Opera Garnier, Paris

Where better for the plot of a musical to be conceived than in an opera house?

Andrew Lloyd Webber's long-running show "The Phantom of the Opera" has dominated Broadway for almost 25 years. Aficionados of this musical will know that the Paris Opera House is the setting for a story about a disfigured genius called Erik who lurks in the bowels of the building and who falls in love with Christine, a member of the chorus. Erik tries to force Christine into marrying him and threatens to destroy the entire opera house with explosives planted in the cellars if this demand is not met.

The idea for this plot was sparked during the construction of the Opera Garnier, also known as the Palais Garnier, started in Paris in 1861. The architect, Charles Garnier, was presented with a building site which was faced with various problems. The ground on which the concrete foundation was due to be built was rather swampy and under it was a subterranean lake. It was necessary for the water to be pumped out over a period of eight months. On top of this, in 1896, the grand chandelier dropped, killing one person. It is out of these inauspicious beginnings that "The Phantom of the Opera" emerged.

Gaston Laroux first published his original novel in serialised form in 1909. The dark character of Erik in the story had been a member of the construction crew when the opera house was built. He had built himself an underground world, including a torture chamber, and had been extorting money from the opera management for years.

During the period that the Opera Garnier was home to the Paris Opera, from 1875 and 1989, and beyond, any other fiction that the building has been subject to has been restricted to the stage.