps her promise and returns to the Opera to bury Erik and
place the plain gold band he had given her on his finger. Leroux claims that a
skeleton bearing such a ring was later unearthed in the Opera cellars.
See reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_of_the_Opera
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