Phantom of the Opera novel?

Question

The author said in the beginning that there was proof to prove that O.G. was real, and that the characters (like Christine Daae) actually existed. This isn't actually true right?? I was arguing with someone for like 2 hours about this.
And another question:
In the movie Christine was a dancer at first, but did the book say that too?

Answer 1

There WAS a story that the novel was based off of. There was a woman named Kristina Nillson and she was supposedly abducted from the stage as a famous Opera Singer. The Chandelier actuallyy DID crash at the Paris Opera House and there WAS a line of men known as the "de Chagnys". No the book did not say she was a dancer, she was a singer but simply an understudy. and yes as the above user said there ARE underground catacombs and a lake. They actually had to keep draining the lake when the Opera House was built because the ground kept flooding and it is still there.

Answer 2

in the book Christine is the understudy not a dancer.

that's the strange thing about the novel. because it's possible. I have the 2 disk dvd of the Phantom of the Opera (movie musical) and the stars took a tour of the real opera house that Leroux used as inspiration for the story and there is a lake under that opera house but the waters have risen. so you never know Erik's grave might be down there. i like to think that he is.

Answer 3

Who is O. G.? In the novel, none of the characters are historical. It is a fact, as the author points out, that construction of the Paris Opera was begun in the late 1860's in the reign of the emperor Louis Napoleon III. In 1870, the Francio-Prussian War broke out, construction was suspended. The rising of the Paris Commune further delayed construction. The building was finished in the early 1870's under the Third Republic. The author's fancy was that during the two years of hiatus, the Phantom had access to the building and could insert secret doors, chambers, and passages. It is also historical that the builders found water seeping into the nethermost parts of the building, forming a lake, and took special precautions to seal it off.

Answer 4

O.G. is the Opera Ghost!!!

It's been years since I've read this novel of Gaston Leroux's. I've looked, but can't find it in my bookshelves. It may have been boxed up by now. I don't recall a suggestion that this was fact over fiction. If this was alleged, my sense is that it was simply part of the book, not reality.

This site might help you out:
http://www.online-literature.com/leroux/phantom_opera/

Good luck!