Bassett Jennifer - The Phantom of the Opera (18 str).pdf

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The Phantom
The Phantom
of the
Opera
Jennifer Bassett
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
THE OPERA HOUSE IN PARIS is a very famous and beautiful
building. It is the biggest Opera House in the world. Work on the
building began in 1861, finished in 1875, and cost forty-seven mil-
lions francs.
It has seventeen floors, ten above the ground and seven under the
ground. Behind and under the stage, there are stairs and passages and
many, many rooms – dressing-rooms for the singers and the danc-
ers, rooms for the stage workers, the opera dresses and shoes... There
are more than 2,500 doors in the building. You can walk for hours
and never see daylight, under the Paris Opera House.
And the Opera House has a ghost, a phantom, a man in black
clothes. He is a body without a head, or a head without a body. He
has a yellow face, he has no nose, he has black holes for eyes...
This is the true story of the Phantom of the Opera. It begins one
day in 1880, in the dancers' dressing room...
1
The dancers
‘Quick! Quick! Close the door! It’s him!’ Annie Sorelli ran into the
dressing room, her face white.
One of the girls ran and closed the door, and then they all turned
to Annie Sorelli.
‘Who? Where? What’s the matter?’ they cried.
‘It’s the ghost!’ Annie said. ‘In the passage. I saw him. He came
through the wall in the front of me! And ... and I saw his face!’
Most of the girls were afraid, but one of them, a tall girl with
black hair, laughed.
‘Pooh!’ she said. ‘Everybody says they see the Opera ghost, but
there isn’t really a ghost. You saw a shadow on the wall.’ But she
did not open the door, or look into the passage.
‘Lots of people see him,’ a second girl said. ‘Joseph Buquet saw
him two days ago. Don’t you remember?’
Then all the girls began to talk at once.
‘Joseph says the ghost is tall and he wears a black evening coat.’
‘He has the head of a dead man, with a yellow face and no
nose...’
‘... And no eyes – only black holes!’
Then little Meg Giry spoke for the first time. ‘Don’t talk about
him. He doesn’t like it. My mother told me.’
‘Your mother?’ the girl with black hair said. ‘What does your
mother know about the ghost?’
‘She says that Joseph Buquet is a fool. The ghost doesn’t like
people talking about him and one day Joseph Buquet is going to be
sorry, very sorry.’
‘But what does your mother know? Tell us, tell us!’ all the girls
cried.
‘Oh dear!’ said Meg. ‘But please don’t say a word to anyone.
You know my mother is the doorkeeper for some of the boxes in the
Opera House. Well, Box 5 is the ghost’s box! He watches the operas
from that box, and sometimes he leaves flowers for my mother!’
‘The ghost has a box! And leaves flowers in it!’
‘Oh, Meg, your mother’s telling you stories! How can the ghost
have a box?’
‘It’s true, it’s true, I tell you!’ said Meg. ‘Nobody buys tickets for
Box 5, but the ghost always comes to it on opera nights.’
‘So somebody does come there?’
‘Why, no! ... The ghost comes, but there is nobody there.’
The dancers looked at Meg. ‘But how does your mother know?’
one of them asked.
‘There’s no man in a black evening coat, with a yellow face.
That’s all wrong. My mother never sees the ghost in Box 5, but she
hears him! He talks to her, but there is nobody there! And he doesn’t
like people talking about him!’
But that evening the dancers could not stop talking about the
Opera ghost. They talked before the opera, all through the opera and
after the opera. But they talked very quietly and they looked behind
them before they spoke.
When then opera finished, the girls went back to their dressing
room. Suddenly, they heard somebody in the passage, and Madame
Giry, Meg’s mother, ran into the room. She was a fat, motherly
woman, with a red, happy face. But tonight her face was white.
‘Oh girls,’ she cried. ‘Joseph Buquet is dead! You know he
works a long way down, on the fourth floor under the stage. The
other stage workers found his dead body there an hour ago – with
a rope around his neck!’
‘It’s ghost!’ cried Meg Giry. ‘The ghost killed him!’
2
The directors of the Opera House
The Opera House was famous and the directors of the Opera House
were very important men. It was the first week of work for the two
new directors, Monsieur Armand Moncharmin and Monsieur Firmin
Richard. In the directors’ office the next day, the two men talked
about Joseph Buquet.
‘It was an accident,’ Monsieur Armand said angrily. ‘Or Buquet
killed himself.’
‘An accident? ... Killed himself? Monsieur Firmin said. ‘Which
story do you want, my friend? Or do you want the story of the
ghost?’
‘Don’t talk to me about ghosts!’ Monsieur Armand said. ‘We
have 1,500 people working for us in this Opera House and every-
body is talking about the ghost. They’re all mad! I don’t want to hear
about the ghost, OK?
Monsieur Firmin looked at a letter on the table next to him. ‘And
what are we going to do about this letter, Armand?’
‘Do?’ cried Monsieur Armand. ‘Why, do nothing, of course!
What can we do?’
The two men read the letter again. It wasn’t very long.
To the new directors
Because you are new in the Opera House, I am writing to tell
you some important things. Never sell tickets for Box 5; that is my
box for every opera night. Madame Giry, the doorkeeper, knows all
about it. Also, I need money for my work in the Opera House. I am
not expensive and I am happy to take only 20,000 francs a month.
That is all. But please remember, I can be a good friend, but a bad
enemy.
O.G.
‘Don’t see tickets for Box 5! 20,000 francs a month!’ Monsieur
Armand was very angry again. ‘That’s the best box in the Opera
House and we need the money, Firmin! And who is this O.G., eh?
Tell me that!’
‘Opera ghost, of course,’ Monsieur Firmin said. ‘But you’re
right, Armand. We can do nothing about this letter. It’s a joke, a bad
joke. Somebody thinks we are fools, because are new here. There are
no ghosts in the Opera House!’
The two men then talked about the opera for that night. It was
Faust and usually La Carlotta sang Margarita. La Carlotta was
Spanish and the best singer in Paris. But today, La Carlotta was ill.
‘Everybody in Paris is going to be at the opera tonight,’ said
Monsieur Armand, ‘and our best singer is ill. Suddenly! She writes
a letter to us just this morning – she is ill, she cannot sing tonight!’
‘Don’t get angry again, Armand,’ Monsieur Firmin said quickly.
‘We have Christine Daaé, that young singer from Norway. She can
sing Margarita tonight. She has a good voice.’
‘But she’s so young and nobody knows her! Nobody wants to
listen to a new singer.’
‘Wait and see. Perhaps Daaé can sing better than La Carlotta.
Who knows?’
3
Christine Daaé
Monsieur Firmin was right. All Paris talked about the new Margarita
in Faust, the girl with the beautiful voice, the girl with the voice of
an angel. People loved her. They laughed and cried and called for
more. Daaé was wonderful, the best singer in the world.

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