Into the Shadows

Introduction

You may recall the strange affair of the Phantom of the Opera. The mystery of the Opera Populaire. A mystery, never fully explained. A fallen chandelier. Two murders. An opera house engulfed in flames. Many have told the story. It has been retold throughout the years, since that fateful night. The story has changed. Villains become heroes and heroes are forgotten. But not all accounts have been told. Perhaps another retelling of the story, many claim to know so well, will frighten away the ghost of many years ago.

Let us start by clearing up the facts. Signora Guidicelli, the Opera Populaire Prima Donna, before Christine Daae came into the picture, was in fact Italian. Signora Guidicelli was married to the late Ubaldo Piangi. When she joined the Opera Populaire, she brought her young sister, danger Marie. Guidicelli was only sixteen at the time of the unfortunate events at the opera house. While Signora Guidicelli spoke broken French, her Italian getting the best of her, Marie spoke little to no French. Madam Teresa Giry, a widow and the mother of young Meg Giry, helped to teach Marie the language of her new home. Madame Giry played mother to Marie and most of the other dancers, including Miss Christine Daae. Christine was the daughter of a famous Swedish violinist.

Some claim the Opera Ghost never existed. They say it was just a story that the Opera Populaire owners created. But how can two imbeciles create such a fictional phenomenon? Andre and Firmin did not have the capacity to imagine such fiction. The infamous Phantom was not a creature of imagination. He was not a superstition. He was not a product of absurd, impressionable brains of Paris. Erik was as real as the artist of the opera house. As real as the managers. As real as the young dancers. The box-keepers. As real as the opera house, itself. he existed in flesh and blood. The Phantom of the Opera was not a phantom at all. He was a man, yet he haunted the opera house for many years.

The only documentation of the events at the Opera Populaire, is held at the National Academy of Music. The events of the Opera Populaire include the tragic death of Joseph Bouquet, a stagehand, and Ubaldo Piangi, the opera house's leading man. There were no casualties of the fire, fortunately. Vicomte Philippe de Chagny is the only person to have witnessed it all. He had joined his brother, the young Raoul de Chagny, that fateful night. Phillippe went missing for three days following the fire. Everyone believed him dead. The day of Ubaldo Piangi's funeral, the Vicomte was found on the band of the lake that exists in the lower cellars of the opera house on the Rue-Scribe side. Philippe cannot remember what happened. He thought it was the morning after the fire. With the belief that the Phantom was dead, Paris returned to the humdrum, as if the Phantom never existed. But no one ever dared forget.