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Nearly 100 years later, closer to home for
Leroux, was a tragedy at the Paris Opera.
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On May 20 1896,
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the first act of Hellé was ending.
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The singer, Madame Caron, was
about to perform an encore of her aria
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when there was a flash of light
and a cloud of smoke over the auditorium.
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The singers held their places on stage
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as the audience in the gallery
stumbled and bolted,
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women having to be prevented from
jumping from the tiers.
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The orchestra and stalls members
had no idea that something was amiss.
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Only about six people
were slightly hurt in the stampede,
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and all seemed well
until a bloodied girl appeared,
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crying that her mother was buried
in wreckage on the fourth tier.
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It transpired that
an electric cable had caught fire,
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melting a steel hawser attached
to one of the chandelier's counterweights.
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The 770-kilo weight -
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nearly 350 pounds -
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had dropped directly on
the 50-year-old woman, a concierge,
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instantly killing her
and horribly mutilating her body.
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Like any good novelist who had been
a journalist, Leroux used facts.
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He had the chandelier fall on a concierge
in his novel, The Phantom of the Opera,
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only he made her the newly hired keeper
of the phantom's Box Five,
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who was attending the opera
for the very first time.
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Box Five is traditionally one of the most
expensive seating areas at the opera.
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In the 19th century, a subscriber
would have paid 25,200 francs a year
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in order to attend and watch
from the box three times a week.
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Modern visitors report
that the plaque on Box Five,
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if not different every time they return,
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is often missing-an Easter-egg-hunt
souvenir of modern scavengers,
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inspired by the success
of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.
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Leroux drew on
his knowledge of the real world,
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and it is still being debated today
whether the tale of the opera ghost