The Phantom of the Opera (Characters)

Characters

Joseph Buquet

Joseph is a stagehand who has seen the phantom in the opera house's third basement. He is found hanged in the cellar, but when people go to retrieve his body, the rope is missing. Later in the book, the Persian guesses that the phantom killed Buquet with a device called the Punjab lasso.

Carlotta

Carlotta is the opera's female lead, for whom Christine Daaé is an understudy. Carlotta is a technically accomplished singer but does not sing with soul. The phantom threatens her if she goes onstage as Marguerite in Faust, but she refuses to be intimidated; as a result, the sound of a croaking frog comes out when she sings.

Christine Daaé

Christine in Sweden was raised by her father, a traveling violinist. As he was dying, he explained to her that he would remain with her and guide her through the Spirit of Music. As a young singer with the Paris Opera, Christine heard Erik speaking to her from behind a wall; she asked if he were the spirit that her father had told her about, and for a while he said that he was. He taught her to sing well, so that, given her first chance for public attention, she sings so beautifully that much of Parisian society takes notice of her. That night, though, she runs into Raoul de Chagny, whom she met and fell in love with as a child; her love for Raoul makes Erik jealous, who does what he can to make her his. He promises her the freedom to leave him but then, unable to let her go, kidnaps her and gives her a short time to consent to marry him before killing her. She tries unsuccessfully to fool him into thinking that she will love him, but he is still moved by her love for Raoul enough to let them leave.

Philippe de Chagny

Forty-one-year-old Count de Chagny, whose given name is Phillippe-Georges-Marie, is the oldest of his family and since the deaths of his parents has been responsible for one of the oldest families in Europe, which includes his brother Raoul, who is almost half his age. He disapproves of his brother's romance with Christine Daaé, so that when she disappears from the opera stage Count de Chagny is a primary suspect. Later, he is found drowned in the lake that protects the phantom's house from the outside world, but the phantom denies any responsibility for his death, saying that Philippe fell out of his boat by accident even before any of the lake's traps could get to him.

Raoul de Chagny

As the youngest member of the prestigious de Chagny family, Raoul has been raised by a sister and old aunt. At the time of the novel he is twenty years old and scheduled to go into the navy and, while waiting for his orders, is spending a few weeks in Paris with his brother Phillippe. He sees Christine Daaé on the stage of the opera and remembers her as the little girl whom he met and fell in love with years earlier, when her scarf blew into the water and he dove in to retrieve it. He can tell that Christine loves him, too, but she tries to send him away frequently, worried that Erik, the phantom, will hurt him. He and Christine agree to a secret engagement, but when their engagement becomes publicized the phantom abducts Christine. The novel's last chapters are about how Raoul, with the help of the stranger known as the Persian, infiltrates the phantom's hidden underground house in an attempt to free Christine. They fail, and Raoul is in danger of drowning before the phantom has a change of heart and agrees to let Christine leave with him, even though it breaks his heart and he dies as a result.

Monsieur Debienne

With Monsieur Poligny, Debienne is one of the directors of the Paris Opera who is retiring in the opening chapters of the novel.

Erik

Erik is the name that the phantom of the Opera has taken for himself; his real name is never revealed in the book. He was born deformed, and it was his mother, whom Eric refers to several times, who gave him his first mask. He was born in a little town near Rouen but ran away as a young man, sometimes exhibiting his gruesome looks at country fairs under the title of the living dead man. As a performer, he learned to become proficient as a musician, a magician, and as a ventriloquist. Summoned by a shah to Persia, he designed a palace with hidden panels and trap doors. The shah ordered him executed, to keep the palace's secrets unknown, but the Persian helped Erik escape.

In Paris, Erik was part of the construction team that helped Charles Garnier build the Paris opera house. Because he knows where the secret passageways are, he is able to move about the opera house without being seen. Because he is proficient in ventriloquism, he is able to speak from hidden places and to make people think that his voice is coming from the empty air beside them. And he uses his musical skill to compose a masterful violin opus, Don Juan Triumphant, which he has worked on for decades in his home in the opera house's cellars.

As the phantom, Erik demands that the managers of the opera give him an annual stipend and a private box. Erik falls in love with Christine when he meets her. For a while, he pretends to be the Spirit of Music that her father once told her about, and he trains her to become a great singer. When he is unable to make her love him, though, he becomes insane. He kidnaps her and eventually threatens to blow up a quarter of the town with all of the gunpowder he has hidden beneath the opera house. In the end, though, his heart is softened by her promise to love him, and he lets Christine and Raoul go free to marry each other. When he last appears in the novel, it is to tell the Persian that he is dying of a broken heart.

Mme. Giry

The mother of the girl known as Little Meg, Mme. Giry is also the attendant of Box Number 5, which is reserved for the phantom. She has never seen him, but she does services for him, like bringing a program and a footstool to the box. In return, he leaves her tips and gifts. When she is fired by the opera's directors, a huge chandelier falls on the audience, killing just one person: the woman hired to replace Mme. Giry. She is assigned to deliver money to the phantom, and when the money in the envelope is changed for counterfeit money, the directors threaten to turn her over to the police until they find out that she could not possibly have stolen it. They do find out why she is so interested in helping the phantom; in addition to the tips that he gives her, he has predicted that Little Meg will be the empress by 1885.

La Sorelli

One of the opera's featured dancers, La Sorelli is a diva who expects to be the center of attention. When she dances, the narrator explains, "she appears to be in a tableau so lascivious that it could drive a man to blow his brains out." But she is also presented as a vain, stubborn woman.

Monsieur Lachenal

Monsieur Lachenal is the stable master of the opera house, in charge of the horses that are trained to perform in operas.

Armand Moncharmin

One of the new directors of the opera, Moncharmin has no musical training but is rich and socially connected. His working relationship with M. Richard is threatened when the phantom is able to steal an envelope of money from Richard's pocket. The book's narrator relies on Moncharmin's autobiography, The Memoirs of a Director, as a primary source for the events reported in the book.

The Persian

The Persian is a witness of the events at the opera house, whom the narrator interviews about what happened to Raoul de Chegny and Christine Daaé. The Persian is so famous that he cannot be referred to by his real name. He is a shadowy figure throughout much of the story, until the final chapters. Then, it turns out that he has known Erik, the phantom, for years, from the time when he was the daroga, or chief of the national police. In Persia, he saved Erik from execution and lost his government position because of it. He knows many of the secrets of the phantom's underground world, having followed him and observed him and once having nearly been killed by one of his traps in the underground lake.

When Christine is kidnapped, the Persian steps forward to help Raoul find his way through the underground world to the place where she may have been taken. In the course of the rescue mission, his advice is invaluable, but he nearly loses his life when the cellar he is in is flooded. The phantom saves him, though, and, after making sure he is all right, knocks him out with drugs and deposits him in a doorway.

Monsieur Poligny

With Monsieur Debienne, Monsieur Poligny is one of the directors of the Paris Opera who is retiring in the opening chapters of the novel.

Firmin Richard

One of the opera's new directors, Richard is an accomplished musician and composer. He is characterized as loving all types of music and all musicians. He is skeptical of the existence of the phantom and hesitates about giving in to his demands. When the money disappears from an envelope that is pinned in his pocket, he and his partner, M. Moncharmin, become suspicious of each other, a suspicion that seems, according to Moncharmin's memoirs, to last throughout their professional relationship.

Madame Maudie Valerius

Christine is staying at the house of Mme. Valerius, an old friend of her father. Raoul de Chagny goes to the house when Christine disappears the first time, but Mme. Valerius cannot tell him where she is. She is convinced that Christine has gone away with the Spirit of Music.