Madame Giry comes to Raoul’s aid and offers him wise counsel. Raoul’s devotion to Christine extends beyond death. In an act of mercy and selfless love, the Phantom releases Christine to share her life with Raoul. Raoul spares the Phantom’s life during a sword fight. To save Raoul, Christine is willing to sacrifice her own happiness. Also, he represents that part of us we’d be ashamed for others to see-the part that tempts us to put on a “mask” or retreat from society.Ĭhristine models unconditional love, showing sympathy and compassion for the Phantom, never recoiling at his disfigurement. The Phantom cares deeply for Christine and wants to see her succeed, making him sympathetic at first, if creepy and misguided. In a flashback, a caring young Madame Giry helps a tormented boy escape a gypsy freak show and leads him to a place of refuge. The more the Phantom’s plans are threatened, the more vicious he becomes. She is also reunited with childhood sweetheart Raoul, a wealthy theatergoer who holds the key to her heart, but must break the Phantom’s spell if the couple hopes to live happily ever after. When Carlotta storms out on a production mid-rehearsal, Christine gets the call and becomes an overnight sensation.
We learn that Christine is still having a hard time coping with the death of her father, a renowned violinist who promised her, “When I am in heaven I will send the angel of music to you.” Christine assumes that the Phantom is that enchanted angel, an elusive tutor who has been using dreamlike encounters to prepare her for stardom. Only ballet instructor Madame Giry knows the secrets behind the Phantom, and shares them sparingly. Cast off as a freak at an early age, this masked mad genius has created a subterranean home beneath the theater and taken an obsessive interest in the lovely, golden-throated orphan Christine. But another, more shadowy figure dictates policy and procedure at the opera house with an even tighter fist: The Phantom. The men, feeling their way in this new venture, find themselves at the mercy of reigning diva Carlotta, a narcissistic, temperamental Italian soprano used to getting her way.
Innocent young Christine Daae is a talented chorus girl with a Paris opera company that has just been bought by naïve scrap metal magnates Andre and Firmin. But this long-awaited feature is the first based on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tony Award-winning musical, which is less a horror film than a haunting tale of obsession, jealousy and unrequited love. There have been numerous big-screen adaptations of The Phantom of the Opera over the years, from Lon Chaney’s classic 1925 horror film to a 1989 version starring Robert Englund (aka Freddy Kruger) as the hideously scarred aria lover.
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