This post doesn't bring any news about the musical itself, but it's kind of quintessential for Love Never Dies and its characters. Have you ever wondered about Erik's life before Phantom of the Opera? Or what made him hide beneath that Opera House? Or what events happened in his troubled past that brought him to the story we all know and love in The Phantom of the Opera?
The Phantom's life is narrated with great skill in Susan Kay's Phantom. This book narrates The Phantom's life from birth, his relationship with his unloving mother, his childhood and the chapter of his life where he joined the circus. The novel also covers his travels and his isolation beneath the Garnier Opera House and Christine. Although she is a fundamental part of The Phantom's story, this novel goes deeper into Erik's character and his life and upbringing.
And we wouldn't be even talking about Phantom or Love Never Dies with no mention of Gaston Leroux and the novel that started it all. The Phantom of the Opera was first published as a serialization in Le Gaulois in 1909. The setting of the novel came from an actual Paris opera house that Leroux had heard the rumours about from the time the opera house was finished (sounds familiar?). The details about the Palais Garnier, and rumours surrounding it, are closely linked in Leroux's writing. The underground lake that he wrote about is accurate to this opera house, and it is still used for training firefighters to practice swimming in the dark. The event that was the infamous chandelier crash also rang to be true. The mysteries that Leroux uses in his novel about the Phantom are still mysteries. However, he defended the rumours to be true, even on his death bed.
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We invite you to read these books and delve into The Phantom's story:
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The Phantom's life is narrated with great skill in Susan Kay's Phantom. This book narrates The Phantom's life from birth, his relationship with his unloving mother, his childhood and the chapter of his life where he joined the circus. The novel also covers his travels and his isolation beneath the Garnier Opera House and Christine. Although she is a fundamental part of The Phantom's story, this novel goes deeper into Erik's character and his life and upbringing.
And we wouldn't be even talking about Phantom or Love Never Dies with no mention of Gaston Leroux and the novel that started it all. The Phantom of the Opera was first published as a serialization in Le Gaulois in 1909. The setting of the novel came from an actual Paris opera house that Leroux had heard the rumours about from the time the opera house was finished (sounds familiar?). The details about the Palais Garnier, and rumours surrounding it, are closely linked in Leroux's writing. The underground lake that he wrote about is accurate to this opera house, and it is still used for training firefighters to practice swimming in the dark. The event that was the infamous chandelier crash also rang to be true. The mysteries that Leroux uses in his novel about the Phantom are still mysteries. However, he defended the rumours to be true, even on his death bed.
Flash forward to 90 years later, Frederick Forsyth started working in collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Webber to bring the story of The Phantom of the Opera into a conclusion. Andrew Lloyd Webber started planning a sequel for one of his best-known works just four years after The Phantom's premiered. The author himself was part of the creative team when Love Never Dies started to grow, but he finally decided to drop his participation and decided, later in 1990, to publish his ideas into a full novel: The Phantom of Manhattan. Ten years after the chandelier crashed in the Opera Populaire and the mysterious figure of The Phantom vanished, he runs away to America where the streets are full of people who, like himself, have been rejected by society. But Erik is a smart man, and he slowly starts collaborating & designing Coney Island's fair parks until he becomes one of the wealthiest (and most mysterious) Empresario of Manhattan. Mirror tricks, automatons... success is guaranteed. But he receives a letter from an old acquaintance revealing a secret that would change everything. He starts composing again and inaugurates a new Opera House for Christine, now a worldwide consecrated Opera Diva, to perform...
Enjoy the reading!
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