• Categories
• Erik (El fantasma de la ópera)
• El fantasma de la ópera
• Ocio

Citation preview

Gaston Leroux

retold by Jenny Dooley

Express Publishing

Published by Express Publishing Liberty House, New Greenham Park, Newbury, Berkshire RG19 6HW Tel: (0044) 1635 817 363 - Fax: (0044) 1635 817 463 e-mail: inquiries@ expresspublishing.co.uk http://www. expresspublishing.co. uk © Jen n y Dooley, 2004 Design & Illustration © Express Publishing, 2004 Colour Illustrations: Nathan & Stone First published 2004 Published in this edition 2007 Made in EU All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers. This book is not meant to be changed in any way. ISBN 978-1-84466-958-5

Contents Introduction

................................................... 4

Chapter Is

The V oice................................................. 8

Chapter 2:

The Mystery Begins.............................. 12

Chapter 3:

The Phantom’s B ox .............................. 20

Chapter 4:

The Angel o f M usic.............................. 29

Chapter 5:

The Phantom S trikes!..........................39

Chapter 6:

The R ing................................................48

Chapter 7:

Journey o f T error.......................... .. . 56

Chapter 8:

Erik’s S tory....................................... 65

Chapter 9: The Torture C ham ber...............................73 Chapter 10:

The Last Prom ise................................... 78

Activities:

............... ................................ 86

Projects:

.............................................. 106

Word List:

.............................................. 110

The Voice 1 1 had taken more than a decade to complete the Paris Opera I House, with its seventeen floors of grand architecture, making it the largest theatre in the world. Here, wealthy and noble Parisians enjoyed great musical performances, either from the magnificent auditorium or from their elegant, private boxes. Intervals provided the opportunity to walk about the imposing Grand Foyer and v/ Grand Staircase, decorated with precious marbles and onyx, and to socialise amongst statues of the world’s greatest composers" Here the most elegant members of Parisian society could display themselves in their finest clothing and jewels. This was just as important as watching the performance itself. The Paris Opera House was an architectural jewel, but while its patrons applauded the great performances, they were quite unaware of another, strange world hidden beneath the stage. Here, in its many dark cellars and web of passageways lay the secrets of another world, a world where no ray of light ever shone, where a ghostly creature living in the furthest depths would rise to terrorise the patrons and performers of the Paris Opera.This is where our story of darkness and intriguejanfolds: the story of the Phantom of the Opera. Dawn had not broken one Paris morning, when a voice could be heard in a small flat in the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, a voice so perfect and pure, one would believe only an angel could possess it. Christine Daae, a singer at the Opera, awoke to the heavenly singing, experiencing the joy of a young child on its first Christmas. She thought she was still dreaming to hear a sound

so perfect. When she was fully awake, the voice began to fade, and then disappeared with the light of day, leaving her to wonder what being could have produced such a beautiful sound. She was unable to sleep again and thought only of the melodic voice the whole day. Even though she had witnessed so many exceptional performances at the Paris Opera, Christine had never heard such musical perfection and she longed to experience again the thrill it had brought her and she was not to be disappointed. The voice returned to her again and again in her room each morning before dawn; then one day it vanished as suddenly as it had come. She prayed with all her heart each night that the angelic voice would return, but she waited alone in a silence broken only by the occasional rumble of a carriage on the cobblestone street below. A few weeks later in her dressing room, as she was preparing for the evening’s performance, she became aware of a faint sound, gradually gaining strength and coming near her. It was the voice! Its song filled her with a sensation she could not describe as its beauty flowed through the walls. She did not know where it had come from, and yet it seemed to be all around her. She was attracted to the voice like a magnet. Then the singing stopped, and the voice spoke to her. “I’ve come to offer you a gift, Christine - to make your greatest dream come true. I ask only one thing in return ...” At that very moment, a bond was created between Christine Daae and the voice that would change her life forever.

The Mystery Begins :?r^ome months later, as the curtain fell on die evening’s performance, J

six frightened ballerinas rushed breathlessly into the dressing

room of Annie Sorelli, the principal dancer. The youngest, Meg Giry, was squealing,“The Phantom! We saw him!” Everyone had heard stories about the Phantom, but the level-headed Sorelli had always dismissed diem as mere superstition. “Madame, we really saw him! He was ... he was with the Persian!” Now Sorelli had to struggle to stay calm. The Persian was a dark, mysterious man, with deep green eyes that seemed to pierce the very soul of anyone who met his gaze. No one knew his name. No one knew what he did. The only thing anyone knew for certain was that he was always somewhere In the Opera, startling people by appearing and disappearing at odd times, usually when someone thought they had seen the Phantom. As the young dancers fluttered about, chattering on and on about the incident, a tall dark figure slipped past the crowd and vanished out of sight, his black cloak hiding him in the shadows backstage. Sorelli pulled herself together. “You’re acting like a silly goose, Meg.There is no Phantom.” Meg, with hands on her hips, answered back crossly. “Well, if he’s not a Phantom, he certainly looks like one - just like Monsieur Buquet said! He was as thin as a rake, with eyes

so deep in his face they looked like black holes, and a face that didn’t even seem human. His skin was pale and grey and his nose was so small it almost wasn’t there ... and there was not one hair on his head!” Joseph Buquet was the chief scene changer and, like Sorelli, a calm and sensible person who would not make up stories about seeing the Phantom. So, those who believed in the Phantom took him seriously; those who did not thought someone had just played a joke on him. One thing was certain: there were now six more witnesses who had seen this terrifying creature. Sorelli, however, insisted. “My dears, pull yourselves together!” Excitedly, Little Meg told the dancers, “My mother says the Phantom doesn’t like people talking about him - and when they do, terrible things happen!” “And how does your mother know what he does and doesn’t like?” “Well,” the other dancers leaned closer to hear,“he talks to her!” “Oh, Meg! Stop it!” Sorelli was annoyed. “In Box 5, to the left of the stage. Mama looks after that box and she knows!” The others looked at her in horror. “It’s true! Others have seen him there, too. He wears a long black evening cloak and a white mask that covers most of his face and ... ” At that moment they heard a woman’s voice, screaming frantically. It was Meg’s mother, Mme Giry, a short plump woman, whose clothes looked as though they had once belonged to someone else. She was usually chatty and friendly, but now she appeared deathly white with shock.

“Monsieur Buquet’s dead! They found him lying in the third cellar with rope marks on his neck! He’s hanged himself!” Sorelli, too, went white with shock. Monsieur Buquet was a reasonable man and she could not imagine what might have made him take his own life. She and the other dancers looked at each other with the same awful-words on their lips: the Phantom! Suddenly, in spite of the disorder backstage, Sorelli noticed the Count Philippe de Chagny, a Parisian nobleman and patron of the Opera. He was accompanied by his younger brother,the Viscount Raoul de Chagny, a young blond-haired blue-eyed man with a neatly trimmed moustache, who attracted the attention of women wherever he went. “Count de Chagny! How delightful to see you!” “Madame, what a wonderful evening! As always, your dancing was superb and I must say, I had no idea the Opera had such a great talent as Christine Daae! She sang so beautifully tonight!” When Meg Giry heard this, she hid a frown and muttered, “If only he’d heard her six months ago; she could barely sing a note then!” Meg was close to the truth. Christine Daae had not been well received by the hard-to-please Parisian Opera audience.The death of her father when she was younger had robbed her of her inspiration and her performances lacked their former energy. But recently her voice had developed exquisitely. Tonight, she had stood in for Carlotta, the Spanish diva, who had been taken ill, and she sang like an angel as the lead in the evening’s performance. It did seem strange that someone who was untrained only months ago could now be so gifted. Some would call it unbelievable. What was her secret? Everyone wondered.

The handsome young Viscount Raoul went to Christine's dressing room immediately after the performance. The room was full of people congratulating her on her wonderful singing. She was polite and gracious, a real beauty, with clear blue eyes and smooth white skin. She was laughing and talking with her guests, but when she turned and saw Raoul, she became noticeably uneasy. As their eyes met, Raoul bowed and kissed her hand. “We meet again, Christine. Don’t you remember the little boy you knew so many years ago? Don’t you remember when I ran into the sea to get your scarf for you?” Christine only looked away, as though she hadn’t recognised him, and went on to greet her other admirers. Raoul’s face saddened; he couldn’t have imagined that she might forget him. He desperately wanted to speak to her alone, so he waited outside her dressing room until everyone else had left. Just as he was about to knock on her door, he heard a voice inside - a man’s voice! “Christine, your voice was as sweet as honey tonight!” “I promised to sing only for you and I have. I gave you my soul.” “You have a beautiful soul, my dear, and I am grateful. Be sure you are ready for tomorrow.” “Yes, of course. I’ll be waiting ... ” Raoul’s heart filled with jealousy. Who was this other man? He hid in the passage and waited for him to leave. When the door opened and Christine left alone without locking it behind her, Raoul crept back inside. He could see nothing in the darkness and called out, “Who’s there?” When there was no reply, he persisted. “You won’t leave this room, sir, until you identify yourself!”

Raoul lit the gaslight and looked around, but the room was completely empty! He opened all the wardrobes. He found nothing. There were no windows in the room.The man had vanished into thin air! Hurt by Christine’s rejection and confused by the disappearance of this other man, Raoul finally left the dressing room and the Opera. Riding home in his carriage, the same thought echoed in his head.

The Phantom's Box

T

hat night, despite the tragedy that had been discovered earlier, a costume party was being held in the Grand Foyer to welcome

the new managers of the Opera, Monsieur Moncharmin and Monsieur Richard. All the guests were wearing elaborate costumes and masks for the occasion and enjoying the party, not concerning themselves with other matters. Suddenly, Meg Giry cried out,“Look - the Phantom! That’s him!” All eyes in the room turned to a tall thin shadow of a figure wearing a long red velvet cloak and a large feathered hat. As he turned and faced the other guests, everyone gasped in horror at his terrible face, more horrifying than any mask. It was such an awful sight that everyone present wondered the same thing: was this a costumed guest, or did the so-called Phantom have the nerve to appear before them? Before anyone could speak, the cloaked figure slipped silently out of the room. The next day, Moncharmin and Richard were discussing their new responsibilities, as outlined in a memorandum from the previous managers. “Our predecessors must be mad! Either they think we’re stupid or they’ve got a very strange sense of humour.” Richard was half-smiling as Moncharmin responded, “I don’t believe all this nonsense about a Phantom! Box 5 belongs to the Phantom and must remain vacant at all times? And we mustn’t forget to pay him - or it - 20,000 francs a month or we’ll be sorry!”

The managers quickly decided that their predecessors were indeed mad and that they would not be threatened by some invisible creature. So, they welcomed patrons into Box 5 and, of course, left no money for the mysterious Phantom. Before long, however, they realised they should have paid closer attention to the memorandum of the former managers. One morning, soon after this conversation, Moncharmin arrived to find a strange-looking letter on his desk. It was in childish handwriting in red ink:

Dear A Aoncharm'n and A Richard, This is to inform you that I h woman he would ever love. Erik wept.

Journey o f Terror adly shaken, Raoul and Christine left the Opera. When he had

B

seen Christine safely to her flat, he went home, too weak >

?

i

,

even to undress. He was drained of emotion and simply lay on his bed, trying to make sense of his life. In the dark early morning hours he woke up to see two blazing eyes staring at him through the window. He sat up quickly, pale with fright. /

“Erik! Is that you, you evil beastT Raoul remembered Christine’s words.'He would kill for me’.When the eyes appeared to float towards him, he took a gun he kept under his bed and, trying desperately not to shake, shot straight at them. All his servants ran into the room, but found nothing inside or outside. Raoul went to the window and saw that the bullet had gone right through the glass.Then, he saw blood on the balcony. “Hah! A phantom that bleeds ... less dangerous than one that doesn’t!” Woken by the clatter, and thoroughly distressed, the Count entered Raoul’s room. “Have you gone mad?” “No, but I must find that madman!” “What are you talking about? In the middle of the night?” “You wouldn’t understand.”

^

Raoul spent most of the next day planning his departure with Christine. He prepared a carriage for their escape and left it outside the Opera.They would flee Paris, the Opera and Erik immediately after the performance.

Christine was nervous that night, but was singing superbly, when suddenly the Opera was plunged into darkness. For several minutes, the building was in a state of panic and confusion. When the lamps were relit, the dancers and actors were still on stage but the jvorst that could have happened had happened - Christine had vanished again! Raoul’s heart sank. He stood up as tall as he could, hoping to see her in the crowd, but it was useless. As he hurried from his box, stagehands were trying to understand what had happened. They began to inspect the areas surrounding the stage and one was heard shouting, “Blood! Look, there’s blood over here!” Raoul pushed his way through the crowds of frightened patrons and perform ers, searching for Christine. He knew Erik was responsible for this. He had to act quickly. He raced through the Opera, searching everywhere. Finally, in Christine’s dressing room, he collapsed in her chair. “Oh Christine! Where are you? I can’t take any more!” Tears came to his eyes when he saw the clothes that she had put out to wear that night when they left. Now she was gone again and in his frustration and pain he cried, “Give her back to me, Erik! You beast, you evil creature, give her back!” Suddenly Raoul was aware of someone else’s presence in the room. “Erik is very dangerous,”said a deep, almost familiar voice.“Do not get involved!” Raoul jumped up quickly to see the Persian standing in front of him, but before he could respond, the mysterious visitor slipped out of the room and was gone. Raoul slumped back into Christine’s

chair and, with horror and pain, he saw on the floor in front of him the unthinkable, blood! “Oh, Christine, what has he done to you?” Raoul was not in a condition to think clearly and his senses escaped him as he touched his finger to the blood on the floor, heartbroken and longing for Christine. Under increasing public pressure, Moncharmin and Richard requested the services of the Chief Inspector of Police, Monsieur Mifroid. Christine’s admirers wanted to know what had happened to their beloved soprano and the managers had to prove quickly that they were regaining control of the Opera. Inspector Mifroid was a short stocky man with a bald head and a black moustache. He wore a wrinkled dark grey suit that made him look quite ordinary. He did, however, have a good

^

reputation for solving crimes, and Moncharmin and Richard hoped that he would get to the bottom of this Phantom business. When Raoul heard that the inspector was asking questions about the recent events at the Opera, he decided to speak to him about Christine. “Monsieur Mifroid, please help me. Christine Daae is in danger and I’m afraid something terrible will happen to her. You must v help me find her! She’s been kidnapped by the Angel of Music, \/ but he is actually the Phantom of The Opera! His name is Erik and he lives under the Opera House, in his own secret kingdom.” Mifroid thought the young man was completely mad, but as it was his job to gather all the information he could, he replied, “I see. Do go on.” “Sometimes he’s just a voice without a body and at other times, he appears and then disappears into thin air!”

Mifroid was becoming irritated. “Sir, do you think the police are stupid?” “Of course not! But, you must believe me! I saw him.” The Inspector frowned, doubting the truth of such a tale.Then Raoul told him the story of his journey to Perros and the terrible fright he had in the churchyard. “Very well, sir. Ill take all this into consideration.” The inspector clearly did not believe him and Raoul knew it. If the police would not help him find Christine, he would do it himself. As he ran from the room and flew down the stairs, the Persian appeared out of nowhere, blocking his way. He stared straight at Raoul. “Where do you think you’re going?” “Christine is in great danger and I must find her! I found blood in her dressing room!” The Persian frowned. “Are you sure the blood is hers?” Raoul was finally shaken back into his right mind. “Of course, that’s it! The gunshot! The blood must be Erik’s! Now he’s trying to keep us from leaving Paris tonight. I must find her ... ” “I told you before, Erik is very dangerous. You cannot go after Christine yourself. You don’t know the way and you could be killed.” But when he saw the desperation in Raoul’s eyes, he decided to help the pitiful young man. “Come, I will take you there myself. I warn you, however, if he discovers us, he will kill us both.” The Persian led the way, stopping to collect two pistols and a lantern from a small storeroom.

“Now, take this pistol and hold it high in front of you.” Raoul did as he was told.Then, to his surprise, the Persian led him back to Christine’s dressing room. He climbed onto a chair, searching for something high on the wall. “There’s a switch somewhere that opens this mirror. It’s a door that leads to an underground passage. It will take us to the lake near his house. Here, I’ve found it!” the Persian said, pressing a button. The mirror began to turn. Raoul now understood what had happened when he saw Christine disappear there before. “Quickly, this way,” said the Persian, and they entered the dim passageway that led to the secret world of the Phantom. The lantern gave off a faint ray of light above their heads, making the Persian’s face look almost ghostly. He came close to Raoul and whispered, “Follow me and do exactly as I say.” In the gloomy light, they made their way through the narrow passages of the cellars. Suddenly, they thought they heard som eone coming. The Persian quickly covered the lantern. “Quickly! Hold your pistol in front of you!” They waited, hardly breathing, but saw nothing. The underground cellars were full of sudden noises to startle an unsuspecting visitor. They were also full of things that seemed to come out of nowhere. Just then Raoul tripped over one of them. To his horror, it was a body! The Persian lowered his lantern to the floor and they could see the feet, and then the face, of some poor victim who had doubtlessly met with Erik’s displeasure.

A closer look revealed that the body belonged to M Fournier, one of the gas men. When a nudge from the Persian’s foot produced no living response, the two men made their way quickly around a corner, relieved to find the next passageway clear. As they crept deeper into the cellars, Raoul became more and ,>

i '

more anxious. Even the Persian was uneasy as they approached the lake. Once they had reached the fifth cellar, they were confronted by a new horror: a face of fire floated towards them, at the height of a man’s head, with no body attached to it! Terror-stricken, they fled through the passageway, but the burning face followed them, coming closer and closer. Then they became aware of a sound so awful it sent shivers through them from head to toe. A horrible sound like claws scratching across a blackboard seemed to move with the face, and continued to chase them until it was upon them. Raoul and the Persian flattened themselves against the wall, waiting for a dreadful end to follow. The unbearable scratching and scraping became little rushes of sound that scampered over their feet and up their legs - rats! “I’m the rat catcher,”the face of fire said matter-of-factly.“Kindly let me pass.” He rushed on, just doing his job, holding his lantern so closely in front of his face that its fire had distorted his features and blocked the rest of his body from view. Raoul and the Persian slumped against the wall, shaking with fright. It was several minutes before they could regain enough courage to continue.

Erik's Story “ A re we close to Erik’s house yet?” Raoul asked. “Yes, but we / i m u s t find the wall on this side of the water that forms part of his house. Erik created many false entrances and exits down

J

here so that he can move about unseen or disappear in an instant. As I recall, we can get in through one of them from over there.” They continued on, feeling around in the near dark for the wall. Eventually, the Persian pressed a stone sticking out from the wall - that was it! A small door slid open in the wall and they crawled through to the other side, making their way slowly and cautiously. Finally, they reached a trapdoor in the floor. The Persian opened it carefully and shone his lantern into the darkness below. “Well have to jump down here. It’s not too deep. I’ll go first. Here, take the lantern.” Raoul heard a loud thud as the Persian landed on the floor. He passed the lantern to him, then dropped down himself. When the Persian shone the light around the room they discovered that the walls of the room were full of mirrors - hundreds and hundreds of mirrors! Raoul was dazzled by the display of flickering lights and images the mirrors created. “Where are we?” “This looks like one of his torture chambers,”the Persian said. Raoul shuddered. “What do you mean?” “Erik knows a lot about architecture and he actually helped build this Opera House. At the same time, he created this underground world for himself. I recognise his work, especially the trapdoors.”