| Apriamo un topic per scrivervi quello che sappiamo sulla vera storia del Fantasma dell'opera!
Prima ve l'abbiamo un po' riassunta in italiano! Sotto invece abbiamo messo degli articoli in inglese!
RIASSUNTO IN ITALIANO DELLA VICENDA:
A Parigi c'era un architetto col volto sfigurato, amante della musica. Lui portava in volto una maschera, ma non era la maschera come nei film, era una specie di panno nero!
Questo ragazzo si è innamorato di una giovane di nome CHRISTINE DAHè, la ragazza non era una famosa cantante, ma una semplice corista!
Questo "Fantasma" si è costruito una specie di abitazione sotto il teatro parigino e dato ke era un architetto per lui è stato semplice costruire la sua dimora!
L'uomo ha iniziato a parlare a Christine Dahè (prima abbiamo sottolineato il nome perkè nel libro la protagonista si chiama CHRISTINE DAAè, mentre il cognome della vera Christine era Dahè!!) e lei lo ha seguito nella sua dimora nei sotterranei! Con lui è rimasta un po' di tempo, tre settimane! Poi per qualke strana ragione (non si sa quale) l'ha lasciato! Il povero "Fantasma" è morto di dolore!
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Questa è la vera storia! Su questa storia Leroux ha ricavato il suo romanzo! Purtroppo Leroux non ha conosciuto vera Christine Dahè e quindi ha tratto ispirazione da tutte altre persone per caratterizzare i suoi personaggi!
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ARTICOLI IN INGLESE SULL'ARGOMENTO:
Primo articolo in inglese:
The Phantom of the Opera is real. He existed. So did Christine Daae, though she was actually named Christine Dahe. His skeleton was found in the Opera house in 1907 along with a ring engraved with C.D on it. He may not have been as mystical as Leroux wrote him out to be, but Leroux based the story off of him, and it is minorly accurate.
Secondo articolo in inglese:
A existat Erik? -> Un tur al catacombelor operei
This amazing missive was not originally an article but rather a personal letter to me from a Phantom fan in Paris. Because this is an alternative Phantom legend coming straight from the Paris Opera itself, I have translated a it into English and reprinted it here with the author's permission though she did ask me to use her screen name rather than her real name. After several years of haunting the opera library and fruitlessly searching for evidence that the Phantom was real, the author of the following letter was taken under the wing of Madame Renata de Waele, public relations officer of the Opera Garnier at the time, and given the following tour and information. As an interesting aside, Brigitta D'Arcy, author of Le Fantome, received similar information and a similar tour from de Waele. It was upon this information that she based the first half of her novel Le Fantome. -CH
FROM THE FIRST moment that Renata [de Waele] began my tour of the cellars, I felt like a child, awestruck not just by all that I was seeing but more than anything by the simple fact that I was setting foot where Eric (sic) long ago used to walk and hide. When one traverses such underground passages, one understands that it would not be difficult to hide there. There is such a surprising number of wall supports, adjacent galleries and other such complications that this underground world would be a treasure for any lover of "Hide-and-Go-Seek."
At first I followed Renata a little timidly. I asked her any question that came to mind simply to try to break the ice and to see how she would take my curiosity. But it was with a particular enthusiasm that she answered me and in a tone that was certain and reassuring... a tone that encouraged other questions. She led me to the circular, subterranean rotunda, recognizable by its dome of stones and apprised me of the fact that the rotunda is the virtual acoustic center of the Opera Garnier. It's a chamber that catches every sound from overhead with incomparable sonority.
I remarked that the construction of this underground rotunda was almost the same as the one up above, a round symmetrical construction that seemed to cause every sound to converge at its center. It's the framework of the rotunda that is built above, a sort of skeleton for the other one.
We continued down the same corridor and stopped a bit further on, facing a locked metallic door with a concrete seal. It was here that Renata began her story..
She told me that a certain Monsieur Clark made a donation to the Opera of phonographically recorded voices that weren't supposed to be played or exploited in any way until the passage of a certain number of years. During the intervening years it was necessary to securely guard them within a walled storage facility beneath the Opera... a facility which it had been necessary to build.
Before construction began there had not been a door in that wall. Some workers and the people most involved in the project looked for the best place to dig. The search involved finding a place that was well reinforced. It also had to be a place removed from the everyday comings and goings of workmen while at the same time being close to the underground accessway. At last the spot was chosen.
It was while demolishing the chosen wall that the workers discovered an apartment, a sort of furnished two-room studio with all the comforts of the 19th Century.
The workmen-who had not immediately realized the importance of their discovery-emptied the room. Although it was not something that happened frequently, workers of that period sometimes did take the liberty of setting up a living space for themselves in some private corner of the Opera. Thus it was not considered extraordinary until, after having completely emptied the room, the workers began to wonder how its tenant had entered his domain... because there weren't any doors.
Renata said that it was Eric who had walled up the entrance. [The wall he built] was the very same one that the workers had demolished. She also told me that he had allowed himself to die inside, probably of hunger... and that it was someone from the Opera who had covered the wall [on the other side].
It was in 1907 that the skeleton of Eric was recovered. It was badly decomposed and was said to be quite large and clearly masculine. The skull was asymmetrical. A deformity as severe as Eric's could not have had any origin but a basic malformation of the bone and cartilage.
I said to Renata that at the time when the skeleton was found, many said that it was the skeleton of a prisoner and she responded simply that the dungeons had not been located on that side of the building. And furthermore, if this were a prisoner's skeleton, it would not have been found by itself nor [would it have been found] so much later [than the others].
Point made, she spoke to me of that history and of the construction of the Opera as if it had all happened yesterday. The way she told it, I felt as though she had been there, in Eric's time, even though some of the tale she could not have been witness to herself. I felt a little silly and I didn't know what to think. Perhaps she was simply playing along with me. Perhaps she was saying what she thought I'd wanted to hear.
Eric was the principal subject of the conversation but [according to Renata] only his first name is known. His last name remains a mystery. Perhaps he had just wanted to forget it. At that time, those who did not have the chance to be like the rest of humanity were considered monsters; they had no rights and such individuals who were born amongst the nobility often lost both their title and their dignity.
Eric had attended the Opera's inauguration in 1875... His tribulations in Persia were not unknown. Renata told me that he had left home at the age of eight and had earned his living in the circuses that used to travel Europe. He learned architecture in Persia and returned to Paris to work on the construction of the Grand Hotel. Then [Charles] Garnier announced his need for workmen to build the new Opera.
Seriously interested, Eric was engaged as a simple stone mason which allowed him to build his underground apartments while the attention [of the others] was on the problem of the high water table.
On the subject of Christine Dahe (sic), she existed, and with that name. But she was a simple chorus girl and as anonymous as all the others.
Eric fell in love but he knew that if he showed himself to her she would never love him. It was as a result of this that the idea of the Phantom was born. He had started to disguise himself and to develop that whole facet of his personality that no one had known before. Those who knew "Eric the construction worker" didn't know him to have any outstanding qualities other than his great interest in music. Thus, when the malign and gifted Phantom appeared, no one imagined that it could be Eric, the poor boy who had worked on the Opera foundations.
Regarding his mystery and his gift of seducing women... Dahe stayed approximately two weeks in Eric's company and away from the singers' foyer. Then she left him-God knows why-and the poor Phantom never found another reason to wear his mask or his cape. He became Eric once more but because of the [emotional] pain [he suffered], he allowed himself to starve to death in his apartments after walling up the principal entry.
Someone knew about it... the same someone who buried the corpse. It was that mysterious someone whom Leroux christened, "the Persian." No one really knows who it was.
That is what Renata told me... that Leroux had the outline and the setting for his novel, and then all he had to do was fill in the gaps.
Leroux bestowed a good deal of his own personality upon the character of Erik [in his novel]. He gave him his own parent. Leroux's father was an entrepreneur... so was Erik's. Leroux gave Erik his taste for quasi anonymous letters, written in red ink, etc. Leroux had previously written some "accusatory" articles directed at the Opera. On May 13, 1897, following the Rue Goujon catastrophe, an unsigned article entitled "And the Opera? The Danger of Catching Fire" appeared. On June 26 another article entitled "The Opera: The Iron Curtain." Leroux also bore a resemblance to his Erik with regard to the name changes: Leroux to Larive, Georges Larive, then Georges-Gaston Larive, etc. It was perhaps the fire that first called Eric to his attention. He published The Phantom of the Opera [as a serial] in Le Galois beginning September 23, 1909 and continuing until January 8, 1910 after which the complete novel was published by Lafitte...
Writing in red: At the time, writing in red was extremely impolite. It meant that one was making fun of the person to whom he was writing. It was for this reason that Erik wrote in red.
Dahe... changed to Daae. Was she Nilsson? No. She was Dahe. But it's true that Gaston Leroux used Nilsson as the model [for Christine in his book]. The talent of one chorus girl would not have impassioned the public! People always admire those they can never be: an unparalleled singer, a magnificent and magical Phantom... something along the lines of hero worship. Consequently the solid gold ring [found on the skeleton] really did have C.D. on it in large, unmistakable letters... only it was lost in [one of the subsequent] wars.
There it is. Perhaps you might feel a little disappointed by that simple truth... There is no hard evidence, no list or other appearance of the names of the workers, no letters signed F. de l'O and no palace on the lake. This history was transmitted by word of mouth, like a legend... And there is no proof. Or, there is no proof anymore. As a researcher I still have my doubts. I told Renata that there must be some written document but she assured me that if such a document had ever existed, the Opera would probably have destroyed it.
[I have found] nothing dating from 1879 that recalls any incidents involving a phantom. I've found nothing but the most meager allusions in the Opera library:
M. Halanzier (1879) was accused of "falsifying theatre receipts" (article 57): "In 1875, [management] exaggerated expenses for that same year and manufactured the sum of 250,600 francs expended for two new works when there were no new works for that year." Leroux explains both the latter and the former: "the Phantom needed a source of income..."
"M. Vaucorbiel (1879-1886) succeeds Halanzier on November 1, 1879..."
"Mademoiselle Krauss (a diva): became ill. She couldn't sing for 10 days. Don Juan was replaced by Faust." (April, 1879) Could Krauss be the real Carlotta?
The journal The Parisian. Article, May 29, 1879. A short article on a Phantom of the "Avenue de l'Opera" who played the ocarina. Nothing precise, though.
Presently I've given up searching the indexes, not because I'm tired of it but because I am convinced that Renata was right. I was struck dumb after that visit... even though the doubts persisted. I tried to find evidence confirming her story for six months but it turned out to be an impossible task. I believe that with regard to this matter, science and my proud curiosity will have to be content with a simple oral account.
Che cosa ne dite?????
Soddisfatti?????
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Povero Erik ...