The Untold Story of the Phantom of the Opera

The Angel of Music

Meg and I changed into our slave-costumes in the Hannibal production at the same time in the ballerinas dressing room; it didn't take long before we were done.
"Come on Christine, we need to go now!" Meg said while running fairly out of the door. I followed her excitedly. It was so exciting on every opening night, it gave us, the performers, the chance to show what we were capable of.
"I'm coming Meg!" I laughed at her on the staircase; at the end of the staircase she chalked her ballerinas-shoes, I did the same. From the busy backstage we clearly heard Carlotta warming up on the stage along with the maestro and orchestra. Meg and I looked at each other while trying not to laugh at the over dramatic warm-up. Madame Giry, Meg's mother and my guardian, signalled all the ballerinas that we had to go on staged now, for the last rehearsal before tonight.

It went perfectly! Meg and I smiled at each other, when the rehearsal was over we went downstairs beneath the stage to chalk our ballerina shoes once more.
"Dear God, can't she hear her own sharp voice?" Meg giggled.
"I don't think so, my ears were nearly bleeding!" Meg laughed a bit harder, but then she controlled herself. Before we went upstairs again I thought I saw something in the dark corners, something white and softly shaped, but after a blink, it was gone, surely it was nothing.
"Christine, come on!" I heard Meg shout.

We entered the stage once again, apparently the manager were talking to the crowd and by his side two men, a tall and a short, listened intensively to him. The next second another, young, handsome man turned up. A man whom I recognised. "It's Raoul!" I said quietly, remembering the summers I'd spent with this now very handsome man.
I felt Meg's hand grab my arm, "Christine, he's so handsome!"
"I wonder what he's doing here."
"What do you know him?"
I nodded "From my childhood, when my father was still alive." The memory, of my scarf floating through the air and into the water and a boy fetching the scarf for me, was a mixture of delight and sadness. My father had been dead for a long time now, but now Le Vicomte was back in her life it also felt like a reuniting.
We heard him say sorry for interrupting the last rehearsals and right after he left the stage.
"He'd probably forgotten all about me."

Seconds later we, the ballerinas, rehearsed while Madame Giry was talking with the two new men. We twirled and twirled. Suddenly we all heard the two men begging Carlotta for a sneak peek of the play's aria.
"If my diva commands it-" Monsieur Reyer squeaked.
"Yes, I do!" Carlotta said, harshly and the maestro disappeared down to the orchestra. She began to silence the dancers and actors and them she started to sing the aria from the third act. The second she started to sing Meg and I made faces. We grinned at each other of Carlotta's thick Italian accent, we nearly laughed as she became one with her part and tried to seduce the tall man with her scarf, but in the same instant people started screaming, and the moment after Carlotta was buried under the stage-curtain!
"He's here, the Phantom of the Opera!" Various performers screamed and muttered. Of course it was him, who else would do this? I thought.
The two men stood back in amazement and confusion, had they not heard of the phantom who lurks in the Opera Populaire? They tried their best to calm down every one on the stage, but with no luck, Carlotta started to yell at them, and that she would not be a part of anymore ghost interference. I presume she was cursing in Italian as she left the stage with her arms over her head.
Now it was the two mens' time to look worried, as they didn't have any soprano left to sing the part.
Meg once again took my arm. She was shaking.
"I have a note from the Phantom-" Madame Giry smirked. "He welcomes you to his opera, Monsieur André and Monsieur Firmin," so that were their names, "and asks you to continue to leave box 5 empty!" she pointed at the box on the left side of the stage.
"Who the hell is he? What does he mean, by his Opera-house?"
"Never mind that, who is will sing instead of Carlotta, if she's not coming back!" Monsieur André asked the short, and apparently one of the new managers, Monsieur Firmin. "Isn't there an understudy?"
"There is no understudy for Carlotta!" Squeaked Reyer again.
"Christine Daaé can sing it." Madam Giry said my name firmly and pushed me forward. I could feel a lump of ice take form in my stomach. The tall Monsieur André started laughing.
"A chorus girl, Madame that won't do!"
"She's been well taught, she can do it Monsieur."