The Phantom of the Opera and Gothic Space

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Honors Theses, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Honors Program Spring 2021 Setting the Stage: The Phantom of the Opera and Gothic Space ZitaAnne Reno University of Nebraska - Lincoln Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/honorstheses Part of the French and Francophone Literature Commons, Gifted Education Commons, Higher Education Commons, Other Education Commons, and the Other English Language and Literature Commons Reno, ZitaAnne, "Setting the Stage: The Phantom of the Opera and Gothic Space" (2021). Honors Theses, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. 341. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/honorstheses/341 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors Program at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses, University of Nebraska-Lincoln by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. SETTING THE STAGE: THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA AND GOTHIC SPACE An Undergraduate Honors Thesis Submitted in Partial fulfillment of University Honors Program Requirements University of Nebraska-Lincoln by ZitaAnne Reno, BA English College of Arts and Sciences March 15, 2021 Faculty Mentors: Peter Capuano, PhD, English Laura White, PhD, English Stephen Behrendt, PhD, English Michael Page, PhD, English Abstract First published from 1909 to 1910, Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera tells the story of Erik, the titular deformed composer, and his dark love for a beautiful soprano. Similar to Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, another French story involving a deformed man in love with a beautiful woman, the setting is a crucial aspect of the novel. Examining the Palais Garnier, a labyrinthine building composed of staircases, passageways, trapdoors, and a subterranean lake, in conjunction with Notre Dame, a cathedral utilizing traditionally gothic architecture, reveals how the opera house functions as a gothic space. Rather than cast a more recognizably gothic setting, such as a monastery or a castle, the opera house presents a contemporary, accessible space defined by music and performance, desanctified yet still a place of worship and grandeur. Not only does the opera house serve as a literal stage for the inherent theatricality associated with the gothic, it also illustrates how the opera house functions as a modern Gothic cathedral. Key Words: Phantom of the Opera, gothic literature, Gothic architecture, cathedral, Paris Opera House, Palais Garnier, English Appreciation I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my committee for, without their generous help, this project would otherwise not have happened. First, to Dr. Peter Capuano for heading the committee itself and supervising each phase of my research. Not only did he guide me in laying the foundations of this project, he helped draft the blueprints to have a more confident and professional command of my writing. Second, I want to thank Dr. Laura White for her expertise in nineteenth-century literature. Her invaluable suggestions pushed me into truly realizing this project. Third, to Dr. Michael Page for entrusting me with materials from his personal collection, his insight of the subject, and for guiding me in a direction I had not realized I was going in. Last, but not least, I also want to thank Dr. Stephen Behrendt for his unwavering enthusiasm in the project, and his enthusiasm in the research process itself. Finally, I want to acknowledge my sister, Leavitt, for listening to each and every one of my ideas, even those as dramatic and fantastical as the gothic itself. Reno 1 Setting the Stage: The Phantom of the Opera and Gothic Space From the crypts of Spanish monasteries in The Monk (1796) to the attic storage of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), setting defines the gothic canon. It provides a space for the events of the novel to unfold and a grounding balance between the fantastical elements and the anxieties of society explored within its pages. Though the fantastic has been exciting and confusing the audience since the gothic’s inception, Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera (1910) presents it as nothing but theatrical illusion. In the face of a literary and theatrical audience, Leroux leans into the performance of his titular Phantom to explore the anxieties surrounding the invasion of the nobility, the criminal threat to domestic life, and the fear of facial deformity. As the Phantom himself says, architecture is nothing but a box of tricks1, a box of tricks Leroux thoroughly utilizes to tell his story. In recasting elements of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century gothic in the twentieth century, he pits the ancient against the modern and the domestic against the foreign. Leroux even goes so far as to pit the sacred against the secular and suggests the Palais Garnier is the new gothic setting, the new Gothic cathedral to worship music and the arts. The Gothic Cathedral To explore the use of architecture and space in The Phantom of the Opera, a foundation first rooted in gothic architecture must be laid. The structure that exemplifies this gothic architecture is the medieval cathedral. Originating in Europe and built from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries2, these marvels of engineering and artistic achievement are characterized by 1 See Leroux, page 280-1 2 See Punter and Byron, page 32 Reno 2 the flying buttress, a large, open nave, and vaulted ceilings in combination with ornamentation through stained glass, gargoyles, and statuary. As Linda Bayer-Berenbaum points out in The Gothic Imagination, the gothic cathedral “is dominated by action, by both the tiny, frenetic movement in ornamentation or detail and the larger, sweeping, rising movements of construction” (55). The combination of minute and grand seems to parallel the restless human experience and the eternal Heaven. In the words of Paul Frankl and Paul Crossley, the purpose of the Gothic cathedral “was to symbolize Man as a fragment of the kingdom of God” (290). The moment one steps into a cathedral, the vast space and visual motifs of faith and fear rouse the Christian spirit. The cathedral speaks, describing one’s place on Earth and the Paradise that awaits the pious. Whether religious or not, the cathedral does create a space for the mystical, the supernatural, in its art and design. First, there is the example of the massive, stained glass windows that decorate many cathedrals. The windows serve two functions within the space. During the Middle Ages, the windows accommodated the large number of illiterate church-goers (Chieffo Raguin 82). By providing a visual depiction of the same Biblical stories featured in Mass, the concepts and morals became accessible to the general public. The windows allowed the normal person a chance to connect with the saints and figures in the glass while still emphasizing their Christian mysticism. In presenting Biblical themes, the glass illustrates its subject matter as being literally created from light, as though the figures are touched by God Himself. Stained glass also “produces the unreal and mystical Gothic light which softens the alternation of dark and light in the mouldings and…unites the pace of a church by its atmosphere of mystery” (Frankl and Crossley 67). The glass, while letting light into the space, reflects and Reno 3 refracts the light, sending washes of color throughout the interior. This atmosphere, combined with the Biblical iconography, allows for the view into the mystical aspects of the Christian faith. Second, the gargoyles and grotesques on the exterior of many gothic structures also call to mind the mystical and supernatural aspects of Christianity, particularly the aspects and creatures of Hell. While nothing more than decorations, and downspouts reverting the flow of rainwater, “the gargoyles and other carvings on the building designed to frighten away evil spirits are an obvious allusion to divine malevolence” (Bayer-Berenbaum 58). They lurk on the edges of the structure, peering down at the observer, a sort of guardian to the cathedral to which they are attached. All gargoyles and grotesques are odd, and Notre-Dame in Paris offers a good example of just how odd they can be. Some, like the chimeras are recognizable, but others are best described only as “a dragonish bird with sharp ears” (Camille 28). In comparison to the statues of saints, visual reminders of the strength of faith, gargoyles and grotesques take on a more sinister appearance. By protecting the cathedral, the house of God on Earth, they are a visual reminder of the constant struggle between Heaven and Hell. This struggle between Heaven and Hell, chaotic and ordered, defines the term Gothic itself. The term originates with the Goths, the Germanic tribes who were tied to the fall of the Roman Empire (Frankl and Crossley 263). Whether the fall was entirely their fault, or the fault of a combined effort of disease, famine, and other invading forces, the Goths have nonetheless been held responsible for the fall of all things Classical. Since then, Gothic has been used as an umbrella term to describe anything, despite the true origin of the aesthetic, as “disordered and irrational” (Punter and Byron 4). Since the inception of the term, Gothic has clearly been used as an Othering adjective, the barbaric Other to the lauded Greek and Roman architecture. Even hundreds of years after the fall of the Romans, Classical architecture was still seen as the Reno 4 pinnacle of design. Other forms were typically compared to this standard, with the comparisons often favoring the Classical. The architectural style now called Gothic originated in twelfth- century France and had no name (Frankl and Crossley 263). The style, visually different than those before, came to be associated as one different from Classical architecture. By giving the style the name Gothic, it now carried with it the negative connotation of the supposed destruction and chaos of the Goths.

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