Some performers believed at the time that someone, or people, could be secretly living in the opera house. Like the novel, performers did place a horseshoe above the entrance to the right stage wing for good luck but also to protect them from the ghost. The meaning for phantom in French is ghost. People really did believe the Opera Garneir was haunted at the time Leroux wrote his book. Unfortunately the lake is currently off limits to tourist’s eyes. Currently the opera house gives tours to those who wish to see more of the opera. It was impossible to pump all the water out so an underground water tank was constructed to counterbalance the pressure. The real lake was discovered during the construction of the opera house. He rows across the lake in a small boat to reach his hidden home. In the novel Erik uses a subterranean lake underneath the opera house to his purposes. At the end of the novel Christine grants the phantom a kiss, and he mercifully relinquishes his hold on her stating that he had never had a kiss, even from his own mother. Eric kidnaps her and nearly murders his Persian friend and Raoul. Erik becomes enraged when Christine chooses to leave with the Count Raoul de Chagny. He falls in love with the beautiful soprano ChristineDaaé, and becomes an “angel of music” to her. Eventually he causes the chandelier to fall when the managers refuse to abide by his orders.

He is described at one point as the “lover of trapdoors.” The phantom reins threats and terror in the opera and sends letters to those he wishes to do his bidding. He has the talent of ventriloquism and uses secret passages to travel through the opera house unseen. The members of the Opera Garneir believe the house to be haunted because of Erik's practical jokes and threats to the managers. He wears a mask to conceal his deformed face. The phantom in fact is a man named Erik, a musical genius living in the cellars of the opera house. It tells of a haunting in the opera house. The French novel has since been translated into many different languages.

The phantom of the opera 2004 musical