Erik: Is he for real?!?!?!.......

Do you think The Phantom of The Opera is a true story?
Why or why not?
MUST PRESENT EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT YOUR THEORY!!!!!!!!!!


HAVE FUN WITH THIS ONE

Well I can't type the whole prologe for you, and I can't guarantee that Gaston Leroux was telling the truth when he said that the Opera Ghost actually existed but I will say, I belive that it could have happened, it wasn't mythical, and it wasn't fantasy... it could have really happened.
As for proof... I'm not sure where to find proof. I did however just finish a book called Unmasked. Which the author states in a prologe, that she based her story on a journal that belonged to Christine Daae... But I'm not sure if even that was true.....
Wow i think i may have rambled a bit there...haha

I think the best evidence is Leroux himself. I've heard tons of times the prologue could be fake, Leroux was supposedly insisting Erik was real and begging his family members to believe him. Too bad you can hardly trust anyone on the internet

i too believe it could have happened.
the plologue leroux wrote, telling us that erik existed, couldn`t have been all for nothing? could it?
and if he begged his family to believe him is rather convincing,at least i think so.

and the elephant man was a real person,and he was deformed too,so why not erik?
(at least everything i`ve read about the elephant man, talks about him as if he were real)

I really was hoping this thread would not be like some I've seen. If the originator is requesting evidence, then we cannot have speculation. There cannot be any "I think or I believe" posts.

In this thread hard evidence of the existence of the de Chagny family, genealogy, Christine and her family, etc. must be presented to support Erik's existance.

I don't want to have to lock this topic. Therefore if you have real evidence, present it here. All guesses should be in another thread.

Thank you.

Christine Daae was based off Swedish soprano Christine Nilsson (keep in mind Leroux changed the names) I have included a link about her here:
http://www.picturehistory.com/product/id/10955

There was a Phillip deChagny, you can find him on ancestory.com if you have a membership. Everrything about the opera house is true; the lake, the chandelier crash, and there is a statue of la carlotta there.

snowmocccasin, this is the beginning of some hard evidence to support Erik's existance.

Not everyone has membership in Ancestry.com. Therefore, could you copy and paste some of the information here? Perhaps a family tree.

As for La Carlotta, where did you hear that a statue of her stood at the opera house? Is there a photo online? Can you get us a link to it or the text?

I believe we all know an underground lake runs beneath the building.

From what I heard, the chandelier didn't crash it was one of its counterweights.

As for Christine Nilsson let's see if I can make this a link:

http://www.picturehistory.com/product/id/10955


Thank you for this and please see if you can go into more detail as requested above.

hey snowmoccasin! good to see you again(we're friends in real life)
sorry bout that guys because people keep pming me about it
I am 100% sure that Erik and the whole Phantom leagend is true.
fact1: According to Leroux this all happened in 1885, the Opera Garnear(sp) has reccords of all its years of business sence it opened, well one of those is missing and guess what year it is!
fact2: the french govnt. (to those on here who are French I apologize in advance for any offence uyou take to this post) has raided the cellars of the Opera and hidden all Phantom existance supporting finds in a govnt facility some of these enclude:
peices of wood that when assembled made a complete mask sized to cover the entire face of an adult man, a box containing sheet music(could this be the famous Don Jaun Triumphant ?) and a skeleton that had a skull formation characteristic of the desease Porphyria Cutanea what Erik was believed to have.
EW here is what someone thinks erik looked like http://tn3-2.deviantart.com/300W/fs7.deviantart.com/i/2005/255/d/a/Erik__A_Portrait_by_DernWraithslayer.jpg

fact3:snowmoccasin sent me this: http://www.ladyghost.com/Opera_Hall.html probably the best Phantom proof site out there!
~Phantomess of Florida

The picture would probably be better if it wasn't clearly photoshopped (badly I might add)! Unfortunatly, my laptop will not allow me to copy information from ancestry.com so you will have to wait until I can find the time to go out and buy a decent mouse for it. The whole la Carlota statue thing turned out to be a spoof on a different phantom discussion site, so we'll have to leave that out of our findings Yes, there is a disease known as Porphyria Cutanea that can cause disfigurment to the face, though Erik could have just been deformed and may not have had a disease.
http://www.emedicine.com/DERM/topic344.htm
The chandelier did crash, there is quite a bit of information about it online (though I have found you can hardly trust anything) http://www.ladyghost.com/chandelier.html

This is the website BlackMaskWhiteMask
posted, I have reason to beleive the events aren't true as they seem to be well-researched and follow Leroux.


sorry for my spelling errors but I am too tired to correct them

Okay, now we're getting somewhere.

snowmoccasin wrote:
This is the website BlackMaskWhiteMask
posted, I have reason to beleive the events aren't true as they seem to be well-researched and follow Leroux.

Where is the link to the website? Am I missing something?


BlackMaskWhiteMask wrote: fact1: According to Leroux this all happened in
1885, the Opera Garnear(sp) has reccords of all its years of business
sence it opened, well one of those is missing and guess what year it
is!

fact2: the french govnt. (to those on here who are French I
apologize in advance for any offence uyou take to this post) has raided
the cellars of the Opera and hidden all Phantom existance supporting
finds in a govnt facility some of these include:
peices of wood that
when assembled made a complete mask sized to cover the entire face of
an adult man, a box containing sheet music(could this be the famous Don Jaun Triumphant ?) and a skeleton that had a skull formation characteristic of the desease Porphyria Cutanea what Erik was believed to have. EW here is what someone thinks erik looked like.

Where did you find these facts?

Good job!

Thank you to all!

Sorry, I guess it was accidentally deleted when i was editing my post


www.ladyghost.com

It's really neat if you enter the "real facts" I have fun browsing around there on rainy days.


There is a library in the Opera Garnier which houses encyclopedias on every year since the opera house was built. Strangely enough, the only year missing is 1886 which is the year the chandelier fell and Mrs. Daae was kidnapped. It's really interesting, I wish I had the money to go to Paris and explore the 5th cellar... I probably wouldn't find anything, but the experience would be nice.


** it happened in 1886 right? I'm too lazy to find my decent copy of the book and look for dates

Is the library in the Garnier listed on ladyghost's site? I know POTO lovers refer to her site a lot. Is this where it mentions the missing year of 1886? I don't recall any years mentioned in the original novel. Leroux said don't go back any further than 30 years. This would depend upon his starting point. 1909 or 1910? Whenever he started the book.

When Carrie Hernandez had her site up, it said the counterweight fell not the chanderlier.

I want to follow this trail of clues to the Paris Opera as well. I really would like to know the truth!

wow this is really interesting. i wish i was as clever to find facts as you guys

It's really irritating me that we can hardly find anything! Though I guess if it were easy, everyone would know about Erik and have no doubt of his existence. I feel the only way we can get hard-core evidence is go to Paris visit the Opera Garnier ourselves. I hope to be there by this time next year, but we'll just have to see what happens.

BlackMaskWhiteMask wrote:

EW here is what someone thinks erik looked like http://tn3-2.deviantart.com/300W/fs7.deviantart.com/i/2005/255/d/a/Erik__A_Portrait_by_DernWraithslayer.jpg
~Phantomess of Florida

Thankyou for scaring the hell out of me.

I'm was half asleep when I clicked that link and wasn't even sure what I was clicking. Well, that picture woke me up. lol. Right now I'm looking at it again and it's so fake I don't know why it scared me. lol.

As for Erik actually existing at one time I say no. I don't think a man descrbed by Leroux (corpse like, yellow eyes, smelling of death, etc) ever existed. Was there someone deformed working in/hung around the opera house? Maybe. Did he live underneath the opera house? Maybe but most likely not. Did he fall in love with Christine Nilsson and kidnap her? Highly doubt it.

I think Leroux just looked at real people and made fictional characters based on them. He then created the story. But I am pretty sure the story never actually happened. Leroux said it was real because it makes the story more interesting. But that's just my opinion.

AngelicRose we all love and appreciate you, but you are giving an opinion. Not proof of Erik's existance. However, there is another thread for that. It's called Fiction or Non-Fiction - Does it change the story for you? https://erikofmusic.forumakers.com/original-novel-f1/fiction-or-non-fiction-does-it-change-the-story-for-you-t71.htm

You may put your opinion and speculations there.

Thank you.

lol. Another mistake by me. I'm rather reckless and I tend to skim over posts before posting myself. My bad

And the original post is in big bold letters. Now I really feel silly.

Don't feel silly. Just wanted to direct you to the area for speculation. I do the same thing. I'll post to a thread before reading the original post.

Live long and prosper!

The following are dates and events in chronological order which support the authenticity of Erik or the
novel. Please review and let's discuss.

**********

1821 – First presentation at the Opera Peletier.

1834 – George du Maurier is born;

Some interesting facts about du Maurier: scripts revealing some split personality, wanted to sing Opera like his father but couldn’t, lost sight of his left eye.

1856 – George du Maurier returns to Paris, after being abroad for about 5 years;

1862 – First stone of the Opera Garnier;

1868 – Leroux is born;

1871 – Executions of the communards take place in the Opera Garnier, still in construction, where they took refuge (in this site you find a reference to a skeleton being found, and as being that of one of the communards. However, I still have no historical reference to the finding of such a skeleton, although since the story of Leroux appears to be an elaborate sewing of real facts not necessarily linked in time, I believe a skeleton might have been - http://www.histoire-en-ligne.com/spip ... 115&artsuite=3#sommaire_1);

1873 – Opera Peletier is destroyed in a huge fire;
The Paris Opéra has undergone several changes of names and locations since the 1790s: it has been called successively Théâtre de l’Opéra, Théâtre des Arts, Académie Impériale de Musique, and Académie Royale de Musique, and has occupied several venues: Théâtre de la Porte-St-Martin, Théâtre Montansier, the first Salle Favart, the Théâtre Louvois, Le Peletier, Palais Garnier, and the Opéra Bastille.

The Paris Opéra aka Le Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique (the Opéra), known as Le Peletier. It was built in twelve months in the Rue Le Peletier by the architect Debret and opened in 1821; on 6 February 1822 gas used for the first time to light up stage effects in Aladin ou La Lampe merveilleuse. Fifty years later it was destroyed by a fire which raged for 24 hours on 28-29 October 1873. The ruins were demolished and the ground was sold in 14 lots. The opera house was replaced by the Opéra Garnier.

1875 – The Opera Garnier is inaugurated;

1894 – Trilby, by George du Maurier (becomes a best-seller);

Trilby - An artist falls for a model named Little Billee and wants to marry her. Her mother advises her to leave or she will bring dishonor to him (in those days models and prostitutes were considered the same). Trilby leaves because she loves him. Years later the artist attends the concert of a famous singer, La Svengali, who is married to Svengali, and finds out that this wonderful singer is none other than Trilby... but her eyes look empty. She has been hypnotized by Svengali and now exists as an empty shell. Svengali dies from a heart attack, Trilby “awakens” and finds herself unable to sing and dies shortly after Svengali, the same happens to Little Billee.


1896 – Chandelier falls in the Opera Garnier;

1907 – Leroux leaves journalism (Wikipedia) / Leroux places the finding of the bones in the Opera House in this date, because of the real event of the time capsule (about the recordings sealed in it, please read http://www.francetoday.com/features/phantoms.php);

1910 – Leroux writes Le Fantôme de l’Opéra;

1925 – Carl Laemmle releases silent film “The Phantom of the Opera” starring Lon Chaney.

1927 – Leroux dies.

I'ved updated my web with new info from my personal investigation: the proof of the chandelier falling in 1896.
http://www.ladyghost.com/chandelier.html
Enjoy!
Ladyghost.

Thank you ladyghost. Some of the text merged with the pictures which made it difficult to read, otherwise good info.

I heard it was a counterweight. Guess that was heresay.

I pm'd Nichol. This looks like proof of Erik's
existance and should be merged with Erik: Is he for real?!?!?!......

Let's see what she says.

Oh, it's true! Can you change the post to that place?
Ladyghost.

Okay, I moved to Erik: is he for real?!?!

This adds more validity to the existance of Erik.

Yay for ladyghost!

Thank you!!!
Ladyghost.

Yay!!! Validity to the existance of Erik!