Mysteries of Paris: The Curse of the Phantom

In the French capital of Paris, certain places abound in unexplained phenomena. This is the case of the rooms of the Palais Garnier, better known as the Paris Opera, which are said to be cursed, and numerous strange and disturbing incidents have been recorded in them. To such an extent that many people claim they're the work of a ghost, the most famous ghost on earth, the Phantom of the Opera. Does the Phantom of the Opera still exist? Was there ever a phantom? Is it just a legend? What are the established facts? If we want to discover the truth, then we must investigate here in Paris. I'm Jean-Marc Galeri. I've devoted my life to understanding Paris's history, studying its secrets, and wandering its maze of streets. The city holds many centuries-old mysteries. Often these cases are dismissed as occult phenomena, myths, legends, or popular beliefs. Things have happened here though. There are facts, consistencies, and bona fide witnesses. Historians, scientists, and investigators of all sorts have been unable to solve them. It is time to reveal the most plausible theories and to get as close as possible to the truth. Here's Paris as you've never seen it before. Fire after fire, ghosts, assassinations. Are the opera houses of Paris cursed? The most famous among them, the Paris Opera, is brimming with secrets. Faust, Robert le Diable, Les Huguenots, Aida. These walls resonate with the voices of renowned singers who have performed here. The shadows of past ballerinas still glide down the grand staircase. The Palais Garnier connects to the underworld via its basements peopled by ghosts and to the heavens through its gilded domes and sun gods. The famous novel by Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera, was published in 1910. It was inspired by strange events which are said to have taken place in the second half of the 19th century within the walls of the Paris Opera. And that wasn't down to chance. Since the 17th century, nearly all of Paris's opera houses had been damaged or destroyed by fire. There was talk of a curse. To solve these mysteries, we must examine the nooks and crannies of the Paris Opera. Plunge into the bowels of this temple of music and ballet in the dark of night. Mingle with its shadows, soak up its nocturnal voices when all around is silence and slumber. Wander its galleries and corridors and pass through its secret entrances. We must enter the depths of time in an attempt to reveal the truth about the curse of the Paris Opera houses. The Paris Opera is one of the French capital's most famous landmarks. It was constructed between 1860 and 1875 and it was an extraordinary work site. Around it, a whole new district of Paris was growing up with other prestigious buildings. The contract was awarded to the young unknown architect Charles Garnier. The Palais Garnier covers a surface area of about 11,000 square meters. With an Italian style auditorium containing 2,051 seats in red velvet, salons, rehearsal rooms, studios, public spaces and the Grand Foyer. The Palais Garnier is its rotunda, its grand staircase and its 30 meter high marble decorated nave. In the auditorium, the bronze and crystal chandelier with its 340 lights weighs almost eight tons. Garnier reintroduced colour into architecture with marbles in tones of yellow, grey, violet, pink and scarlet tinged with ochre. In the auditorium, red is the dominant colour and would later become so in many other opera houses. When you stroll through the opera, the Palais Garnier, whether it's day or night, there's always an eerie feeling. It's like the building has taken you over, maybe more so at night. The opera provokes fantasies. It's a maze with secret corridors and hidden staircases. You walk along its corridors and you unexpectedly come out into the main auditorium. Then all that happened there, all those who passed through, it has a very old world, shrouded, mysterious atmosphere. It plunges you into the heart of the 19th century. When we're in the 21st century, plus it's a building where you always feel like you're on stage. You walk in, climb the grand staircase, see the balconies. So it's you who are on stage and you soon feel like you're the star of the day. For a long time, the aristocracy and the middle classes went to the theatre to see operas and ballets. Before the magnificent Palais Garnier, there were opera houses on the Square Louvois and in the Rue Le Pelletier. Down the centuries, a number of disturbing, terrible, and yet curious events would take place on these sites, such as deaths and fires. Some even began to say that all of Paris's opera houses were cursed. The opera hall on the Square Louvois opened in 1791, after the fire ravaged the one in the square. The Duke de Berry, the second son of the Comte d'Artois, the future King Charles X, attended the opera accompanied by his wife. When he left, he was assassinated. The Louvois Opera House was closed down and demolished. In 1760, the Salle Favard, on the present-day Place Boyle-Dieu, became home to the Opéra Comique. On January 15th, 1838, after a performance of Don Giovanni, one of the auditoriums went up in flames. Rebuilt in 1840, it was once again ravaged by fire on May 25th, 1887, claiming the lives of 84 people. In 1821, the troupe of the Paris Opera moved into the Salle Le Pelletier, a new opera house and drama some 30 years later, with an assassination attempt on the Emperor Napoleon III, just outside the building. The imperial couple escaped unharmed, but eight other people were killed and 150 wounded. On November 15th, 1862, another drama unfolded when the tutu of the ballerina, Emma Livry, suddenly caught fire while rehearsing on stage at the Salle Le Pelletier. She died from complications from her burns eight months later, at the age of 22. Worse still, on October 28th, 1873, the same Le Pelletier Opera House was destroyed by a gigantic fire. The fire raged for more than 24 hours and the theatre finally burned to the ground. A hundred people lost their lives. At the time, the causes were unknown. The Palais Garnier was inaugurated on January 5th, 1875, yet another new opera house, but the fires continued. On January 6th, 1894, fire tore through the warehouse that stored all the scenery of the Paris Opera and the Opéra Comique. In 1928, the curtains and drapes of the Grand Foyer went up in flames and were destroyed. Another fire broke out on December 23rd, 1950, but fortunately it was extinguished within 15 minutes. A bit much, don't you think? What should we make of these coincidences? Maybe Paris's opera houses are cursed? Why such a long series of fires? The legend of the Phantom of the Opera was born from one of these fires, the one at the Salle Le Pelletier. In his book, The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux tells of a young pianist whose face suffers severe burns. His fiancée, a ballerina at the conservatory, dies in the fire. Inconsolable and disfigured, the pianist seeks refuge in the basements of the Paris Opera, then in full construction. He finally dies there, only to reappear later, spreading fear through the underground world of the vast theatre. The legend of the Phantom was born, and it would continue into the 20th century. Leroux's character is now part of our collective memory, and numerous adaptations for film and stage have been produced. This 1925 American silent movie is a classic of the early horror genre. The sets were entirely studio built. Like in Leroux's book, secret passageways, trap doors and other underground conduits were exaggerated. The actor, Lon Chaney, a huge star in the 1920s and known as the Man of a Thousand Faces, created a phantom as moving as he was terrifying. Other movies followed, a series, a ballet, cartoons and, of course, the mega hit stage musical. The Phantom totally personifies the Paris Opera. If you stroll around the public spaces in the corridors backstage with your bunch of keys, you're sure to be asked by a tourist, where is the Phantom? I tell them, there is a Phantom, I'm not sure he's around today, but wait by box number five, you might catch a glimpse of him. Box five, the Phantom's box, is one of the most visited, because you can see it from the auditorium adjacent to the imperial box. But there is more than just the Phantom. In his novel, Gaston Leroux evokes other incidents, supposedly true and equally disturbing, said to have occurred inside the Palais Garnier. They would further reinforce the belief in the curse of Paris's opera houses. On May 20th 1896, the counterweight of the huge monumental crystal chandelier gave way, sending it crashing into the audience below during a show. Many people were injured and one woman was killed. She was sitting in seat number 13. A short time after, a student ballerina took a fatal fall from the 13th step of the grand staircase. Could it be a case of unlucky 13? Because the Palais Garnier was the 13th opera house to be built in Paris. There was also talk of a stagehand found dead after hanging himself, and a corpse discovered in the Paris opera basement during the Paris Commune in 1871. And the Grange Batellière river, which supposedly flows under the opera, and the mysterious lake concealed beneath the Palais Garnier, another disturbing event is described by Leroux. The managers of the Paris opera at the time received a letter written in red ink, signed by a certain O.G. The individual was making a number of demands, including a payment of 20,000 francs every month, and the box five should be reserved for him alone. The legend seemed to be taking over the building itself. O.G. For Opera Ghost? Let's recap. Fires, strange incidents, and, of course, the story of the ghost, or phantom. How can we disentangle truth from falsehood? Are the phantom and the other disturbing incidents all products of Gaston Leroux's imagination? Or was he inspired by real events? The opera ghost really existed. He was not, as was long believed, a creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the managers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of the young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box keepers, the cloakroom attendants, or the concierge. Yes, he existed in flesh and blood, although he assumed the complete appearance of a real phantom, that is to say, a spectral shade. Gaston Leroux's novel is like braided hair with three strands. There's the architecture of the Palais Garnier, which is magnificently described by Gaston Leroux, who was a journalist by trade. And what a journalist, with precise, well-informed, detailed language, but always beautiful prose. The second strand is the love story with two men in love with the same young soprano. And the third strand is the terrifying and dark tale that Leroux thought up of the phantom and the places he frequents inside the Palais Garnier. Leaving behind them the broad staircase which leads from the lobby outside the managers' offices to the stage and its dependencies, they crossed the stage, went out by the subscribers' door, and entered the house through the first little passage on the left. Then they made their way through the front rows of stalls and looked at box five on the Grand Tier. They could not see it well because it was half in darkness and because great covers were flung over the red velvet of the ledges of all the boxes. They were almost alone in the huge, gloomy house and a great silence surrounded them. It's so well constructed, so well written. The psychology of the characters is spot on and what we can call a report on the Palais Garnier, one of the strands of the book, is so precise and written with such love. I think he has a lot of fun at the Paris Opera because Gaston Leroux arrived in Paris aged 18 to study law and became a great fan of the theatre. With one accord, they raised their eyes to the ceiling and uttered a terrible cry. The chandelier, the immense mass of the chandelier was slipping down, coming toward them at the call of that fiendish voice. Released from its hook, it plunged from the ceiling and came smashing into the middle of the stalls amid a thousand shouts of terror. A wild rush for the doors followed. The papers of the day state that there were numbers wounded and one killed. The chandelier did not fall down. In May 1896, one of its counterweights came loose and hit the fourth floor boxes. And yes, one person was killed and several others injured. So here, Gaston Leroux took a real event and spiced it up. He was very honest. In his footnotes, he thanked the real people. I was told this story by Monsieur Gaillard and I thank him for bringing this incident to my attention. The story is totally untrue, but he makes it sound true by mentioning Monsieur Gaillard. And everyone at the time knew Monsieur Gaillard because he was a very popular manager of the opera. So even if you don't believe in ghosts, you start to doubt. Maybe it is true. Everything is true and everything is false in the Phantom of the Opera. Just like in real life. Gaston Leroux exaggerated events and added a touch of mystery where there was none. But what of the other legends involving the Paris Opera? Plenty has been said about the mysterious lake beneath it. But in fact, it's an artificial pool built by Garnier to consolidate the structure as the land is marshy. As for the Grange Batulière river, it has never flowed under the building. And corpses were never found in the basements during the Paris Commune, even though confrontations did take place there. And finally, the series of fires afflicting a large number of Paris' opera houses. How can that be explained? Why do theatres catch fire often and everywhere? Firstly, due to the lighting. It was by naked flame, originally candlelight and then gas lamps. The scenery was held up with ropes, the dangling end of which could swing into a flame and catch light. And as the stage is an empty cube, fire spreads quickly, climbs into the areas above, creating a genuine furnace. So in the 19th century, they gradually developed ways to choke fires. Firstly, by fireproofing the scenery and costumes. They were coated with a kind of liquid called the Cateron system after its inventor. It was very effective, but it made fabrics very stiff. Then the fire curtain was invented. This came down to cut off the auditorium from the stage. Because if you can't control an onstage fire, it will quickly spread to the auditorium, where hundreds of people would scramble to the exits. There were no fire exits back then, trampling over the other spectators. So theatre fires were very cruel, often resulting in a lot of deaths. So we've also solved the mystery of the fires. But it would be too easy to think that everything can be explained. Still today, reality can catch up with us. And here, this was no fiction, legend, rumour, or exaggerated eyewitness account. This was a real event, and recent. And the coincidence is disturbing. On September 25th, 2016, the Theatre Mogador caught fire. It started in the basement and ravaged a large part of the stage and its scenery. The French version of the hit musical The Phantom of the Opera was due to open a few weeks later, in October. The premiere was postponed for several months before the show was cancelled completely. The Phantom of the Opera had never been performed in France, and it still hasn't to this day. The opera houses of Paris, the City of Light, will keep their secrets for centuries to come. The Palais Garnier will remain a theatre of fantasies. A play of shadows and desires, eternal, like its phantom. How can we now pass the Paris opera without thinking of Gaston Leroux's character? And how can we not wish to believe that the Phantom is real and still exists today? The curse of the Paris opera houses, the presence of the Phantom of the Opera, it's all now part of the French capital's history. But Paris has other mysteries. The clues and keys to these enigmas are to be found in old books, lost in the capital's libraries, in the city's streets or beneath its buildings, by the light of a candle or in the dead of night, by cross-checking documents, archives and records. Paris has not yet revealed all of its secrets.